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Re: Accessibility and outdated AT

for

From: ckrugman
Date: Dec 18, 2010 12:42AM

I agree. The user needs to take some responsibility here. As a screen reader
user I have JAWS under regular service maintenance agreement and update
other programs regularly. There are certain expenses involved in living and
in my case it involves updating technology as it comes up to make the most
of accessibility and other developments. This rates on the same level as
taking care of spoiled cats!
Chuck
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jared Smith" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 7:25 PM
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Accessibility and outdated AT


> On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 1:48 PM, Tony Trott wrote:
>
>> Essentially, I guess I'm asking if web accessibility is required to be
>> backwards-
>
> This is a difficult question and one without a straightforward answer.
> Certainly you would want to support older technologies to a point that
> is reasonable. But you must draw the line somewhere. There are many
> things (Flash, PDF, much scripted content, ARIA-based interfaces,
> etc.) that just cannot be made accessible to antiquated technologies.
> Few people bother any more to ensure full compatibility with IE5 or
> Netscape 4 - and JAWS 6 (a full 6 versions behind the current version
> 12) would, in my opinion, be in the same category as these browsers.
>
> Our survey (http://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey2/) showed
> that 83% of respondents updated their screen reader within the
> previous year, but we know that there are many users with very old
> screen readers. Fortunately, screen reader support is not a binary
> state with most web content (excluding Flash, PDF, etc.) - it's not
> like someone with JAWS 6 wouldn't get anything on your web page.
> Instead, they simply would not get many of the enhanced accessibility
> features and support that users of newer screen readers would. This,
> for the most part, is their problem, not yours.
>
> Jared Smith
> WebAIM
>