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Re: Browser version advice in accessibility statement

for

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Nov 5, 2011 9:36PM

Two minor thoughts on this (apart from me being outright impressed
with the wealth of useful info on here, and discovering Henni's blog,
which is excellent).
1. It seems to me that it might make sense for someone like webAIM, or
a relatively objective and well respected third party to create and
maintain a compatibility page for browsers and assistive technologies
with regards to accessibility support (all the info is basically here
in various blogs and in these discussions), and it might act as a
disclaimer or source that people could link to in their own
accessibility disclaimers. This would enable a somewhat generic
accessibility statement and ensure a central page where changes can be
made consistently as Assistive Technology is upgraded, or better info
is available. Of course there could be issues, political or otherwise,
why WebAIM per se, would not want to do this, but it seems to me like
it would be a nice idea if some organization maintained a page with
this info, allowing those who want to put browser and A.T. version
support information on their websites (which I think is a great idea).
If it is not centralized these statements will differ, be fragmented
(not all people are aware of all screen readers, I see that
Hal/Supernova support is absent in most lists for instance, something
I could definitely help clear up), and out of synch, as it is not
clear when each of these statements was updated and, hence, valid with
regards to A.T. support for accessibility.


2. Perhaps I am somewhat alone in this opinion, I have certainly seen
divided opinions on this. I think that when there is a free and open
source screen reader out there, with navigation very similar to the
Windows screen readers, that we can reasonably expect users who have
older screen reading solutions, but require a more updated
accessibility support, to go out there, download NVDA and learn how to
use it. This is exaggerating the point certainly, especially when ARIA
definitely is not as consistent in its implementation (for instance
with keyboard support for flyout menus) as we'd wish it to be perhaps.
There is a lot of users, who have recently lost their sight or are
older and less computer savvy users, who simply can't deal with the
complexities of ARIA, and are unlikely to frequent pages where ARIA is
used aggressively. But, I think the availibility of quality ARIA
support in a free and open source screen reader is a huge benefit, and
can allow us to be a little more aggressive as developers utilizing
these recent technologies to enable accessibility where other
traditional means of A T support are not available. In short, whereas
we need to preserve a balance, I wuld hate to avoid using ARIA because
users of Jaws 7 can't utilize it. At this point, these users have the
option to upgrade,and they need to.

In my screen reader testing I have given a green light to features
that NVDA 2011.2 supports, and also try to test two major versions
back for the traditional major screen readers (now I test Jaws 12 and
13, with Jaws 11 testing being phased out).
Perhaps this is overly aggressive, but there is definitely some
responsibility for users to be up-to-date with their assistive
technology, as long as it does not impose undue financial hardship on
them.


Cheers
-B

On 11/4/11, Aaron Leventhal < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> I agree Randy, although at least we can start to proceed conservatively for
> most content, using the fallbacks. And with the friendly message in place,
> we can start to be aggressive with ARIA for the high tech crowd. We'll find
> out what's appropriate for the middle ground as we go -- and it will change
> (although not as fast as we'd like!)
>
> Aaron
>
> On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 4:27 PM, Randy Pope < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
>> HI Aaron,
>>
>> I'm in agreement with your thoughts. For many people with disabilities,
>> updating or updating their assistive equipment and software pose a
>> financial hardship. But again,,,it's very difficult to please everyone.
>>
>> With Warm Regards,
>> Randy Pope
>>
>>