Re: give me a break!

Hi Randal:
As chair of the State of Connecticut's Web Site Accessibility Committee, it distresses me to find out that there is a still a Connecticut State agency that doesn't understand our state policy of making accessible web sites. Agency webmasters have been immersed in this issue for almost 2 years, and were offered training at no expense and invited to an all-day refresher, conducted by state employees, last fall. Our committee members are constantly offering assistance to whatever agency needs it to comply with the policy.  What agency are you working with on the Care 4 Kids program web site? I will contact them and offer whatever assistance and education they need.

Thanks,

Kathleen Anderson, Chair
State of Connecticut
CMAC Web Site Accessibility Committee
email: kathleen.anderson@po.state.ct.us
phone: (860) 702-3355
URL: http://www.cmac.state.ct.us/access/


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "RUST Randal" <RRust@COVANSYS.com>
To: "'Charles McCathieNevile'" <charles@w3.org>; "Access Systems" <accessys@smart.net>
Cc: "'WAI (E-mail)'" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Monday, March 11, 2002 8:06 AM
Subject: RE: give me a break!


Over the past few months, I've been dealing with the State of Connecticut,
building a web site for the Care 4 Kids program.  They have a policy which
states that sites must follow WCAG 1.0 Priority 1.  They have no idea what
this really means though.

And it seems to be very much the same throughout the U.S.  I've been to some
state web sites that sport the Bobby logo, yet I wouldn't consider them
accessible.

And you have to remember that in the U.S., only Federal Agencies have to
adhere to Section 508.  States do not.  However, web sites are required to
comply with the ADA (Hooks v. OKBridge, 2000), but this only means that
people with disabilities must have access to the same information, but not
necessarily in the same format.  As a result, if the State of Maryland could
get you the same information in a pamphlet, or in plain text, then they are
probably in the clear.  I'm not a lawyer, but I have read the decision, and
have taken a few legal classes here and there.

However, I personally agree with Charles and Bob that the State of Maryland
is missing the mark.

Randal

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Charles McCathieNevile [mailto:charles@w3.org]
>Sent: Monday, March 11, 2002 7:47 AM
>To: Access Systems
>Cc: 'WAI (E-mail)'
>Subject: RE: give me a break!
>
>
>Well, obviously someone does, because they had it implemented 
>like that.
>
>If you are in fact a real live user of the State of Maryland 
>site you might
>like to enquire of their people who ensure accessibility what 
>they think of
>the matter.
>
>But my very personal 2 cents worth is that this seems a lot 
>like the back of
>the bus to me.
>
>I heard of one case that was worse - an Australian University 
>had an online
>enrolment system that was pretty inaccessible for a lot of 
>people, so they
>provided a backup telephone service. It was pointed out that 
>this wasn't the
>same thing - for a start only being available during business 
>hours. So they
>turned the Webserver off outside business hours too... <sigh 
>class="BIG"/>
>
>Cheers
>
>Chaals
>
>On Sat, 9 Mar 2002, Access Systems wrote:
>
>
>  recently visited the state of Maryland site,  it is full of 
>frames and
>  javascript etc....it also says for "people with adaptive 
>equipment see
>  link at end of page"   go to end of page and click through.
>
>  and there is a nice little note saying basically "tough" we 
>want to do it
>  this way and if you can't use it call this phone number and 
>we will look
>  up what you want, of course phone is only answered during 
>business hours.
>
>  does anybody think something like this is adequate how should this be
>  corrected?
>
>  Bob
>
>
>
>     ASCII Ribbon Campaign                        accessBob
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>entity named
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>the sender as
>  soon as possible. Please DO NOT READ, COPY, USE, or DISCLOSE this
>  communication to others and DELETE it from your computer 
>systems.  Thanks
>
>
>
>-- 
>Charles McCathieNevile    http://www.w3.org/People/Charles  
>phone: +61 409 134 136
>W3C Web Accessibility Initiative     http://www.w3.org/WAI  
>fax: +33 4 92 38 78 22
>Location: 21 Mitchell street FOOTSCRAY Vic 3011, Australia
>(or W3C INRIA, Route des Lucioles, BP 93, 06902 Sophia 
>Antipolis Cedex, France)
>

Received on Monday, 11 March 2002 08:33:51 UTC