Thread Subject: Re: FPC - USERS' AT

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From: Phill Jenkins
Date: Mon, Jun 04 2007 9:45 AM

Taking a step back to view this discussion more holistically, I would like
us to better describe and document what are the concerns with the current
wording of the functional performance criteria that suggest the proposed
change. If we can get agreement on the current issues, then it may be
easier to reach consensus on a proposed wording. In other words, what
are the concerns with the current wording:
"At least ..., or support for assistive technology used by people who are
... shall be provided."

Gregg has listed below discussion around "User's AT", which seems to me to
be very similar to current wording of "AT used by people who have...".

If we use Randy's suggestion of "current and commercially available AT",
could that proposed wording be "or support for current and commercially
available AT used by people who are..."?

Of the 3 problems in our May Report, it seems that only the 3rd problems
seems to be directly related this discussion
Fixes 3 problems.
1- full use required for direct or AT,
2 - functions might be mixed (direct & AT)
3 - in order to be accessible via AT it must be AT users' have. (We have
not specified which users).

So I'm asking what is the concern or problem with the current wording "At
least ..., or support for assistive technology used by people who are ...
shall be provided."? It says support for AT USED by PEOPLE who have ....
if it's used by people, then they have it right?

Seems to me that the concerns with the new proposal have more to do with
dropping the phrase "support for" than "User's AT" vs "AT used by people".

Regards,
Phill Jenkins
IBM Research - Human Ability & Accessibility Center
http://www.ibm.com/able





"Gregg Vanderheiden" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent by: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
06/03/2007 08:05 AM
Please respond to
TEITAC General Interface Accessibility Subcommittee
< = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >


To
"'TEITAC General Interface Accessibility Subcommittee'"
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cc

Subject
[teitac-general] FPC - USERS' AT






Functional performance criteria

There were two aspects of our new wording that the TEITAC commented on and
wanted us to work on.

This email has to do with the SECOND one (only)
RE Use of the phrase ?Users? AT?
This discussion highlighted a few things

1) there is a big difference between E&IT for use by government
employees and that for use by the public
2) for government employees it is usually possible to identify or
predict what AT would be used and therefore to determine what ?users? AT?
would be. So there does not appear to be a problem here.

3) for the public however
a. it not only is very hard to predict what AT users will have or
use
b. the AT that many of them have is very poor ? making it hard to
design E&IT (public use devices and Web Content) that would be accessible
with everyone?s AT.

Thus the language is not much of a problem for government employees, but
since these provisions apply to public use devices and Web Content, this
language begs the question of
Which users? AT?

If ?users? AT? means ALL users? AT it sets unreasonable limitations on
technologies that can be used.

If ?users? AT? means only the best AT out there it unreasonably limits
access to government information to just the small percentage with the
best AT.

So the problem seems to be threefold.

1) what do we do about people who have completely inadequate AT
a. This question seems to be completely outside of our scope and not
a question for us to even debate though it is a good topic for hallway
discussion.
b. SUGGESTION: That we just leave this one off the table for
discussion here. Though it considerably complicates our work it is beyond
us and our charge.
2) What is a reasonable target to set for ?works with users? AT? for
public access to government E&IT.
a. If it is not ?Assume they all have the best AT?
b. And it is not ?Build to the worst AT?
c. What should be sufficient?
3) What wording do we use in the provision ? and how do we define
the term/phrase to address question #2?



So ? leaving #1 off the table


How do we answer Questions #2 and # 3 so we can replace ?users? AT?
with something reasonable and sufficiently defined that designers can work
with it.


Thought: What if we think of a term or phrase and in the definition we
make it clear that for government employee use E&IT it can be considerably
higher (or even highest) AT compared to Public Use E&IT.




Gregg

------------------------
Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D.
Professor - Depts of Ind. Engr. & BioMed Engr.
Director - Trace R & D Center
University of Wisconsin-Madison
<http://trace.wisc.edu/> FAX 608/262-8848
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