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Re: Testing for accessibility compliance

for

From: Hoffman, Allen
Date: May 3, 2010 2:15PM

I concur.

New content is eing added by nonspecialiasts at a much higher rate than
Web coders in general.
Just think of social media sites.


-----Original Message-----
From: John E. Brandt [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2010 4:45 PM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Testing for accessibility compliance

Yes YES! Accessible document are essential!

But, I disagree with your views regarding "websites." If you consider
all
Content Management Systems from blogs to e-commerce sites, you are, I
believe, incorrect stating, "...the rate at which new content (by non
"specialists") ... added to websites is relatively low..." IN fact, I
think
quite the opposite is true. I think more and more web content is being
produced by "non 'specialists'" - I prefer to call them "everyday
folks."

All the more reason to continue to promote accessibility awareness to
everyone.

~j

John E. Brandt
jebswebs.com
Augusta, ME USA
<EMAIL REMOVED>
www.jebswebs.com


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Monir ElRayes
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2010 4:01 PM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Testing for accessibility compliance

I would add to this the very important - and often overlooked - issues
of:

1) Who is making content accessible; and
2) What type of content are we talking about.

These issues have a great impact on how much automation is required.
Allow
me to explain.

Currently accessibility is still in the realm of "specialists". The
average
author of content (i.e. almost everybody) knows very little about what
is
required to make content accessible. This may not be such a big issue if
all
we're talking about is websites, since the rate at which new content is
added to websites is relatively low. However, if we start to look at the
massive amount of content being created every day in the form of
documents
(Word, excel, PowerPoint, PDF etc) by non-specialists, it becomes clear
that
we need a tool-based approach that caters to the non-specialist author
of
content.

Such author-level tools, by definition, are expert systems that guide
the
non-specialist author and allow the creation of accessible content. Only
by
equipping the authors with such tools can we deal with the incredible
volume
of content being created every day.

Best Regards,

Monir ElRayes
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