Accessibility Support for Low Vision

To Everyone:

I'm writing out this because WCAG 2.0 as interpreted by WCAG WG
excludes the overwhelming majority of people with visual impairments
from accessibility support.  To protect the blind minority and leave
out majority people with uncorrectable partial sight is just too huge
of an oversight to wait 10 years for a revise of WCAG.  WCAG cannot
leave out the majority of people with visual disabilities and call
itself a legitimate standard.

I have been noticing that web pages are getting much worse for people
with low vision.  I think it is because W3C has been so remiss on
establishing any reasonable interpretation for accessibility support.

The only support mention in normative sections of WCAG 2.0 regarding
low vision are:
1.1.1 - A reference to large print in a comment
1.4.3 - Contrast (minimum) -- This actually makes reading harder for
many people with low vision.
1.4.4 Resize Text - Kind of silly since most people who are classified
as disabled need about 300% enlargement or more.

1.4.6 establishes an even more painful contrast threshold for many
people with central retina damage.  1.4.8 kindly mercifully the damage
of 1.4.3 and 1.4.6, but they are level AAA making them irrelevant from
any enforcement standpoint.

The final normative reference is in the Glossary definition of
assistive technology.  The examples of assistive technology for low
vision are: "screen magnifiers, and other visual reading assistants,
which are used by people with visual, perceptual and physical print
disabilities to change text font, size, spacing, color,
synchronization with speech, etc. in order to improve the visual
readability of rendered text and images."

At the time WCAG 2.0 was adopted three types of assistive technology
support were recognized in a normative section:  Screen magnification;
style control over (text font, size, spacing and color), and
synchronization of text with speech.

The idea that zoom represents the extent of accessibility support
needed for low vision is just denial of reality.  You don't need
accessible content to use zoom.  Zoom works on images as well as
accessible text.

The most reasonable bottom line is the level of support identified in
the normative sections of WCAG 2.0 including the Glossary.  I know
that: font type, size, spacing and color were included because, I put
them there so people with low vision would be protected.  We actually
don't need a rewrite of WCAG 2.0, we just need to follow all the
normative sections.

Believe me, the situation is getting worse for low vision.  I thing
WCAG WG encouraged it by making foolish exceptions.

Wayne Dick

Received on Monday, 2 May 2011 22:30:43 UTC