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Re: Testing for accessibility compliance

for

From: John E. Brandt
Date: Apr 29, 2010 3:45PM

Yes YES! Accessible document are essential!

But, I disagree with your views regarding "websites." If you consider all
Content Management Systems from blogs to e-commerce sites, you are, I
believe, incorrect stating, "...the rate at which new content (by non
"specialists") ... added to websites is relatively low..." IN fact, I think
quite the opposite is true. I think more and more web content is being
produced by "non 'specialists'" - I prefer to call them "everyday folks."

All the more reason to continue to promote accessibility awareness to
everyone.

~j

John E. Brandt
jebswebs.com
Augusta, ME USA
<EMAIL REMOVED>
www.jebswebs.com


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Monir ElRayes
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2010 4:01 PM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Testing for accessibility compliance

I would add to this the very important - and often overlooked - issues of:

1) Who is making content accessible; and
2) What type of content are we talking about.

These issues have a great impact on how much automation is required. Allow
me to explain.

Currently accessibility is still in the realm of "specialists". The average
author of content (i.e. almost everybody) knows very little about what is
required to make content accessible. This may not be such a big issue if all
we're talking about is websites, since the rate at which new content is
added to websites is relatively low. However, if we start to look at the
massive amount of content being created every day in the form of documents
(Word, excel, PowerPoint, PDF etc) by non-specialists, it becomes clear that
we need a tool-based approach that caters to the non-specialist author of
content.

Such author-level tools, by definition, are expert systems that guide the
non-specialist author and allow the creation of accessible content. Only by
equipping the authors with such tools can we deal with the incredible volume
of content being created every day.

Best Regards,

Monir ElRayes
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