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Re: Browser version advice in accessibility statement

for

From: Kevin Chao
Date: Nov 6, 2011 6:21PM

Hi Patrick,

Of course, if one's using a corporate/work/office or educational
institute computer, one's limited by the central IT department, which
is usually using very limited, dated, and not very accessible
combination of web browser and AT, especially when it comes to WEB 2.0
(HTML5, ARIA, etc.). If the intranet were to deploy rich interactive,
and dynamic sites for everyone else in the office/institute, the
technology would have to be updated, especially the web browser and
AT.

Most sites are killing off support for IE6, which most companies and
educational institutes are still using, Internet Explorer's usage has
dropped below 50%, and people are switching to Firefox and Chrome.

Thanks, I do understand that users are not always in full control, but
I was expressing thoughts more on users who are in full control of
their own technology.

Kevin

On 11/6/11, Patrick H. Lauke < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> On 06/11/2011 22:23, Kevin Chao wrote:
>> There's no excuse or reason at all one should not be running the
>> latest web browser and assistive technology, such as screen reader.
>> There's performance, security, accessibility, usability, support, etc.
>> benefits. Vendors/industry should not be limited due to users refusing
>> to update.
>
> Sadly, the reality in many companies is that central IT departments
> often prevent updates for various reasons...sometimes because the
> enterprise intranet systems were designed to only work in IE6 (my
> previous employer, a university, had this issue, with our internal
> accounting and personnel systems refusing to even work in IE7), other
> times because certain browsers don't play well with distributed profiles
> (I seem to remember older versions of Firefox had this issue) or because
> they simply don't want the strain on the network when every day a new
> fast-release-cycle version is being downloaded across thousands of
> installs around the organisation.
>
> However, the employers should provide modern versions that play well
> with AT under their duty (where applicable...section 508, DDA, etc) to
> make reasonable adjustments for their employees.
>
> But yes, just wanted to point out that users aren't always fully in control.
>
> P
> --
> Patrick H. Lauke
>