[gui-talk] an I.e8 inquiry

[Baracco, Andrew W]

Well!  I'm not the greatest web surfer in the world by any means, but I
think to say that most web sites are not accessible to the blind is a
bit over the top.  The vast majority of sites that I visit are
accessible, not always convenient, but accessible. Many people who say
that sites are not accessible are not using all of the capabilities of
their screen reader.  For me, and I am just speaking for me, the only
inaccessible thing that i run up against is the CAPTCHA, and I could
manage most of them if I wanted to bother to install Firefox with the
Webvism plugin.

Andy
 

-----Original Message-----
From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org]
On Behalf Of James Pepper
Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2009 5:26 PM
To: NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] an I.e8 inquiry

We can talk theory all we want but the reality out there is that most
websites are not accessible.  Face it, mnost of the content in webpages
is not accessible to the blind.  It is an intolerable situation.  There
is no meeting of the minds between content authors and the blind and
that standard should be the goal of all accessibility discussions.

What we need is a practical standard for accessibility where the web
designer designs for screen readers to use their pages.  This is not
happening now and it is a disgrace.  This is not difficult to achieve,
it is a matter of designing a webpage with accessibility in mind as you
design the page.

It is when people start creating new technologies to solve the problems
of accessibility in the future and set lofty goals but they do not make
things accessible in the here and now and in the case of Yahoo they just
went ahead and updated their software without any regard to whether the
blind could use it or not.



On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 5:47 PM, albert griffith <
albertgriffith at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> Allen, also, the people who need the accessibility features need to be

> in a position to take advantage of them as they're developed.  The 
> only way to do that is to stay current with upgrades and updates.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org]

> On Behalf Of Hoffman, Allen
> Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2009 2:58 PM
> To: gui-talk at nfbnet.org
> Subject: [gui-talk] an I.e8 inquiry
>
> James Pepper wrote:
> The big problem here is that designers cannot design webpages for 
> accessibility under the old standards, they are hardly going to be 
> able to do it for the new standards.
>
> First of all, developers can code to the old standards quite well, but

> generally do not include such coding in their standard practices.  
> This is due to many factors, including lack of priority by those who 
> set their requirements, e.g. the guy with the money, and a general 
> lack of professional and institutional inclusion of these requirements

> in education.  Blaming developers for something that is larger than 
> individual developer won't help, and places blame inaccurately, and in

> the end is just too simplistic.
>
> The new standards, while more complex, will be more used if, developer

> tools include them as part of standard operation, and not following 
> such accessibility standards becomes an intentional choice.  For 
> example, if a developer places an image on the page, a bubble should 
> pop up and note an alternate description is required to meet WCAG
standards.
> Additionally, if ARIA interface elements are missing appropriate 
> accessibility attributes, developers should actually have to override 
> the defaults to get them saved for publication.  Finally, most Web 
> development tools do leave traces as to their use in the background 
> commented code of a page.  once a list of tools which, if used per 
> plan, produce accessible outputs is known, one can then in theory 
> locate people who go out of their way to produce inaccessible pages.  
> Such folks should be targeted for feedback, since not only are they 
> not meeting people with disabilities needs, but they have done so 
> intentionally, not from lack of knowledge or ability, but for some 
> other reason.
>
> furthermore, more emphasis must be placed on getting meeting 
> accessibility requirements in to standard IT professionals minimum 
> acceptable certification processes.  It is hard to expect we'll 
> improve overall accessibility of IT products if the people who develop

> and invent them don't understand the needs, nor the technical 
> solutions to meet those needs.
>
>
>
> Allen Hoffman
>
>
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