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Re: Browser version advice in accessibility statement

for

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Nov 6, 2011 8:12PM

Kevin

As this is getting very far from the realm of web accessibility, I'll
shoot you, or NVDA, an email later on to continue this discussion.
Thanks
-Birkir

On 11/7/11, Kevin Chao < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> 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
>>