RE: Rockville, MD- Seeking low vision users for testing federal w ebsite

On Wed, 18 Dec 2002, Nissen, Dan E wrote:

> I see a whole lot of criticism of what is a pretty minimal description of a
> part of an activity that is definitely going to be better than not doing it.
> The stick seems to be all some of you know how to do.  How about the carrot
> and see if we can encourage people to start down this road without setting a
> standard none of us can meet?  No way all the discussed environments need to
> be tested if the AT follows the standards and the web site is also designed
> to the standards.  

if the site followed the standards (WAI/508) there should be no major
problems because the standards are well tested.   but this test does not
appear to be to a "standard" but to check out their own website to see if
it works with a limited set of assistive software and equipment rather
than to the established standard.

> The expectations are way up there and the criticism is pretty quick on the
> draw.  

of course the expectations are way up there, as someone who has been on
what passes for the internet for over 20 years I am seriously dismayed by
the degradation of accessibility over the years, the equipment and
software is getting better but total access is getting worse...would you
not be dismayed?

Bob

> 
> Best regards,
> Dan
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Poehlman [mailto:poehlman1@comcast.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2002 6:18 AM
> To: Joe Clark; WAI-IG
> Subject: Re: Rockville, MD- Seeking low vision users for testing federal
> website
> 
> 
> 
> any testing which reaches the rong conconclusions and passes them off as
> correct is bad.
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Joe Clark" <joeclark@joeclark.org>
> To: "WAI-IG" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 10:42 PM
> Subject: Re: Rockville, MD- Seeking low vision users for testing federal
> website
> 
> 
> 
> > As others have mentioned, this is not the right approach to testing
> > website accessibility.  At best it tests one narrowly-defined aspect
> > of accessibility
> 
> ...which nonetheless needs testing.
> 
> > at worst it risks reinforcing any bad practices
> > you may have - such as authoring to browser behaviour at the expense
> > of presenting the website contents clearly
> 
> ...which you have no evidence they are doing.
> 
> > Both JAWS and Window-Eyes deal with one particular disability
> 
> ...which nonetheless requires accommodation, and these are the two
> most popular ways to do it.
> 
> > Both are themselves inaccessible to many users, by virtue of cost
> > and the prerequisites required to install them
> 
> ...which is irrelevant and a tiresome albatross hung around the
> necks of the accessibility "movement." By this reasoning, no
> adaptive technology should be developed if it cannot be handed out
> for free to everyone who could possibly use it.
> 
> If you disagree with the planned testing of actual disabled users,
> don't participate in it. But we need more such testing, and, as I
> argue in my book, even sub-optimal testing of disabled users beats
> the heck out of none at all.
> 
> --
> 
>   Joe Clark  |  joeclark@joeclark.org
>   Author, _Building Accessible Websites_
>   <http://joeclark.org/access/> | <http://joeclark.org/book/>
> 

   ASCII Ribbon Campaign                        accessBob                       
    NO HTML/PDF/RTF in e-mail                   accessys@smartnospam.net       
    NO MSWord docs in e-mail                    Access Systems, engineers       
    NO attachments in e-mail,  *LINUX powered*   access is a civil right 
*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#
THIS message and any attachments are CONFIDENTIAL and may be
privileged.  They are intended ONLY for the individual or entity named
above. If you are not the intended recipient, Please notify 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

Received on Wednesday, 18 December 2002 08:25:35 UTC