Re: Another Mainstream Article on Accessibility

I shall address comments below.


Bruce Bailey wrote:
> 
> Dear WAI Interest Group,
> 
> Another mainstream article on accessibility.  From this months "first
> person" column in civic.com "the magazine for it professionals in state and
> local government".  "Make the Internet Accessible for All" by Kathleen
> Anderson.  Subtitled <Q>Connecticut Webmaster calls for more "welcome''
> sites.</Q>  I first saw this in print but, of course, there is an on-line
> version at URL:
> http://www.civic.com/pubs/1999/dec/civ-firstperson-12-06-99.html
...Glad you posted the article.  I thought I'd posted the url for it
before it hit the news stands, but wanted to post it again and got hung
up with other things.
> 
> I like the article very much.  I am sorry I did not offer a similar piece
...she was solicitted for it.
> before Kathleen took the initiative.  In truth, she did a much better job
> than I would have!  I was disappoint that the article does not mention HWG
> AWARE, Trace's world/web resources, nor the W3C WAI or WCAG.  Bobby and the
> W3C validator, however, are only a couple of clicks from the official State
> of Connecticut (http://www.state.ct.us/) home page, and there is plenty of
> information if one goes looking for it.
...she was told to leave them out.
> 
> I hope Kathleen (and the other members of the ConneCT Management Advisory
> Committee Web Site Accessibility Subcommittee) will not be too disappointed
> about not achieving their goal <Q>to make ConneCT, Connecticut's Web Site,
> the <em>first</em> universally accessible state government Web site in the
> country</Q> (emphasis added).  The official State of Maryland pages may not
> offer detailed reference listings regarding universal design, but our pages
> have been accessible (and still are) since they first went online in 1994!
...this may be true, but this is the first actual top level to achieve
this as sailor and mec were mandated.  This is hard to explain, but this
actually comes from within the gobvernment its self.  While technically
you are correct,  The goal for conneticut is to be the first to offer
completely adcessible government services.  To my knowledge, that has
yet to be achieved by any state government.
>  Check out URLs:
> http://www.sailor.lib.md.us/ and http://www.mec.state.md.us/ (your only two
> choices if you try going to http://www.state.md.us/).
Commendably accessible but I dare say that some of the pages that they
lead to have quagmire tendancies.
> 
> I wish I could take some credit for this fine state of affairs, but I
> really can't!  Sailor evolved from a text-only system, and still offers
> toll-free (in Maryland) dial-up text-only Internet browsing.  In general,
> Maryland government has a good level of awareness and understanding (which
> is something I do help with a little) of the needs and requirements of
> persons with disabilities.  This pretty much keeps universal design on the
> drawing board, even with new projects.  (Check out "eMaryland" at
> http://www.techmd.state.md.us for an example of brand new site that is
> accessible -- despite the fact that I had nothing to do with it!)
unless it has changed radically in the last two weeks, it is not what
I'd consider accessible.  Further, the last time I checked, there was
only one directive regarding information on technology for the blind "go
to nfb".

> 
<shortened for brevity and lack of necessity>
I might also add that the site admin has been made aware that the page
where the article is located meeds to be more accessible.  see below.
http://www.civic.com/pubs/1999/dec/civ-firstperson-12-06-99.html


I'm sure Kathleen would love to hear from those working to make their
states and local municipal webs accessible.

Received on Monday, 20 December 1999 13:20:53 UTC