RE: WCAG vialations or accessibility enhancements

I’m just a lurker on this list, but I’m a member on other accessibility standards committees.

 

This issue of non-sequential (or out-of-order) headings has become a heated debate everywhere and I believe it’s a terrible trend. It certainly violates, in principal, the concept of making digital media accessible to people.

 

Writing, editing, publishing — regardless of the media that delivers it — has always stressed a logical hierarchy of headings and that theory has worked well over the past 100 years of communication. It’s called good writing.

 

I don’t understand what has brought about this change in thought on all the standards committees, that it’s OK to jump from H2 to H5. 

 

It is not ok. It harms many people who use assistive technologies.

 

What’s happened to our commitment to those of us who use assistive technologies, who depend upon them? Does the community’s needs no longer have any merit? During the past couple of years, those of us on standards committees seem to have put the cart before the horse.

 

Our standards are developed for people who use technology — not for the computers or technologies that deliver the content. Otherwise, we are just wasting our time developing any accessibility standards at all.

 

Peoples’ need first. Then it’s the software engineers’ job to make their technology meet those needs.

 

—Bevi Chagnon

 

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Bevi Chagnon, founder/CEO  |   <mailto:Bevi@PubCom.com> Bevi@PubCom.com 

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