Thread Subject: Re: action itemfrom02/28/2007proposalforuser-agent and authoringweb/softwarerequirements

From: Hoffman, Allen
Date: Thu, Mar 08 2007 6:30 AM

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All:

I really appreciate the work on this topic from all of you, and
encourage all of you to please continue this process as it is an
important part of doing this right to think this through fully.

I think if we consider this from the initial content creation source
point we will be served best. it isn't really possible to easily craft
language to address every chain of the content creation/presentation
path in a single requirement, but I'd be happy if someone had the
language.

My intention is primarily to address the starting phase with the widest
and least knowledgeable audiences of content creation. If this group
can be addressed source materials will be greatly improve because second
and third stage tools that accept such formats as inputs will have
improved content to work with.

I think the scope question may be more challenging, however if we can
prepare a rationale recommendation to address this need, we can leave it
up to others in subsequent phases to determine scoping of this type of
requirement. I'm wrestling with the scope question, how to include or
exclude this requirement into the framework of develop procure maintain
or use E&IT for people with disabilities. I believe we all agree the
need exists to improve content, and that when asked the question if
Section 508 standards must address content that they must, but taking
that second step to requiring some programmatic assessment and guided
remediation within authoring tools seems to only be applicable in the
"develop" situation, or "maintain" situation. Note, a side topic
concerning scoping of authoring tools is that currently there are many
accessibility hurdles in software authoring tools, and I have not seen
much discussion about potential requirements there. This concept is
*not* intended to address software authoring tools specifically, but is
intended to address "document" authoring tools primarily. any scoping
language to make this clear would probably help resolve some of the
questions posted.

When i think about the second and third components in a chain, maybe we
need to consider how "value chain" or "end-to-end" accessibility
concepts can or should be incorporated into Section 508 standards as a
general concept or requirement, or recommend that this be addressed at
final rule making. After all if that were in place now this scoping
problem would feel easier to think through. The general approach i know
is to always encourage or require that accessibility information is
"authored" or "encoded" in the beginning of the chain, for later
modification or re-use.

We could write something such as:

When software accepts inputs which are encoded in accessible formats as
defined (reference generic accessible formats), to programmatically
encapsulate, translate, or render in alternate modality, the
accessibility attributes from the source shall be preserved in the end
product.

To be honest i don't want this to get out of hand, over complicated, and
unfeasible, but the reality is that our content development and
presentation chains are broken drastically at the beginning. It is a
enormous challenge to overcome to get the almost limitless audience of
content creators to become educated enough to prepare fully accessible
simple documents, let alone complicated ones. Any steps that an be
taken to lower this barrier to accessible information and data will be a
great step forward.





Allen Hoffman -- 202-447-0303
DHS office on Accessible Systems & Technology
-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Andrew
Kirkpatrick
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007 4:56 PM
To: TEITAC Web/Software Subcommittee
Subject: Re: [teitac-websoftware] action item
from02/28/2007proposalforuser-agent and authoring
web/softwarerequirements

> When software allows creation of, or modification to information
> stored in a specific set of encoding formats, all accessibility
> attributes contained in those formats must be available to the author,

> and programmatic assessment and remediation of those attributes must
> be provided to expedite such creation or modification. This feature
> can be built in or available through a third party solution.

I'm concerned about a different part of this - there are tools that
allow people to create web content with an easy press of a button, and
allow the user few options to modify the content. These applications
may be targeted at users who don't understand accessibility, so it seems
that it is not a bad thing if the content produced is accessible even if
the user didn't do anything to make it so, but this wording would
prohibit this even though this process may be ideal for certain types of
content.

I'll give an example, if there is a tool that pulls in presentation
files and generates an accessible interactive version. The presentation
contained accessibility attribute information added in the original
presentation tool, and that information is used in a predictable,
appropriate, and unchangable way in the interactive version. The author
has access to the attributes via the original presentation tool, but
there are additional attributes that are created automatically in the
user interface playback controls for the generated interactive version.
The process for the author to generate the interactive version with the
accessibility information is to choose "make interactive version" from a
menu. Does this sound like something that should be discouraged? I
don't think so - it may not work for every type of content a designer
can envision, but it seems that it should be permissible because it can
work for some.

AWK

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