Thread Subject: Re: Startingdiscussions on theAccessibilityAPIproposal

From: David Poehlman
Date: Thu, Jan 04 2007 4:30 AM

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would you excuse your example case if they put AT in the package so
that it was not necessary to use external at?

On Jan 4, 2007, at 2:07 AM, Gregg Vanderheiden wrote:



-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Gregg
Vanderheiden
Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 12:52 AM
To: 'TEITAC Web/Software Subcommittee'
Subject: Re: [teitac-websoftware] Starting discussions on
theAccessibilityAPIproposal

Why value chain is good concept - but we need to be very careful
about its
use in regulatory standards.

I really like the accessibility value chain concept as a way to
understand
this - and to point out the way things work together.

But I worry about it in a discussion of how to structure our
standards. And
I don't think we should structure our standards around it. If we did
then
we would only require that software companies "enable" there software
to be
accessible - but they would have no responsibility to actually make sure
that there was AT that did work with their software and did make it
accessible. The result is that in fact it would be "meet accessibility
standard" but be unusable by anyone with a disability.

Take the following example.


The Gregorian Software company creates a marvelous new media
technology. It
is new, different and extremely compelling web software for shopping and
transactions using a simulated person and live environment over narrow
bandwidth. They implement it with an accessibility API but no one
uses the
technology (of course) til its release in Sept 2007. At its
announcement it
is adopted by Amazon, a slew of banks, etc. AT vendors begin
working with
it but it will be a year or more before they can get up to speed
(sort of
like when dos went to windows) but this technology spreads at
Internet speed
because it is free downloadable plug in for most users.

Suddenly these sites go black to AT users. But if we write out
guidelines
such that the sites and the Gregorian software company can say their
software meets access standards, without actually requiring them to be
supported by real live AT that is out there - and available to users.

In fact AT vendors will remember the days before we required software to
actually work with real AT. Software would come out with an
accessibility
API but AT vendors were not able get access to it and had very poor
support
from software vendors even after release. Only when the software was
required to actually work with real AT did the vendors invite and
support
and even court AT vendors in the same way they invited, supported and
courted other software and hardware vendors (for compatibility) when
they
released something new.

So I think the "accessibility value chain" is a very important
concept. But
I don't think we should base our standards on it.

I think that something is accessible if it can be used by real people
who
have disabilities, not just that it theoretically could be if only those
other people had done their job.

Accessible - means that it can be used by people with disabilities.
That means it is either directly accessible. Or that it is
accessible using
the AT that the person with a disability has or can reasonably get
(or in
the case of the government - for its employees - AT they are given).
For
public websites, it would be the AT that the public at large has, can
reasonably get, or is given.

Any other definition of accessibility defeats the purpose the
legislators
laid out in creating 508. that is that people with disabilities could
actually use the E&IT in the government alongside everyone else - and
when
it was purchased (not sometime in the future - if someone else does
their
job).


Gregg
-- ------------------------------
Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D.



> -----Original Message-----
> From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf
> Of Jim Tobias
> Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2007 9:35 AM
> To: 'TEITAC Web/Software Subcommittee'
> Subject: Re: [teitac-websoftware] Starting discussions on
> theAccessibility APIproposal
>
> Sean Hayes wrote:
>
> "Firstly I agree that there is a problem that needs
> adressing here, which is the equitable division of
> reponsibility on accessibility between each entity involved
> in delivering a software product. However, as we are all
> aware, this is very difficult problem given the manner in
> which modern software is produced, which in most significant
> products involves cooperation across multiple organisations,
> not only the software product developer, but OS vendors,
> hardware vendors, AT vendors and middleware vendors among
> others. In some cases standards or industry practice already
> exists around these interfaces, and in some cases it doesn't."
>
> I would like to take this opportunity to develop a little
> further the concept of an "accessibility value chain", which
> Sean refers to indirectly. I believe that clarifying these
> responsibilities is at the heart of "modern" accessibility,
> because, as Sean notes, modern software requires cooperation
> across multiple organizations, many of whom have only
> indirect relationships.
>
> I would like to posit that the nature of this technical
> cooperation has three distinct elements or phases:
> capability, implementation, and preservation.
> By
> "capability" I mean that the software component contains all
> the features necessary for accessible use or development.
> Examples are the ability to add a text description to an
> image in a web development tool, and the ability to record
> and play back Baudot files in a voice mail platform. By
> "implementation" I mean that the capability has actually been
> used by the next link in the chain. That is, the web
> developer has actually added a text description to an image,
> and the telecom manager has actually set up a voice mailbox
> so a Baudot TTY user can receive messages. By "preservation"
> I mean that
> the next link in the chain is required not to interfere with
> the accessibility feature already in place further up the
> chain. For example, a digital cable system must not strip
> the captioning information from a captioned video program
> during transmission.
>
> Most of the relationships in the chain are
> capability-implementation ones, especially for web and
> software. Thus the current 508 requires software to inherit
> system display settings, use standard OS text presentation
> techniques, etc.
>
> I think this formulation may clarify for us where we want to
> go. For example, we have mentioned adding OS requirements.
> That is, current 508 requires "downlink" software to honor OS
> accessibility features, but it doesn't require OSs to have
> those features. I think we may agree on adding such a
> requirement, especially if we use today's common OSs as
> models rather than dreaming up new features OSs don't have yet.
>
> Another point that may meet more resistance, but seems clear
> to me, is the utter inseperability of content from software
> once we agree that there is an interlocking set of
> relationships in the web/software arena. In the examples of
> the web page and voice mail system I used above, how can the
> tools be abstracted from the content? My thinking here is
> not very well developed, so I look forward to a dialogue.
>
>

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