Thread Subject: Re: draft of April 3 presentation to Access Board

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From: Judy Brewer
Date: Mon, Mar 31 2008 1:40 PM

Jim, Mike,

Thanks for the chance to review the draft presentation to the Access Board.

Comments follow:

[slide 2: "today's topics"] Various stakeholder perspectives are
listed -- federal, industry, AT, and also additional perspectives
later in the presentation include state procurement -- but not a
disability perspective. Was a disability organization perspective
invited for Thursday's presentation? Seems odd if not, if we're
trying to represent the balance of our work. Is it still possible to include?

[slide 5: teitac begins] Please include standards organizations among
types of orgs recruited.

[slide 8: teitac results] It would be more accurate to add a
"largely" in front of "harmonized with WCAG 2.0." We did not achieve
complete harmonization, and in our report we advise the Access Board
to continue to monitor the development of WCAG 2.0 to continue to
increase harmonization.

[slide 21: sec 508 and int'l standards harmonization] Since the
presentation includes this graphic about the current mismatch of Sec
508 v 1 and WCAG 1.0, it should also include a corresponding updated
graphic on Sec 508 v 2 and WCAG 2.0 -- which will still show some
mismatch, and therefore work remaining.

[slides 30 and 31: harmonization] While I appreciate the cultural
sensitivities and agree that they are important to point out, I am
concerned that the description and goals of harmonization presented
here could be interpreted to encompass any degree of derivative work
based on existing standards. And while I respect the position of JIS,
I am not sure that the discussion of harmonization here reflects the
hard work that TEITAC invested towards the goal of careful alignment
of individual technical requirements between various international
standards in order to discourage re-fragmentation of international
standards and the re-emergence of conflicting technical requirements
which are a disadvantage to industry, particularly given the
cascading sequence of derivative standards that tends to occur on a
country-by-country basis over a period of years. Perhaps these two
slides could be reviewed with this concern in mind: for instance, on
slide 30, it currently states: "'Harmonized' is not 'Identical'"; I
think it is necessary to add, following that, "however it is
important to avoid conflicts in technical requirements." Otherwise,
we will quickly be back where we started. Perhaps also more could be
added into Andi's slides at a higher level with regard to TEITAC's
harmonization goals, and why this is an important goal.

Regards,

- Judy

At 07:19 AM 3/30/2008 -0400, Jim Tobias wrote:
>Hi All,
>
>Attached is the draft of our presentation to the Access Board. Please
>review it and comment. Thanks.
>
>***
>Jim Tobias
>Inclusive Technologies
>+1.732.441.0831 v/tty
>+1.908.907.2387 mobile
>skype jimtobias
>
>
>

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