RE: Accessibility, discrimination, and WCAG 2.0

Hi all.  Here's my take as a web developer.

I don't think the one click accessible solution is the
complete answer.  It would help a lot of developers
create more accessible pages, but there are many web
developers who don't like wysiwig tools and work in
Unix or directly in the HTML.

The e-mail "Blame List" surprised me, but if you're
looking to blame designers for non-accessible pages 
you shouldn't forget their managers who set their
priorities.  Web content, being published and updated,
may be set as the developers priority (with content
tested in IE and Netscape).  Some developers also may
not know that the pages they are building are not
accessible, and as naive as this may sound, they may
not have heard that there is an issue.

One thing about many of the non-accessible sites is
that they were created by people who have access to
develop for 2 FREE browsers: IE and Netscape.  They
can easily test their pages in those browsers.  As a
developer I've been on a quest for free accessible
browsers and the only one that I've heard about so far
is Brookes Talk.  As a developer I would like to
develop for everybody, it's a matter of figuring out
how to do it; being able to test the pages and sites
developed, communicating with end users to see what
parts of the pages are hard to navigate, are annoying,
or all out break. Since, for me, learning about
accessibility is an 'after hours' project and I don't
have an endless budget I can't go around buying up
browsers to see how my pages are handled with them.  

I agree that developers should be creating accessible
pages... we just need to learn how.

Cheerful regards,

Suzanne

--- Javier_Romaņach <jromanac@dial.eunet.es> wrote:
> Hello Kynn,
> 
> I liked the list of responsabilities. I'm missing
> the web creation software
> manufacturer (if different from browser), probably
> between points 4 and 5. I
> firmly believe that we won't have accesible Internet
> until the editors are
> capable of generating accesible web pages with just
> one click.
> 
> Regards,
> Javier
> 
> Javier Romaņach
> Madrid, Spain
> jromanac@dial.eunet.es
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Kynn Bartlett <kynn-edapta@idyllmtn.com>
> To: Paul Davis <paul@ten-20.com>;
> <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
> Sent: Sunday, October 22, 2000 8:23 PM
> Subject: Re: Accessibility, discrimination, and WCAG
> 2.0
> 
> 
> > At 4:38 PM +0100 10/22/00, Paul Davis wrote:
> > >As to who is responsible for accessibility it has
> to be the
> > >designer. If we have a house built that later
> falls down who takes
> > >the blame? If we buy equipment that is faulty who
> has to replace it?
> >
> > Paul, I think this is a bit of an
> oversimplification -- because the
> > house builder is not entirely responsible for the
> user's experience.
> > (And it's user experiences which are inaccessible
> or accessible to
> > a given user.)
> >
> > The people responsible include:
> >
> > (1) The user, for making sure that her software
> and hardware is
> >      configured correctly.
> > (2) The hardware manufacturers.
> > (3) The operating system manufacturer.
> > (4) The browser software manufacturer.
> > (5) The manufacturer of any additional assistive
> technology, hardware
> >      or software.
> > (6) The web designer and/or the web programmer
> associated with the
> >      site in question.
> > (7) The people who create the standards
> (protocols, languages)
> >      used by the web designer or web programmer.
> >
> > At the WAI level, we're primarily concerned with
> people in (6) and
> > (7), but it's not entirely the fault of the web
> designer if someone
> > cannot access information; you can't assume that
> it will always be
> > the designer's fault.
> >
> > (Likewise, if a house falls down, you can blame a
> number of people --
> > the carpenter, the people who supplied the wood,
> the building
> > inspectors, etc. etc. etc.  It's not as simple as
> just blaming the
> > architect!)
> >
> > --Kynn
> > --
> > --
> > Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com>
> > http://www.kynn.com/
> >
> >
> 


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Received on Monday, 23 October 2000 12:09:52 UTC