WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Hardware and Software required for Accessibility Testing

for

From: Keith Parks
Date: Dec 3, 2009 5:45PM

On Dec 3, 2009, at 3:45 PM, <EMAIL REMOVED> wrote:

> By the same token, though, you could say that if you write
> standards-compliant HTML + CSS you shouldn't have to test on
> multiple browsers, and until about a year ago that wasn't true at
> all. The fact is that the user agents weren't at all standards
> compliant, and if you didn't test on multiple browsers you'd find
> a site that didn't work at all in Internet explorer 6.

I had thought about the cross-browser and cross-platform testing
analogy. And I agree that any Web developer worth their salt will be
testing their sites in multiple browsers.

In my earlier reply I hadn't realized the initial post came from
someone at Oracle. So I can see it would be a more reasonable "burden"
for a corporation like that to do more rigorous real-world tests on
the sites or Apps they develop. The same would go for large
institutions or government bodies that develop their own content.

But my heart and thinking lie more with the many, many small shops and
individual developers out there, who create sites for the many, many
individuals and small to medium size business and organizations. If we
(counting myself amongst the promoters of Web accessibility) want the
notion of accessibility to catch on, I think it needs to be, there's
no other way to say it, easy for people to accomplish. Or at least
easy to do a decent job at, for those developers who care, or have
clients who care. The lower the bar is set, the easier the hurdle.

So I guess I *wish* the folks who are developing the guidelines and
standards could learn from the mistakes of the "browser wars", and the
AT makers and experts could, well... just get together and make up
their minds on how things are supposed to be done. And I'm sure the
overwhelming majority of them have the best intentions. As well as
their own, sometimes competing interests, commercial and otherwise.

Then again, if we can learn anything from the past, it's that people
don't learn from the past.

******************************
Keith Parks
Graphic Designer/Web Designer
Student Affairs Communications Services
San Diego State University
San Diego, CA 92182-7444
(619) 594-1046
mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED>
http://www.sa.sdsu.edu/communications

http://kparks.deviantart.com/gallery
----------------------------------------------------------

A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, served with a side of
slaw.