Re: Assistive Technology Detection

| . . . I believe part 2.d addresses Bob's point about poverty levels. . . 


hmm, not the way I interpret Bob's comments over the years.  For example, 
quoting 2.d
The user agent(s) that support the technology are accessibility supported 
and are available for download or purchase in a way that:
does not cost a person with a disability any more than a person without a 
disability and
is as easy to find and obtain for a person with a disability as it is for 
a person without disabilities.
does not address "afordability", but does address equal costs and equal 
availability.  If a $900 laptop, with the latest operating system, browser 
and AT (such as free NVDA) is equally the same costs and equally available 
in the English language in the neighboor store  - then it is understood to 
be "accessibility supported". 

Bob, correct me if I'm wrong, but Bob is talking about how some users with 
disabilities can't afford the $900 lapttop, so they can't afford to 
upgrade to the latest ARIA supported technologies for example.  The 
solution is the same cost and same availability to both the user with a 
disability and the person without disabilities.  And while it is equally 
expensive to both as well, it is equally compliant (or can be) to 
standards and equally usable to both . 

WCAG standards do not and should not address affordability in my opinion. 
Other mechanism do and should address affordability.  And, for example, 
neither does or should ADA standards cover the affordability of an 
accessible van in defining the number of van accessible parking spots 
there needs to be in a parking lot, it does not cover the affordability 
when considering the width and spacing of a van accessible parking spot. 
And there are considerations in the standards that are "determined" by the 
AT it self, such as the Van Accessible specs are wider, etc. than regular 
car accessible spots.   Similar to how now ARIA is supported by platforms 
and assistive technology - so it can be considered in the claim that it is 
accessibility supported. 
 ___________
Regards,
Phill Jenkins
Check out the new system for requesting an IBM product Accessibility 
Conformance Report VPAT® at  able.ibm.com/request
pjenkins@us.ibm.com
Senior Engineer & Accessibility Executive
IBM Research Accessibility
linkedin.com/in/philljenkins/




From:   Mark Weiler <mweiler@alumni.sfu.ca>
To:     Phill Jenkins <pjenkins@us.ibm.com>
Cc:     David Woolley <forums@david-woolley.me.uk>, "w3c-wai-ig@w3.org" 
<w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Date:   01/26/2018 02:52 AM
Subject:        Re: Assistive Technology Detection



Phil, (Bob)

My reading of the WCAG 2.0 documents is that "conformance claims" can 
involve stating web technologies relied upon but these "conformance 
claims" are optional.  Conformance itself, however, has 5 required parts, 
with part 4 requiring web content to only rely on accessibly supported 
content to meet the success criteria ("Only accessibility-supported ways 
of using technologies are relied upon to satisfy the success criteria.") 

>From the reference document, it seem that AT's and user agents determine 
whether something is accessibility supported or not: "a Web content 
technology is 'accessibility supported' when users' assistive technologies 
will work with the Web technologies AND when the accessibility features of 
mainstream technologies will work with the technology" (caps and emphasis 
in the original). 

The technical definition of accessibility-supported has two parts and I 
believe part 2.d addresses Bob's point about poverty levels, as do other 
parts in the reference document.




On Thursday, January 25, 2018 10:42 PM, Phill Jenkins 
<pjenkins@us.ibm.com> wrote:


| how can a site or app know 
| what web content technologies to serve up 
| that are accessibly supported 
| without knowing the user agents and AT the user is using?  

My understanding is that for a site or app to claim conformance, the 
claimant has to know or the claim has to state which accessibility 
supported technologies were relied upon in the conformance testing, not in 
what the user is using after the conformance testing is done.  Of course 
what users actually use significantly influences what are the definitive 
list of accessibility supported technologies.  There is no requirement to 
"serve up that technology" to claim conformance. 

For example, if the operating system and browser platform support high 
contrast technology, the claim can be made that the site or app conforms 
(or still conforms) with all the WCAG Success Criteria when the user is 
relying on those accessibility supported features in the operating system 
and browser platform.  The site or app conformance would fail if the 1.3.1 
Info and relationship success criteria fails because some labels or 
headings "disappeared" when turning on the high contrast accessibility 
features supported in the OS & Browser. 
___________
Regards,
Phill Jenkins
pjenkins@us.ibm.com
Senior Engineer & Accessibility Executive
IBM Research Accessibility
linkedin.com/in/philljenkins/



From:        Mark Weiler <mweiler@alumni.sfu.ca>
To:        David Woolley <forums@david-woolley.me.uk>, "w3c-wai-ig@w3.org" 
<w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Date:        01/25/2018 06:52 PM
Subject:        Re: Assistive Technology Detection



Related to AT detection is how can a site or app know what web content 
technologies to serve up that are accessibly supported without knowing the 
user agents and AT the user is using?  

Accessibility supported is a requirement for conformance.   And research 
findingsshow differences in how browsers and ATs are supporting web 
content technologies.





On Thursday, January 25, 2018 7:08 PM, David Woolley 
<forums@david-woolley.me.uk> wrote:


The dangers I see are:

1) this will reinforce the idea that the only disabled people are those 
that use JAWs.

2) it will probably have a similar effect to early mobile web sites, 
which tended to be cleaner, and easier to use that the main web site. 
That may mean that the main web site gets more difficult to use, and you 
won't be able to do the equivalent of using wap instead of www.

On 25/01/18 19:18, accessys@smart.netwrote:
> 
> counter to concept of accessibility, one should not need to identify
> and personally I would be ,opposed to it.