Thread Subject: new provision - Was 1194.25 (a)

From: Gregg Vanderheiden
Date: Wed, Apr 11 2007 11:30 AM

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I was looking at the "BIOS" question that was sent to the "GENERAL" group by
the closed group.



On looking at this it appears like this might just be a part of the general
"closed" issue (i.e. parts where AT can not be used). of the "closed"
group.



Maybe a single provision would address both this issues (including the
"closed is a property" issue of the closed group.



Posting to both groups therefore.











The original wording was



S 1194.25 (a) Self contained products shall be usable by people with
disabilities without requiring an end-user to attach assistive technology to
the product. Personal headsets for private listening are not assistive
technology.





The current comments from this group on this provision are (If I have this
right)



Proposed that self-contained is a functional characteristic of either
hardware or software rather than a class of products. Identify that a closed
product function could be by design, policy or perhaps other reasoning. Not
requiring AT will be changed to reflect that AT is not readily available or
that a choice has been made not to be compatible with available AT.





How about the following wording for this provision





<proposed wording>



"If any functionality of a hardware or software product is closed for any
reason, including hardware, setting or policy, such that AT for a particular
user group cannot be used with the product, then the product functionality
must be fully usable by that group without AT. (Headsets for private
listening are not considered AT). "



<end of proposed wording>





Now some aspects of the BIOS may be considered 'maintenance' and therefore
not part of operation that needs to be accessible. But if users are
expected to change the BIOS as part of use of product, then it would fall
into scope. But it would be subject to the same 'do we know how" as other
aspects.



Mostly this provision would be for products that were partially or
completely locked to AT and would simply say that other modes needed to be
provided.







Finally, by making this a more general requirement based on features we get
around the problem of having to declare a product completely open or closed
when in fact I may only be closed to a single group for some technical
reason but open to others.

This re-enforces the closed group's thoughts that 'closed' is not a type of
product but a characteristic.













Gregg

-- ------------------------------

Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D.

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