Re: Creating an accessible Table of Contents

Hi Ramón,

I simply believe the burden to make operating systems accessible should be on the operating system, not only on some format for transporting content.

The burden for content formats should be:
- content format must be accessible on all levels (public specification, preferably no patents or similar, mechanisms to access content in an accessible / structured/ meaningful fashion)

Just envision some operating system decided not to support a certain technology or format any longer - is it then up to that technology or format to fix the operating system? One might think this can only happen to the likes of Flash, but what if someone decided HTML is not what they wish to support? Would all HTML become inaccessible because  of this?

So in the field of PDF we may need to begin to shout in the right direction - for Mac OS that would be Apple, because they make a wonderful accessibility technology, VoiceOver, and then they forget to make it accessible for one of their own core technologies (PDF is **the** visual content display and print technology of  both mac OS X and iOS), and also make it impossible for other vendors to develop a software extension to add such PDF accessibility to VoiceOver. 


Olaf



Am 1 Mar 2013 um 15:28 schrieb accessys@smart.net:

> On Thu, 28 Feb 2013, [windows-1252] Ramón Corominas wrote:
> 
>> Olaf said:
>> 
>>> I don't think it is viable in the long run to require that
>>> something that is guaranteed to be accessible on all operating
>>> systems.
> 
> it is ABSOLUTELY critical to require access to all operating system, do you wish to totally stifle inovation, prevent anyone from developing a new OS, keep those who need access from new OS that may be developed, make it easy for developers or to line the pockets of windows??
> 
> Bob
> 
>> 
>> Probably not, but WCAG talks about "accessibility support", and therefore "Windows-only" can only be acceptable in a closed environment.
>> 
>> Moreover, sighted MacOS users don't need to spend more to buy a copy of Windows (and of course would not have to install a complete OS to read a PDF). However, blind MacOS users would have to:
>> 
>> 1. Buy a copy of Windows
>> 2. Install it (at least as a Virtual Machine)
>> 3. Install a screen reader that is compatible with Adobe Reader
>> 
>> So "Windows-only" does not meet the requirement about "same cost, same easiness", and therefore cannot be used to claim accessibility support.
>> 
>> And, of course, I don't think that excluding all MacOS users, all Linux users, all iOS users, all Android users, among others, can be considered acceptable in terms of "accessibility support".
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Ramón.
>>

Received on Friday, 1 March 2013 15:07:08 UTC