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Re: Local legislation or the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) ?

for

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: May 23, 2013 9:35AM

Hi

Adding a few notes to this conversation:
Lainey Feingold, that very fine lady, is collecting links to
accessibility legislations around the world. The page can be found at:
http://lflegal.com/2013/05/gaad-legal/
Last time I checked it had the usual suspects, U.sS., Canada, UK, but
I believe I can help add the Scandinavian regulations and I am
checking with some European colleagues to try and add more.
If we can build a resonably simple online database this would be very
helpful for those who want to at least have an idea of the legal
requirements around the world.
Also, re WCAG being sufficient, keep in mind that many countries,
especially in Europe, are now adding PDF accessibility to regulations,
and WCAG, strictly speaking, tdoes not cover electronic documents, the
American CVAA covers multimedia files specifically, so you have to be
aware of the most relevant regulations for material that is not
strictly web-based .. documents, multimedia files, identification
systems, social media (to some extent) and mobile applications.
Good post though, I have definitely added this to my favorites,
because I think your approach is very well thought out and sensible.
Cheers
-B


On 5/22/13, Whitney Quesenbery < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Usability is also more than running the site through NVDA if you are not a
> regular screen reader user.
>
> It's a good step, but usability is about actual user experience. The ISO
> definition is that a site or product is usable if the people for whom it is
> intended can use it effectively, efficiently (in an appropriate length of
> time), and with satisfaction, to complete appropriate tasks or activities.
>
> W
>
>
> On Sat, May 18, 2013 at 12:52 PM, Steve Green <
> <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
>> In the UK the applicable law is the Equality Act, which was preceded by
>> the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA). The Equality Act is only
>> concerned
>> with 'actual outcomes' i.e. whether the plaintiff can demonstrate that
>> there is an actual accessibility barrier. WCAG compliance is totally
>> irrelevant.
>>
>> The absence of a technical standard in the Equality Act makes it
>> difficult
>> to know exactly what you need to do, especially as no case law has been
>> established. Nevertheless, we recommend that our clients do the
>> following:
>>
>> 1. Aim for compliance with WCAG 2.0 level AA.
>> 2. Do as much user testing with disabled participants as they can afford.
>> 3. Produce a roadmap with timescales and costings to get to what they
>> believe will be an acceptable accessibility level.
>> 4. Keep records of all of this so a court can see there is a genuine
>> intention to achieve an acceptable accessibility level.
>>
>> Furthermore, the plaintiff cannot go directly to court. They must inform
>> you of the problem and give you the opportunity to fix it or provide the
>> information or service by a different means.
>>
>> So, to answer your questions:
>>
>> 1. Yes, usability is more important than WCAG compliance, although I
>> can't
>> recall any site that did well in user testing that was not at least close
>> to achieving WCAG 2.0 AA. The reverse is not the case though.
>>
>> 2. No, people are the same everywhere. The whole world should adopt UK
>> law.
>>
>> 3. Yes, I have seen plenty of websites that achieved high levels of WCAG
>> compliance but were unusable for some user groups. One example is
>> excessively long pages. We tested a website on which a form was about 20
>> screens long and contained several hundred form controls. It was marked
>> up
>> perfectly and passed WCAG 2.0 AA, but it was utterly unusable with a
>> screen
>> reader or screen magnifier.
>>
>> Steve Green
>> Managing Director
>> Test Partners Ltd
>>
>>