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Re: FW: HTML - <abbr> and <acronym> settings

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: Mar 23, 2006 10:20AM

ben morrison wrote:
> That's exactly what we all should be doing instead of debating why the
> products don't work.

But this does bring up the question that I have been wondering for some
time - why aren't the screen reader developers ever in these discussions???

By my count, there are two people from the major screen reader development
companies on this list. Two. I'm on the W3C list, the WSG list, and many
others and have yet to see a post from the people that know this product
best, and more importantly, are making the decisions about how it should
work. While it's important that WE have these conversations and pass on
our findings on to them, one would think that their involvement in these
discussions would certainly lead to more action and ultimately better
accessibility.

To demonstrate this problem, I was recently at a major disability
conference and had a discussion with the development lead for one of the
three major screen readers. I brought up a bug that is in screen reader,
and has been for some time. In reply to my comments, he replied, and these
are just about his exact words, "It's not a bug unless it works correctly
in the other two screen readers and not in ours. Document that it's a
feature of those two screen readers and not ours, and then we'll fix it."
Am I crazy for being a little frustrated by this attitude?

But again, here I am being counterproductive, so I'm going to get on the
elevator, go downstairs to another major disability conference, and bring
up this specific issue with their developers right now. I'm glad I could
do my part, but I still wonder what we can do to get them to come to us
instead.

Jared Smith