Re: Accessible chat software

Hiroshi,

Accessible chat software is one of the areas that comes under the Authoring
Tool Accessibility Guidelines most directly. Recently the group has begun
looking more at the range of tools we are addressing.

I would be interested in what results or thoughts you have from this project
- please feel free also to post them directly to the Authoring Tools working
group - w3c-wai-au@w3.org and read the archives at
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-au or join the list.

Cheers

Charles McCathieNevile

On Mon, 5 Feb 2001, Hiroshi Kawamura wrote:

  The Japanese Society for Rehabilitation of Persons with Disabilities (JSRPD)
  is working on development of accessible IRC chat software to invite
  deaf-blind users to "the real time caption service of TV broadcasting on the
  net".

  "The real time caption service of TV broadcasting on the net" is an
  achievement of the disabilities community in Japan as a result of the
  revision of the Copyright Law in 2000.  Information Centers for the Deaf and
  JSRPD are officially entitled to distribute the real time caption of the TV
  program through IRC chat.

  If we could develop accessible IRC chat system for deaf-blind people, they
  may extend their currently most limited real-time information sources.
  I strongly suggest to include "accessible chat software development" as one
  of the target issues of WAI.

  Hiroshi
  -----
  Hiroshi Kawamura (JSRPD)
  Director
  Information Center/JSRPD
  hkawa@attglobal.net
  Tel: +81(0)3-5909-8280
  Fax:+81(0)3-5909-8284

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: "Kynn Bartlett" <kynn-edapta@idyllmtn.com>
  To: "Charles McCathieNevile" <charles@w3.org>
  Cc: "David Clark" <david@davidsaccess.com>; <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
  Sent: Monday, February 05, 2001 2:06 AM
  Subject: Re: Accessible chat software


  > At 02:03 AM 2/4/2001 , Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
  > >Hi Dave,
  > >have you thought about using IRC? There are a lot of clients available on
  > >different systems. Do other people have experience with trying to use
  IRC?
  >
  > I'd second this; I looked into the issue several years ago and
  > the benefit of using IRC is that it's been around a long time and
  > it's relatively non-proprietary.  This means that there have been
  > people with disabilities successfully (to varying degrees) using
  > IRC for quite some time, and it also avoids the problem with most
  > chat systems of having to relearn the entire system for each site
  > you visit.
  >
  > I'm not saying it's a perfect solution, but since there are few if
  > any standards for interactive chat, and no known accessible standards,
  > it may be the best we can do today.
  >
  > Hey, there's a question -- why hasn't the W3C specifically addressed
  > the issue of chat services over the web/Internet and the accessibility
  > and interoperability thereof?
  >
  > Politics, maybe?
  >
  > --Kynn
  > Kynn Bartlett
  > Sr. Engineering Product Leader
  > Team Edapta
  > Reef North America
  > Tel +1 909-674-5225
  > ___________________________________
  > BUSINESS IS DYNAMIC. TAKE CONTROL.
  > ___________________________________
  > http://www.reef.com
  >


-- 
Charles McCathieNevile    http://www.w3.org/People/Charles  phone: +61 409 134 136
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative     http://www.w3.org/WAI    fax: +1 617 258 5999
Location: I-cubed, 110 Victoria Street, Carlton VIC 3053, Australia
(or W3C INRIA, Route des Lucioles, BP 93, 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France)

Received on Sunday, 4 February 2001 21:36:05 UTC