Thread Subject: Re: Second Life

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From: Jared Smith
Date: Thu, Aug 02 2007 9:30 AM

On 8/2/07, Andrew Kirkpatrick < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> B) rely on the standards that reference the need to expose programmatic
> information about UI objects to help address needs of blind users and
> other standards to support other user populations and be explicit that
> this type of application is not exempt

I think we already have much of this, but it could certainly be
strengthened. Second Life has a fairly powerful API and scripting
engine that could allow someone to build a relatively accessible
alternative interface for screen reader users. It would essentially
turn much (though admittedly not all) of the visual and interactive
elements into explanatory text elements that could be accessed. It
would be much like directions in Google Maps - the maps themselves are
not accessible to screen reader users, but the text directions are.

There really is a lot of potential to making such environments
accessible and insomuch as we can promote this with the guidelines, we
should do so. Simply 'punting the issue to equivalent facilitation'
will likely happen anyway, but by providing guidance, we can encourage
some levels of accessibility.

Jared Smith

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