Thread Subject: description of product accessibility features

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From: Baquis David
Date: Fri, Dec 29 2006 12:25 PM

Have you discussed:

"§ 1194.41 Information, documentation, and support.
(b) End-users shall have access to a description of the accessibility and compatibility features of products ...."

Remember, that this provision about "description of accessibility features" is a completely different subject than the prior provision about alternative formats.

A few questions:

Have you discussed the difference between accessibility features and compatibility features? Would you recommend an advisory note to clarify this difference?

How is an agency to determine whether a manufacturer's description of their product's accessibility features is sufficiently descriptive? Currently, what level of sufficiency are agencies, such as SSA, accepting in order to meet their personal agency standards? And how are VPATs meeting or falling short of this goal?

To what extent have members of your subcommittee actually reviewed product accessibility documentation "hands on"? Do you, federal customers, or end-users have preferences as to whether the accessibility information be segregated into a special section of product documentation? ... Or blended into a universally designed product support guide?

Remember that 255 and 508 may be consolidated in some ways and 255 addresses usability. Much thought has already gone into how to make print material more usable. Have you thought of making recommendations related to this?

Here is one resource as an example from the NIST website. It is from the world of elections and voting systems, but it is recent and you can borrow many ideas from it: http://vote.nist.gov/032906PlainLanguageRpt.pdf. Talk to Whitney on the TEITAC about this.


David Baquis
Accessibility Specialist
U.S. Access Board
1331 F Street, NW, #1000
Washington, DC 20004
800-USA-ABLE; (202) 272-0013 (voice)
www.access-board.gov; = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =

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