RE: Legal Guidelines

Dear Kathleen,
Thanks for this very terse and honest evaluation of FP 2k limitations.
Another P1 violation:  It is not even possible using FP only to add ALT
content to image map hotspots.  I believe that its implementation of frames
is also broken from a WCAG perspective.
To its credit, if one is an "expert" user, ALT content can be attached to
mundane images using FP alone, but the operation is non-trivial.  FP can
thus be used to construct most "average" pages which are P1 compliant.  It
would be hard to argue that FP facilitates this process.  IMHO, someone who
knows HTML well enough to make FP construct P1 compliant pages will have
very significant objections to other limitations of the the tool.
There is NO work around for the DOCTYPE and other problems.  One can always
post-process pages with NotePad or another text editor, but then what's the
point of using a WYSIWYG editor in the first place?
If Microsoft gets the message that this is a serious issue, they will
eventually fix the problem.  In the meantime my advise to Michael (et al.)
is to write Microsoft a letter, then buy something else.  That is all that
we could do.
I am looking forward to FP 2001!
--
Cheers,
Bruce Bailey
http://www.dors.state.md.us/
  -----Original Message-----
  From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]On
Behalf Of Kathleen Anderson
  Sent: Friday, May 05, 2000 11:58 AM
  To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org; Michael W Baker
  Subject: Re: Legal Guidelines


  Hi Michael:
  The answer to your third question is 'yes', FrontPage does produce pages
that are not compliant with accessibility guidelines.
  Two examples:
  it does not include DOCTYPE at the beginning of your pages, and it does
not add alt text (or even 'suggest' that you should) when you place an image
on your page.
  Kathleen Anderson, Webmaster
  State of Connecticut, Office of the State Comptroller

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: Michael W Baker
    To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
    Sent: Friday, May 05, 2000 11:00 AM
    Subject: Legal Guidelines


    I work for a company that designs a great deal of government web sights
and am in charge of defining design standards to meet the accessibility
requirements. I have been following numerous lists and discussions and can't
seem to get a clear answer to a few very important questions. Any help would
be greatly appreciated.
    Here they are:

    1)What are the specific legal standards for accessible design for
government web sights? I'm under the impression that they are not fully
agreed upon and this issue is still being resolved. Am I right? If so, when
is a decision expected?

    2)What is the time frame that existing government sites will be required
to comply with accessibility standards?

    3) Does Front Page render pages that are not compliant with
accessibility guidelines. I would imagine so, but I can't get a definitive
answer. If so, do you know if there fixes in the future that will enable
Front page to be used?
    Thank you,
    Mike Baker
    Zin Technologies (formerly ADF)
    e-CITe Division
    (216) 977-0363
    Michael.W.Baker@grc.nasa.gov