Re: 508 rule L and WCAG 6.3

I get your point.  What would an attorney do with the phrase "identified
with functional text".  Clearly, most list members would believe that the
meaning of the rule is that any information generated by a script must be
provided in a way that can be accessed by assistive technologies.  In your
example, this would be the actual bus schedule, not just words that say,
"the bus schedule is below this text".

However, I've heard a lot of nit-picking over language in WCAG and 508, and
would be interested to hear what a lawyer would say about the meaning of
this specific phrase of the rule.  Any lawyers out there?

Andrew


On 3/2/03 6:32 PM, "Quinn, Anthony" <anthonyq@testingcentre.com> wrote:

> 2. 508 says "...the information provided by the script shall be identified
> with functional text that can be read by assistive technology." My
> interpretation of "functional text" is a bit hazy. I would expect that this
> standard requires that information provided or created by a script and the
> user interface controls used to manipulate the script, i.e. the input and
> output elements generated by the script, are in themselves accessible.
> 
> However, it seems that this is not the case and all that is required is to
> "identify" the information. I interpret this as "provide a text description of
> the information". This suggests that it's OK for the output from a script to
> be inaccessible, as long as it has an accessible description.
> 
> For example, a user might invoke a script which generates a bus timetable
> between locations A & B. The information contained in the timetable might be
> inaccessible, but as long as there is an identification, e.g. "Here is the bus
> timetable between A & B", this is compliant with rule L.

-- 
Andrew Kirkpatrick
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Received on Monday, 3 March 2003 08:42:00 UTC