- From: Leonard R. Kasday <kasday@acm.org>
- Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 17:23:17 -0400
- To: Scott Luebking <phoenixl@netcom.com>, W3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Hi Scott, Is there info available on your web based system to teach students chemistry? Len At 02:11 PM 10/26/99 -0700, Scott Luebking wrote: >Hi, > >Suppose that a company buys JAWS for one blind employee who works >well on the intranet with it. The company hires a second blind employee >who only uses lynx and refuses to use JAWS. Is the intranet >accessible or not? > >Scott > >PS I've been working on a web-based system using sound navigation to >help teach blind chemistry students about different chemical models. It >works with IE4/5 and JAWS, but relies on IE 4/5 features. Is it >accessible or not? > > >PPS This does put both companies and universities in an awkward >position. How can they plan, allocate resources, etc, if they >don't know what is accessible and what is not? > > >> At 10:21 AM 10/26/1999 -0700, Waddell, Cynthia wrote: >> >On the other hand, if a company does not address accessibility in their >> >intranet environment, they cannot deny employment to a person with a >> >disability simply because the company did not think ahead and design for >> >accessibility. >> >> Yes, this is the accessibility issue. However, designing for and >> supporting one browser _on the intranet_ only means that when they >> hire their new blind employee, they need to make sure that they have >> the right assistive software (read: they need to buy JAWS or IBM >> Home Page Reader) and that it works with their intranet application >> (read: they need to test and possibly make minor changes to the >> programs). >> >> It doesn't mean that they need to, in advance, provide support for >> all possible types of browsers accessing their intranet. That's a >> requirement for internet websites, and it also makes sense for >> extranets, but for intranets, you are assumed to have a greater >> ability to control what is used there, and so you can increase the >> functionality and decrease the cost of application development >> by designing _only_ for IE 5.0 or something. >> >> Again, in an Intranet, it _is_ possible to create an accessible >> application that can only be used with IE 5.0 +/- JAWS. > > > ------- Leonard R. Kasday, Ph.D. Institute on Disabilities/UAP, and Department of Electrical Engineering Temple University Ritter Hall Annex, Room 423, Philadelphia, PA 19122 kasday@acm.org (215) 204-2247 (voice) (800) 750-7428 (TTY)
Received on Tuesday, 26 October 1999 17:23:13 UTC