(unknown charset) Re: is javascript considered good wacg 2.0 practice?

I agree with harry, and so far so do our regulators.
   The bottom line is this.
Until as a body we recognize that every human, every child born of woman 
in their unique way experiences a disability which does not warrant 
stereotypes, and does not some how set them outside of the right for 
equitably treatment, we will absolutely need that treatment.   The stair 
lifts is a fine example.  The more   governments and other services that 
are needful shift their services on line, the more there must be a basic 
door, just as there is a basic door to their buildings.  The lifestyle 
choices and individual disability experiences are just too different to 
expecting a uniform fashion  for anyone to be responsible for building 
their own door, end of story.
No one is forcing you to go to their site?  Are you kidding me?
ahem, no one is forcing you to use the washroom in our building, so if you 
cannot tough luck.  No one is forcing you to work here, so if you get hit 
on with your sexual integrity violated tough luck.  No one is forcing you 
to live outside of the institutions we place people like you in, so if you 
cannot find fair housing because of your religion or gender or skin, or 
score on an eye chart tough luck.
Is that what you are defending with our suggestion that it is the users job 
to break down the site door on  their own?
The more pervasive public services become on the Internet, the more 
critical some basic access becomes...which helps everyone, not just those 
using adaptive tools.

  Access to a sites services is not the same as say a phone plan, I 
should not be forced to change services because a company refuses to give me an  objective bill...but 
expects me to pay them as they make up the charges.  Part of the case 
here. 
If the a company wants to showcase its accessibility options via that site, 
then they should work, none of this "hey  we know we are discriminating, 
but we do not care because the WACG says we can." sort of talk.
I have brought this up before, because many  government entities take the 
WACG and turn it into law, the W3C should also draft something  that gives 
guidance on the human side of implementing your standards.  The more you 
shift requirements to end users, who are not uniform regardless of a 
shared label, the more you unintentionally foster an environment for discrimination.

"dah disabled people use computers? have money to buy services? etc. etc."

Therefore suggesting that developers and companies creating  sites rooted 
in the WACG also do external investigations of the populations served, 
and I mean the population, not talking just to disability groups, or 
finding a single blind person, helps 
everyone, you the developers and those using the site.     Learning 
what technology they  are actually using, the ease of getting that 
technology, lets them developer not from a fake hypothetical  end user, but a 
real person making real use of their real services and real site.


  thereby increasing the likelihoods that what they create for public 
services gets used equally.  Someone in Canada successfully told the 
government here that assuming she had a human to navigate their site s for her to get a job was not 
allowed...and that was exactly  the practice.  Let someone Else do the 
site stuff for you.    Assuming that a person can 
make use of whatever tool is on the planet to work around a lazy site 
developer is not allowed either.
No one is forcing you indeed.  But you will *force* someone to be your 
idea of *modern?
Ever try to vote overseas?  If all you can do to exercise your 
constitutional right is go to a site and someone is not insuring that you 
can do so equitably because you have a disability, where are you going to 
go, how Are you going to feel and what are you going to think?
Harry is correct, the "no one is forcing you" argument stops and ends at 
the door of someone keeping a private site for their  private use.  But 
if you are talking about a phone company or even an Internet provider, if your 
are talking about voting filing your taxes or paying your power bill, that 
website must be as equal for everyone as technically possible end of 
story.
We owe every human who has ever been told that their body  is so flawed 
that they cannot belong that much.
Karen


On Fri, 14 Dec 2012, Harry Loots wrote:

> On 14 December 2012 04:32, John Foliot <john@foliot.ca> wrote:
>
>> I don't rue the emergence of ARIA as a permanent part of the developer
>> tool-chain, I embrace it.
>>
>
> Hallo John
> I completely support your enthusiasm for ARIA. At last we are able to
> provide an accessible interface where the browser's native capability
> fails.
>
> However: It should never become the de facto means by which we achieve
> accessibility. It should only ever be used as a bridging technology -- a
> framework used to improve accessibility (as originally intended by WAI),
> and UA vendors should never be allowed to abdicate their responsibility in
> this regard to ARIA.
>
> With respect to my point about
>> If however, this is a public website, where everyone has the right
>> of access and can expect to be treated equally, then if a user uses
>> a browser or AT that does not support JavaScript, and is thereby denied
>> access to the functionality offered via the scripting, then the site is
>> not accessible. Ergo, the site is non-compliant.
>
> and your disagreement in this respect:
>
>> I respect your right to an opinion here, but I also respectfully disagree,
>> and I think you would have a very hard time defending that opinion in a
>> court of law (which sort of feels what this whole thread is leading
>> towards).
>
>
> I'm not convinced that this would be an indefensible position, nor am I
> convinced that it is up to the user to provide adequate tools.
>
> Awarding to MacGuire v SOCOG (2000), the Commissioner stated the following:
>
> *“I am comfortably satisfied that his [the plaintiff] limited access to the
> web site caused him considerable feelings of hurt, humiliation and
> rejection. One cannot overstate the consequential effect upon him of his
> having to cope with the persistent need to counter what he saw as a
> negative, unhelpful and dismissive attitude on the part of an organization
> charged with the presentation of the most notable sporting event in the
> history of this country.”*
>
> *(William Carter QC, Inquiry Commissioner - Human Rights & Equal
> Opportunities Commission4<http://www.w3.org/WAI/bcase/socog-case-study#four>
> ) *
>
>
> From the WAI website (http://www.w3.org/WAI/bcase/socog-case-study):
>
> *The HREOC's ruling set a precedent that creating a website intended for
> use by and to inform the general public, where such a website is more
> accessible to a sighted user than the same intent and information is not
> available for a user who is blind by virtue of disability. They are
> therefore being discriminated against by lack of provision, and the creator
> of the website is in breach of the Cth DDA.*
>
>
> Two key phrases stand out in this:
> 1) 'limited access' - the user had limited access and;
> 2) 'lack of provision' - the provider did not adequately provide.
>
> If we adopted the viewpoint that it is up to the user to provide the
> necessary means to access the service then we may as well extend this to
> public buildings and tell wheelchair users that they have to bring their
> own stair lifts if they want to use facilities located at the top of the
> stairs.
>
>
> Nobody is forcing you to go to that site, and nobody is forcing you to use
>
> tools that are not up to the task. If you voluntarily choose to use tools
>> that cannot perform a specific function, then it is you, not the owner of
>> the function, who has made a choice that has a directly negative impact on
>> the outcome.
>>
>
> I agree, no-one is forcing you; but equally, I would not want to be denied
> access due to lack of tools; and this may not be voluntarily; which
> suggests refusal to use alternatives. But what if I was, due to personal
> circumstances,  unable to install free software? Asking a sighted neighbour
> to come and install software that will enable me to access this service is
> demeaning to me and makes me reliant on others, whereas what I as a user
> with special needs want is independence and self-reliance.
>
>
> Kind regards, Harry
>