RE: The two models of accessibility

Hi Mike
Thanks for your response.
I believe I understand the point you are making and tend to agree with it.
If I can try to restate to gain clarification you are saying that accessibility 
is basically a 2 step process.

1. Check with the automated tools.
2. Check (by an accessibility expert) those things that can't be checked with 
the automated tools.

then usability is built upon that base.

I guess that we are back to definitions again.

I would class 1 and 2 together to mean 'Technically Accessible' although I 
understand that I would probably be in a minority here. Most people would 
probably class those as 'Accessible'

Cheers
Graham


On Wednesday, April 02, 2003 9:33 PM, Isofarro 
[SMTP:w3evangelism@faqportal.uklinux.net] wrote:
> From: "Graham Oliver" <goliver@accease.com>
> Subject: The two models of accessibility
>
>
> > http://www.accease.com/tips/0304.html
>
>
> I'll have to admit I am a bit concerned about this article. Its good that
> you've drawn a distinction between a technical conformance to accessibility,
> and a comprehensive conformance to accessibility, and pointed out that
> technical conformance does not mean a site is accessible.
>
> This particular comment raised a few hairs: "In other words 'Full
> Accessibility' combines 'Technical Accessibility' with usability." -- I see
> the point you are trying to make, and fully agree. But I'm not sure the word
> "usability" is the right in this particular context.
>
> Technical accessibility is only the accessibility guidelines that can be
> checked by an automated script. What's left is not usability, but human
> appreciative guidelines.
>
> An automated checker can notice whether there are scope attributes on table
> cells, but will not know if they are right. I'm not convinced that
> associating relationships between table cells is a usability improvement. To
> me it is an accessibility improvement, and usability is something else.
>
> IMO, and I'm probably off-base, implementing usability could involve using
> Javascript to "guide" to visitor, whereas accessibility makes sure that the
> core functionality is available irrespective of whether Javascript is there
> or not.
>
> In short, Usability _enhances_ a website from an initially accessible state,
> whereas accessibility ensures that the website is first and foremost build
> with a foundation that ensures a website will work. Full accessibility is a
> key requirement for usability, but usability is not a key requirement of
> accessibility.
>
> Full accessibility is achieved by meeting the checkpoints (both technical
> and non-technical) of WCAG. Usability suggests that there should be a search
> box in the top right corner of a website - since that's where the visitor
> expects to find it - however this is not an accessibility issue, and not
> required for full accessibility.
>
> Mike.
>

Received on Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:20:12 UTC