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Re: Why was software (user agents and authoring tools) left out of the recent SANPRM for the ADA by the DOJ?

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From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: May 16, 2016 1:00PM

Great comments, Keith.
#1) The US federal government is required to purchase only computer software and hardware that is fully accessible to people using assistive technologies.

You're right, our federal government agencies don't follow the current law!

And our software companies aren't meeting the law, either. Example: how many people on this list consider the "read aloud" utility in Adobe Acrobat a functional, sufficient screen reader? How about the screen reader built into Windows?

With websites, they all are based on the HTML coding, regardless of which authoring tool is used to create the code. So even if the software authoring tool doesn't make a fully accessible website, it can still be hand-coded into compliance with any text editor, even NotePad. It's time-consuming, yes, but at least it's doable.

But that's not the case with documents. We're stuck with whatever we can create with Microsoft and Adobe software tools, especially when governments, educational institutions, and corporations are making the documents.

Think about the billions of government documents created every day.

How easy is it to make each Word, PowerPoint, or Excel document accessible? And InDesign layouts...let's not even discuss the code mess when a PDF is exported from an InDesign layout file, and the amount of money it takes to remediate it into accessibility. The discussion will make every taxpayer sick.

Shouldn't the millions of mere mortals (also known as government employees and contractors) be able to do this without purchasing thousands of dollars worth of software just to fix the documents, or spend hours...even days, making one document fully compliant? Or spend gazillions of dollars outsourcing the accessibility portion to contactors? (FYI, I'm in the middle of bidding on such a job right now.)

And what about the AT that doesn't do the full job for its users?

Or the AT user who doesn't take the time to read the user manual or control the AT?

Going back to the question of the original post: "Why was software (user agents and authoring tools) left out of the recent SANPRM for the ADA by the DOJ?"

Maybe DOJ doesn't fully understand the extend of the problem. I doubt they fully comprehend all the stakeholders' parts in the situation and how they each point fingers at the other, or claim that it will cost billions for them to retrofit their software. Such an undue burden...especially on the CEOs and stockholders.

Since DOJ takes it marching orders from the White House, maybe the current administration doesn't fully understand the problem. Given the presidential directives/recommendations/advisory letters/whatever you want to call them during the past couple of years, I'm thinking that this could be a root cause of the problem.

Maybe the lobbyists for these multi-billion-dollar companies did their job and put some muscle on DOJ.

Just my 2 cents worth as I sit inside the Washington DC Beltway. I'm just as baffled from my insider seat as you are!

—Bevi Chagnon