Re: Rockville, MD- Seeking low vision users for testing federal website

dan, software is a tricky thing.  I know that if I use lynx on a wai
conformant page, I should be able to access all of the content.  AT have
not long been parsing the web but have begun recently to begin to do so
which is helping and hurting.  The problem with parsing is that first
you have to get it to parse it and the ua can decide what and what not
to give you because there is no at other than hpr which is filtered
through ie that has direct access to the raw data to parse.  Would that
there were true at standards and I believe this is something which is
being worked on, we might see more ats doing better handling instead of
trying to patch as we go.  I think we have to start though by levelling
the playing field between at and it by requiring open standards
compliance in the it world so that at has something to grab onto which
can be then accessed on a cross platform basis.  I kow that this is not
as easy as it sounds, but otherly, we will continue to see a widening
gap between those who have and can and those who can and have not which
is the total picture is part and parcell of access.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nissen, Dan E" <Dan.Nissen@UNISYS.com>
To: "WAI-IG" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2002 9:39 AM
Subject: RE: Rockville, MD- Seeking low vision users for testing federal
website



You ask a good question.  I assume that the AT would follow the WAI
guidelines and correctly interpret correctly formed "standard"
datastream.
Not sure what I should call that datastream.  Is that HTML, XHTML, ... ?
In
any case, the WAI is producing suggested ways to accommodate and the
Assistive Technology needs to be held to correctly working with that.

And, we need to be pushing and pulling development tool builders to
build
better web sites.

I do understand the frustration.  I also know it won't go away in an
instant, and the people working toward the goal always need
encouragement.
Let's do some of the "speak softly".

Dan


-----Original Message-----
From: David Poehlman [mailto:poehlman1@comcast.net]
Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2002 8:18 AM
To: Nissen, Dan E; WAI-IG
Subject: Re: Rockville, MD- Seeking low vision users for testing federal
website


what are at standards?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nissen, Dan E" <Dan.Nissen@UNISYS.com>
To: "WAI-IG" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2002 8:07 AM
Subject: RE: Rockville, MD- Seeking low vision users for testing federal
website



Hi!
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.

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

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/>

Received on Wednesday, 18 December 2002 14:01:59 UTC