Thread Subject: Re: FPC - USERS' AT

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From: Gregg Vanderheiden
Date: Mon, Jun 04 2007 10:20 AM

"reasonable" isn't testable. So we would need to define it - or include in
the provision.



"One piece of each type of AT" would be a problem I would think. It would
mean that everyone would have to buy that type of AT to have access. Looks
like major market tipping in favor of which ever company was dominate
(companies wouldn't even need to talk to other AT vendors). And this
doesn't even say "the major market vendor" so you could have a computer
where one program only worked with one screen reader but another program on
the same computer only worked with a different screen reader..



Uhnghhhh



Not an easy problem.







See you all on the call today.




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






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From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Randy Marsden
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 9:57 AM
To: TEITAC General Interface Accessibility Subcommittee
Subject: Re: [teitac-general] FPC - USERS' AT

Yes - a difficult issue.

Even if you said "all AT", it would be ambiguous (does that include the
obscure little product someone has sold a total of 5 of?). I don't think
anyone wants to go down the road of making an explicit list of AT that IT
must be compatible with. So, any way you slice it, this has to be somewhat
vague. I think that means we need to pull out the "reasonable" club.

How about this definition:

" ... shall be compatible with a reasonable selection of current and
commercially available AT, or with the AT products listed by the purchasing
entity if so listed."

Perhaps what is "reasonable" could be fleshed out in ancillary notes
(something like: "'reasonable selection' means compatible with at least one
AT product for each category of disability (preferably more), and definitely
more than one in cases where substantial market share is held by multiple
commercial AT products".

-Randy
------------------------------------------------
Randy Marsden, P.Eng.
President & CEO, Madentec Limited
ATIA Global Policy Chair

780-450-8926 ext. 223
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =


From: "Gregg Vanderheiden" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Reply-To: TEITAC General Interface Accessibility Subcommittee
< = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 00:38:23 -0500
To: "'TEITAC General Interface Accessibility Subcommittee'"
< = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Subject: Re: [teitac-general] FPC - USERS' AT



Good

But still leaves the question - "Which current and commercially available
AT? All of it?"



Hope you can join the call today (Monday) at 12:30 EASTERN time




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






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From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Randy Marsden
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 12:01 AM
To: TEITAC General Interface Accessibility Subcommittee
Subject: Re: [teitac-general] FPC - USERS' AT

How about the following:

REPLACE:
"users' AT",

WITH:
..."current and commercially-available AT"


------------------------------------------------
Randy Marsden, P.Eng.
President & CEO, Madentec Limited
ATIA Global Policy Chair

780-450-8926 ext. 223
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =


From: "Gregg Vanderheiden" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Reply-To: TEITAC General Interface Accessibility Subcommittee
< = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2007 08:05:03 -0500
To: "'TEITAC General Interface Accessibility Subcommittee'"
< = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
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/ <http://trace.wisc.edu/> > FAX 608/262-8848

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