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Number of posts in this thread: 38 (In chronological order)

From: Lynn Holdsworth
Date: Fri, Feb 06 2015 12:48PM
Subject: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
No previous message | Next message →

Hi all,

If a PDF document forms part of a website, is WCAG2 used to evaluate
its accessibility?

If so, does character encoding come into play, and what checkpoint
should an inappropriate encoding value be failed under?

Thanks as always, Lynn

From: Susan Grossman
Date: Fri, Feb 06 2015 1:02PM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

WCAG 2.0 has standards for PDF's located here:
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/pdf.html

Character encoding was under under Checkpoint 1.5 in WCAG 1.0 (
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG-PDF-TECHS-20010913/#checkpoint1-5 ). Think
it would now fall under PDF7 in 2.0.

Susan



On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 11:48 AM, Lynn Holdsworth < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> If a PDF document forms part of a website, is WCAG2 used to evaluate
> its accessibility?
>
> If so, does character encoding come into play, and what checkpoint
> should an inappropriate encoding value be failed under?
>
> Thanks as always, Lynn
> > > >



--
*Susan R. Grossman*
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =

From: Duff Johnson
Date: Fri, Feb 06 2015 1:25PM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

> WCAG 2.0 has standards for PDF's located here:
> http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/pdf.html

Clarification: these are Techniques, not Standards… a non-trivial distinction.

> Character encoding was under under Checkpoint 1.5 in WCAG 1.0 (
> http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG-PDF-TECHS-20010913/#checkpoint1-5 ). Think
> it would now fall under PDF7 in 2.0.

Character encoding is understood (broadly) as required by SC 1.3.1. If such encoding is not correct the text is not programmatically accessible.

Duff.

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Fri, Feb 06 2015 2:32PM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

Duff is correct; WCAG has only techniques & methods for making accessible PDFs. They are not standards nor guidelines. Far from it!

Because they are not standards, they cannot be used, for example, to assess whether a PDF is in fact accessible. Governments can't formally adopt them into law as they have WCAG itself. You can't file a complaint using techniques to back up your claim because techniques can't hold up in court. So think of what WCAG has published as only suggestions on how to make an accessible PDF.

For better guidance on standards for PDFs, see the PDF/UA Competence Center's website at http://www.pdfa.org/competence-centers/pdfua-competence-center/ You'll learn about the ISO 14289 standard for Universally Accessible PDFs ... a real standard.

And you'll also Duff's smiling mug gracing the website's banner <grin>

--Bevi Chagnon

— — —
Bevi Chagnon | www.PubCom.com
Consultants, Trainers, Designers, and Developers
For publishing technologies
| Acrobat PDF | Digital Media | XML and Automated Workflows
| GPO | Print | Desktop Publishing | Sec. 508 Accessibility | EPUBs
— — —

From: Susan Grossman
Date: Fri, Feb 06 2015 3:19PM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

So I shouldn't be using the WCAG guidelines (and I thought the W3 was a
standards board) at all?

On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 1:32 PM, Chagnon | PubCom < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> Duff is correct; WCAG has only techniques & methods for making accessible
> PDFs. They are not standards nor guidelines. Far from it!
>
> Because they are not standards, they cannot be used, for example, to
> assess whether a PDF is in fact accessible. Governments can't formally
> adopt them into law as they have WCAG itself. You can't file a complaint
> using techniques to back up your claim because techniques can't hold up in
> court. So think of what WCAG has published as only suggestions on how to
> make an accessible PDF.
>
> For better guidance on standards for PDFs, see the PDF/UA Competence
> Center's website at
> http://www.pdfa.org/competence-centers/pdfua-competence-center/ You'll
> learn about the ISO 14289 standard for Universally Accessible PDFs ... a
> real standard.
>
> And you'll also Duff's smiling mug gracing the website's banner <grin>
>
> --Bevi Chagnon
>
> — — —
> Bevi Chagnon | www.PubCom.com
> Consultants, Trainers, Designers, and Developers
> For publishing technologies
> | Acrobat PDF | Digital Media | XML and Automated Workflows
> | GPO | Print | Desktop Publishing | Sec. 508 Accessibility | EPUBs
> — — —
>
>

From: Lynn Holdsworth
Date: Fri, Feb 06 2015 3:41PM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

Thanks guys - this is very useful.

I guess an organisation could choose to require that their PDF's are
tested using WCAG2, so long as they couldn't claim conformance if all
checkpoints are passed.

Best, Lynn

On 06/02/2015, Susan Grossman < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> So I shouldn't be using the WCAG guidelines (and I thought the W3 was a
> standards board) at all?
>
> On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 1:32 PM, Chagnon | PubCom < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
>> Duff is correct; WCAG has only techniques & methods for making accessible
>> PDFs. They are not standards nor guidelines. Far from it!
>>
>> Because they are not standards, they cannot be used, for example, to
>> assess whether a PDF is in fact accessible. Governments can't formally
>> adopt them into law as they have WCAG itself. You can't file a complaint
>> using techniques to back up your claim because techniques can't hold up in
>> court. So think of what WCAG has published as only suggestions on how to
>> make an accessible PDF.
>>
>> For better guidance on standards for PDFs, see the PDF/UA Competence
>> Center's website at
>> http://www.pdfa.org/competence-centers/pdfua-competence-center/ You'll
>> learn about the ISO 14289 standard for Universally Accessible PDFs ... a
>> real standard.
>>
>> And you'll also Duff's smiling mug gracing the website's banner <grin>
>>
>> --Bevi Chagnon
>>
>> — — —
>> Bevi Chagnon | www.PubCom.com
>> Consultants, Trainers, Designers, and Developers
>> For publishing technologies
>> | Acrobat PDF | Digital Media | XML and Automated Workflows
>> | GPO | Print | Desktop Publishing | Sec. 508 Accessibility | EPUBs
>> — — —
>>
>>

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Fri, Feb 06 2015 5:58PM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

Susan wrote: "So I shouldn't be using the WCAG guidelines (and I thought the W3 was a standards board) at all?"

WAI is the standards board for accessibility, under the larger W3C organization.
WCAG are the guidelines developed by the WAI.

It's not that you shouldn't be using the WCAG guidelines for PDFs, it's more that they were written specifically for website/HTML information and many of guidelines don't fit well with PDFs . Remember, when they were initially developed around 2000 (if I recall the dates correctly), they addressed only website information. Office documents and PDFs weren't then -- and still aren't today -- specifically addressed.

Four terms to understand in this discussion:
-- Guidelines, as in "WCAG" means a broad overview of what's trying to be achieved. Sometimes those guidelines apply, sometimes they don't, depending upon the material, file format, content, usage, etc. Quoting from the WCAG website, "The 12 guidelines provide the basic goals that authors should work toward in order to make content more accessible to users with different disabilities. The guidelines are not testable, but provide the framework and overall objectives to help authors understand the success criteria and better implement the techniques." Note the phrase, guidelines are not testable.
-- A standard is a hard and fixed requirement. It's measureable and the content either passes or fails. (Or wins a court case or not, or the owner is fined or not, etc.)
-- A success criteria or checkpoint is a way to test whether a guideline has been met.
-- And a technique is a suggestion as to how the guidelines/standards/success criteria can be met by those who create the content.

So yes, you should still refer to WCAG, but in regards to PDFs, WAI has only given us suggestions and methods, not standards or even guidelines. It's one person's way of doing things (or maybe it was put together by a small group). There are many other "techniques" you could use to achieve the same results.

On the other hand, the PDF UA is an ISO standard; ISO = the International Standards Organization. These are defined standards and thus give us something to assess PDFs, haul people's butts into court, etc. But the PDF US standards have to become more widely accepted and formally adopted by governments and other institutions before they can be applied, and I believe that's what Duff and his crew are working on. Well, I hope they are.

In reviewing WCAG itself, more than half of the guidelines don't apply at all to PDFs for one reason or another, but mostly because we just can do some of those tasks in PDFs. Or in Word documents, for that matter.

One more quirk in all this:
-- W3C sets the standards for HTML, so they can write any standards and guidelines they want to cover websites.
-- But Acrobat PDF is controlled by Adobe, MS Word et al by Microsoft.
So an outsider like the W3C can't tell these 2 corporations what to do with their software and proprietary formats. It's a detente situation: all the players have to come to mutual agreement on these things. Luckily, both Adobe and Microsoft have been fairly decent on this, not perfect, but better than most software companies. Ask anyone how accessible Oracle's software is!

--Bevi Chagnon

From: Loretta Guarino Reid
Date: Fri, Feb 06 2015 6:04PM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 4:58 PM, Chagnon | PubCom < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> Susan wrote: "So I shouldn't be using the WCAG guidelines (and I thought
> the W3 was a standards board) at all?"
>
> WAI is the standards board for accessibility, under the larger W3C
> organization.
> WCAG are the guidelines developed by the WAI.
>
> It's not that you shouldn't be using the WCAG guidelines for PDFs, it's
> more that they were written specifically for website/HTML information and
> many of guidelines don't fit well with PDFs . Remember, when they were
> initially developed around 2000 (if I recall the dates correctly), they
> addressed only website information. Office documents and PDFs weren't then
> -- and still aren't today -- specifically addressed.
>

​WCAG2 was published in December 2008 and is intentionally
format-independent. It is not HTML specific. PDF techniques are included in
the WCAG2 techniques because PDF can also be web content. PDF was included
in the process as the WCAG2 success criteria were being written.


> Four terms to understand in this discussion:
> -- Guidelines, as in "WCAG" means a broad overview of what's trying to be
> achieved. Sometimes those guidelines apply, sometimes they don't, depending
> upon the material, file format, content, usage, etc. Quoting from the WCAG
> website, "The 12 guidelines provide the basic goals that authors should
> work toward in order to make content more accessible to users with
> different disabilities. The guidelines are not testable, but provide the
> framework and overall objectives to help authors understand the success
> criteria and better implement the techniques." Note the phrase, guidelines
> are not testable.
> -- A standard is a hard and fixed requirement. It's measureable and the
> content either passes or fails. (Or wins a court case or not, or the owner
> is fined or not, etc.)
> -- A success criteria or checkpoint is a way to test whether a guideline
> has been met.
> -- And a technique is a suggestion as to how the
> guidelines/standards/success criteria can be met by those who create the
> content.
>
> So yes, you should still refer to WCAG, but in regards to PDFs, WAI has
> only given us suggestions and methods, not standards or even guidelines.
> It's one person's way of doing things (or maybe it was put together by a
> small group). There are many other "techniques" you could use to achieve
> the same results.
>
> On the other hand, the PDF UA is an ISO standard; ISO = the International
> Standards Organization. These are defined standards and thus give us
> something to assess PDFs, haul people's butts into court, etc. But the PDF
> US standards have to become more widely accepted and formally adopted by
> governments and other institutions before they can be applied, and I
> believe that's what Duff and his crew are working on. Well, I hope they are.
>
> In reviewing WCAG itself, more than half of the guidelines don't apply at
> all to PDFs for one reason or another, but mostly because we just can do
> some of those tasks in PDFs. Or in Word documents, for that matter.
>
> One more quirk in all this:
> -- W3C sets the standards for HTML, so they can write any standards and
> guidelines they want to cover websites.
> -- But Acrobat PDF is controlled by Adobe, MS Word et al by Microsoft.
> So an outsider like the W3C can't tell these 2 corporations what to do
> with their software and proprietary formats. It's a detente situation: all
> the players have to come to mutual agreement on these things. Luckily, both
> Adobe and Microsoft have been fairly decent on this, not perfect, but
> better than most software companies. Ask anyone how accessible Oracle's
> software is!
>
> --Bevi Chagnon
>
>
>

From: Ron
Date: Fri, Feb 06 2015 6:13PM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

The W3C is the developer of specifications for web based content. The are
not a standards board.

There are actually several different standards organization's in this space
both domestically and internationally.

You should definitely be using W CAG 2.0 as your guidance for content
delivered via the web but it is incomplete for content delivered via other
mediums.

Ron Stewart
On Feb 6, 2015 6:59 PM, "Chagnon | PubCom" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> Susan wrote: "So I shouldn't be using the WCAG guidelines (and I thought
> the W3 was a standards board) at all?"
>
> WAI is the standards board for accessibility, under the larger W3C
> organization.
> WCAG are the guidelines developed by the WAI.
>
> It's not that you shouldn't be using the WCAG guidelines for PDFs, it's
> more that they were written specifically for website/HTML information and
> many of guidelines don't fit well with PDFs . Remember, when they were
> initially developed around 2000 (if I recall the dates correctly), they
> addressed only website information. Office documents and PDFs weren't then
> -- and still aren't today -- specifically addressed.
>
> Four terms to understand in this discussion:
> -- Guidelines, as in "WCAG" means a broad overview of what's trying to be
> achieved. Sometimes those guidelines apply, sometimes they don't, depending
> upon the material, file format, content, usage, etc. Quoting from the WCAG
> website, "The 12 guidelines provide the basic goals that authors should
> work toward in order to make content more accessible to users with
> different disabilities. The guidelines are not testable, but provide the
> framework and overall objectives to help authors understand the success
> criteria and better implement the techniques." Note the phrase, guidelines
> are not testable.
> -- A standard is a hard and fixed requirement. It's measureable and the
> content either passes or fails. (Or wins a court case or not, or the owner
> is fined or not, etc.)
> -- A success criteria or checkpoint is a way to test whether a guideline
> has been met.
> -- And a technique is a suggestion as to how the
> guidelines/standards/success criteria can be met by those who create the
> content.
>
> So yes, you should still refer to WCAG, but in regards to PDFs, WAI has
> only given us suggestions and methods, not standards or even guidelines.
> It's one person's way of doing things (or maybe it was put together by a
> small group). There are many other "techniques" you could use to achieve
> the same results.
>
> On the other hand, the PDF UA is an ISO standard; ISO = the International
> Standards Organization. These are defined standards and thus give us
> something to assess PDFs, haul people's butts into court, etc. But the PDF
> US standards have to become more widely accepted and formally adopted by
> governments and other institutions before they can be applied, and I
> believe that's what Duff and his crew are working on. Well, I hope they are.
>
> In reviewing WCAG itself, more than half of the guidelines don't apply at
> all to PDFs for one reason or another, but mostly because we just can do
> some of those tasks in PDFs. Or in Word documents, for that matter.
>
> One more quirk in all this:
> -- W3C sets the standards for HTML, so they can write any standards and
> guidelines they want to cover websites.
> -- But Acrobat PDF is controlled by Adobe, MS Word et al by Microsoft.
> So an outsider like the W3C can't tell these 2 corporations what to do
> with their software and proprietary formats. It's a detente situation: all
> the players have to come to mutual agreement on these things. Luckily, both
> Adobe and Microsoft have been fairly decent on this, not perfect, but
> better than most software companies. Ask anyone how accessible Oracle's
> software is!
>
> --Bevi Chagnon
>
>
>

From: John Foliot
Date: Fri, Feb 06 2015 7:21PM
Subject: Re: W3C structure, Standards bodies, and more (was How is PDF accessibility evaluated?)
← Previous message | Next message →

Ron wrote:
>
> The W3C is the developer of specifications for web based content. They
> are not a standards board.

I'm afraid I must correct Ron - the W3C is most certainly a standards creating
organization:

"W3C standards define an Open Web Platform for application development that
has the unprecedented potential to enable developers to build rich interactive
experiences, powered by vast data stores, that are available on any device."
(source: http://www.w3.org/standards/)

The W3C is also recognized as a standards creating body by other such
organizations, and has formal agreements in place with other standards bodies
such as the ISO.
(see: http://www.w3.org/2001/11/StdLiaison#dejure)

To be overly pedantic, the W3C produces "Recommendations", which is simply
their internal nomenclature for Standards, and a visit to the W3C web site
will find multiple references to both terms: http://www.w3.org/standards/faq



> There are actually several different standards organization's in this
> space both domestically and internationally.

Correct, for example IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force - who produce
RFC's - which are their term for standards), ECMA (European Computer
Manufacturers Association - the standards org for JavaScript), SMPTE (Society
of Motion Picture and Television Engineers), AES (Audio Engineering Society),
and others.

Fortunately for us, these organizations are all "friendly" with each other,
and in large organizations it is not surprising to see the same individuals
show up at multiple standards bodies. As well, there are instances of
"cross-body" work, for example the .png graphic format
(http://www.w3.org/TR/PNG/) [if you reference that link, look under "2.
Normative References" to see the inter-mingling of standards bodies and their
standards involved in the PNG standard]


Meanwhile, "Chagnon | PubCom" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> > Susan wrote: "So I shouldn't be using the WCAG guidelines (and I
> > thought the W3 was a standards board) at all?"
> >
> > WAI is the standards board for accessibility, under the larger W3C
> > organization.
> > WCAG are the guidelines developed by the WAI.

Close enough. WAI is a "Program Office" at the W3C chartered to oversee the
"accessibility space" (http://www.w3.org/WAI/IPO/Activity), and multiple
Working Groups are chartered to do the standards development work, overseen by
the WAI Coordination Group (http://www.w3.org/WAI/CG/).

WCAG, and related documents are produced by the Web Content Guidelines Working
Group, who's charter is here: http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/new-charter.html

Non-standards related work coordinated by WAI include Education and Outreach
and the WAI Interest Group, which "maintains a public discussion forum on web
accessibility, provides a forum for exchange of information on web
accessibility..."


> >
> > On the other hand, the PDF UA is an ISO standard; ISO = the
> > International Standards Organization.

Just to be clear, WCAG 2 is an ISO standard as well: ISO/IEC 40500:2012
(http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=58625)

From the ISO: "WCAG 2.0 success criteria are written as testable statements
that are not technology-specific. Guidance about satisfying the success
criteria in specific technologies, as well as general information about
interpreting the success criteria, is provided in separate documents."

> > One more quirk in all this:
> > -- W3C sets the standards for HTML, so they can write any standards
> > and guidelines they want to cover websites.
> > -- But Acrobat PDF is controlled by Adobe, MS Word et al by
> Microsoft.

Actually, the PDF standard has been an open standard since July 1, 2008, and
published by the International Organization for Standardization as ISO
32000-1:2008. While Adobe has contributed significantly to the standard, they
don't "control" it.

As well, Microsoft's Word application produces documents that are based upon
the Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF), and authors can
actually export/save Word Docs with the OTD filename extension. (ODF is also
an ISO Standard)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument


> > So an outsider like the W3C can't tell these 2 corporations what to
> do
> > with their software and proprietary formats.

Correct, but other standards bodies CAN [sic] - the standards exist, but it is
enforcement, especially with regard to creating accessible content in those
formats, that remains the biggest issue. Expecting the W3C to police that mess
however is both unfair to the W3C, and unrealistic.

Again, to be clear, standards bodies, be it the W3C, or any of the other
standards bodies referenced here, are not in the job of policing or enforcing
adherence to their standards - they publish them (and effectively all
standards bodies come to their standards through some form of
agreement/consensus process), and then they encourage users (authors, tool
manufacturers, etc.) to conform to those standards, but no-one is obligated to
do so.

Enforcement to adherence is a legislative responsibility (so get off your
back-end US Access Board), and internally within any organization adoption of,
and adherence to, standards must be a policy decision for that organization,
and monitoring for compliance (and consequences of non-compliance) remain the
responsibility of that organization.

Anyway, if you've made it this far, you've likely learned more than you
thought you wanted to. If you have any questions, happy to try and assist -
you can reply to this email thread or write me off-line.

Cheers!

JF
Standards Weenie First-Class :-)

From: Ron
Date: Fri, Feb 06 2015 7:31PM
Subject: Re: W3C structure, Standards bodies, and more (wasHow is PDF accessibility evaluated?)
← Previous message | Next message →

Standard proposing and standard setting are two very different things. By
the charter of the W3C this is very clear.

As usual the rest of your comments support my comments. And as usual you
have missed the point of my comments.

I am not going to get into another public debate with you on things. The
facts speak for themselves.

Ron Stewart
On Feb 6, 2015 8:23 PM, "John Foliot" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> Ron wrote:
> >
> > The W3C is the developer of specifications for web based content. They
> > are not a standards board.
>
> I'm afraid I must correct Ron - the W3C is most certainly a standards
> creating
> organization:
>
> "W3C standards define an Open Web Platform for application
> development that
> has the unprecedented potential to enable developers to build rich
> interactive
> experiences, powered by vast data stores, that are available on any
> device."
> (source: http://www.w3.org/standards/)
>
> The W3C is also recognized as a standards creating body by other such
> organizations, and has formal agreements in place with other standards
> bodies
> such as the ISO.
> (see: http://www.w3.org/2001/11/StdLiaison#dejure)
>
> To be overly pedantic, the W3C produces "Recommendations", which is simply
> their internal nomenclature for Standards, and a visit to the W3C web site
> will find multiple references to both terms:
> http://www.w3.org/standards/faq
>
>
>
> > There are actually several different standards organization's in this
> > space both domestically and internationally.
>
> Correct, for example IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force - who produce
> RFC's - which are their term for standards), ECMA (European Computer
> Manufacturers Association - the standards org for JavaScript), SMPTE
> (Society
> of Motion Picture and Television Engineers), AES (Audio Engineering
> Society),
> and others.
>
> Fortunately for us, these organizations are all "friendly" with each other,
> and in large organizations it is not surprising to see the same individuals
> show up at multiple standards bodies. As well, there are instances of
> "cross-body" work, for example the .png graphic format
> (http://www.w3.org/TR/PNG/) [if you reference that link, look under "2.
> Normative References" to see the inter-mingling of standards bodies and
> their
> standards involved in the PNG standard]
>
>
> Meanwhile, "Chagnon | PubCom" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> >
> > > Susan wrote: "So I shouldn't be using the WCAG guidelines (and I
> > > thought the W3 was a standards board) at all?"
> > >
> > > WAI is the standards board for accessibility, under the larger W3C
> > > organization.
> > > WCAG are the guidelines developed by the WAI.
>
> Close enough. WAI is a "Program Office" at the W3C chartered to oversee the
> "accessibility space" (http://www.w3.org/WAI/IPO/Activity), and multiple
> Working Groups are chartered to do the standards development work,
> overseen by
> the WAI Coordination Group (http://www.w3.org/WAI/CG/).
>
> WCAG, and related documents are produced by the Web Content Guidelines
> Working
> Group, who's charter is here: http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/new-charter.html
>
> Non-standards related work coordinated by WAI include Education and
> Outreach
> and the WAI Interest Group, which "maintains a public discussion forum on
> web
> accessibility, provides a forum for exchange of information on web
> accessibility..."
>
>
> > >
> > > On the other hand, the PDF UA is an ISO standard; ISO = the
> > > International Standards Organization.
>
> Just to be clear, WCAG 2 is an ISO standard as well: ISO/IEC 40500:2012
> (
> http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=58625
> )
>
> From the ISO: "WCAG 2.0 success criteria are written as testable statements
> that are not technology-specific. Guidance about satisfying the success
> criteria in specific technologies, as well as general information about
> interpreting the success criteria, is provided in separate documents."
>
> > > One more quirk in all this:
> > > -- W3C sets the standards for HTML, so they can write any standards
> > > and guidelines they want to cover websites.
> > > -- But Acrobat PDF is controlled by Adobe, MS Word et al by
> > Microsoft.
>
> Actually, the PDF standard has been an open standard since July 1, 2008,
> and
> published by the International Organization for Standardization as ISO
> 32000-1:2008. While Adobe has contributed significantly to the standard,
> they
> don't "control" it.
>
> As well, Microsoft's Word application produces documents that are based
> upon
> the Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF), and authors can
> actually export/save Word Docs with the OTD filename extension. (ODF is
> also
> an ISO Standard)
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument
>
>
> > > So an outsider like the W3C can't tell these 2 corporations what to
> > do
> > > with their software and proprietary formats.
>
> Correct, but other standards bodies CAN [sic] - the standards exist, but
> it is
> enforcement, especially with regard to creating accessible content in those
> formats, that remains the biggest issue. Expecting the W3C to police that
> mess
> however is both unfair to the W3C, and unrealistic.
>
> Again, to be clear, standards bodies, be it the W3C, or any of the other
> standards bodies referenced here, are not in the job of policing or
> enforcing
> adherence to their standards - they publish them (and effectively all
> standards bodies come to their standards through some form of
> agreement/consensus process), and then they encourage users (authors, tool
> manufacturers, etc.) to conform to those standards, but no-one is
> obligated to
> do so.
>
> Enforcement to adherence is a legislative responsibility (so get off your
> back-end US Access Board), and internally within any organization adoption
> of,
> and adherence to, standards must be a policy decision for that
> organization,
> and monitoring for compliance (and consequences of non-compliance) remain
> the
> responsibility of that organization.
>
> Anyway, if you've made it this far, you've likely learned more than you
> thought you wanted to. If you have any questions, happy to try and assist -
> you can reply to this email thread or write me off-line.
>
> Cheers!
>
> JF
> Standards Weenie First-Class :-)
>
>
> > > >

From: John Foliot
Date: Fri, Feb 06 2015 7:56PM
Subject: Re: W3C structure, Standards bodies, and more (wasHow is PDF accessibility evaluated?)
← Previous message | Next message →

Ron wrote:
>
> Standard proposing and standard setting are two very different things.
> By the charter of the W3C this is very clear.

Standard "setting" is a legislative function - and to be clear the
legislative process can either adopt an existing "standard" (WCAG 2) or
create their own it they choose (Section 508, UK's BS 8878:2010). In that
regard, the W3C is not involved. Technical Standards creation however very
much is the role of the W3C.


>
> As usual the rest of your comments support my comments. And as usual
> you have missed the point of my comments.

What is/was your point? That the W3C isn't the same as the U.S. Access
Board? OK, agreed. But the W3C DOES create standards, a point that your
comment obfuscated. "Boards" is a very US-centric term, and other
legislative constructs for implementing and enforcing standards (technical
or otherwise) exist in locales outside of the USA, and even then that is
with regard to legal remedies for non-compliance (important in the
accessibility space).

However organizations *can* adopt standards unrelated to legal obligations,
and as I noted, enforcement and consequences of non-compliance are not the
responsibility of the standard, nor of its originating standards body.

>
> I am not going to get into another public debate with you on things.
> The facts speak for themselves.

Wow Ron, calm down. What facts did you offer? I explained, and provided
links. Clarification for all is a good thing, no?

JF

>
> Ron Stewart
> On Feb 6, 2015 8:23 PM, "John Foliot" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> > Ron wrote:
> > >
> > > The W3C is the developer of specifications for web based content.
> > > They are not a standards board.
> >
> > I'm afraid I must correct Ron - the W3C is most certainly a standards
> > creating
> > organization:
> >
> > "W3C standards define an Open Web Platform for application
> > development that has the unprecedented potential to enable developers
> > to build rich interactive experiences, powered by vast data stores,
> > that are available on any device."
> > (source: http://www.w3.org/standards/)
> >
> > The W3C is also recognized as a standards creating body by other such
> > organizations, and has formal agreements in place with other
> standards
> > bodies such as the ISO.
> > (see: http://www.w3.org/2001/11/StdLiaison#dejure)
> >
> > To be overly pedantic, the W3C produces "Recommendations", which is
> > simply their internal nomenclature for Standards, and a visit to the
> > W3C web site will find multiple references to both terms:
> > http://www.w3.org/standards/faq
> >
> >
> >
> > > There are actually several different standards organization's in
> > > this space both domestically and internationally.
> >
> > Correct, for example IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force - who
> > produce RFC's - which are their term for standards), ECMA (European
> > Computer Manufacturers Association - the standards org for
> > JavaScript), SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television
> > Engineers), AES (Audio Engineering Society), and others.
> >
> > Fortunately for us, these organizations are all "friendly" with each
> > other, and in large organizations it is not surprising to see the
> same
> > individuals show up at multiple standards bodies. As well, there are
> > instances of "cross-body" work, for example the .png graphic format
> > (http://www.w3.org/TR/PNG/) [if you reference that link, look under
> "2.
> > Normative References" to see the inter-mingling of standards bodies
> > and their standards involved in the PNG standard]
> >
> >
> > Meanwhile, "Chagnon | PubCom" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Susan wrote: "So I shouldn't be using the WCAG guidelines (and I
> > > > thought the W3 was a standards board) at all?"
> > > >
> > > > WAI is the standards board for accessibility, under the larger
> W3C
> > > > organization.
> > > > WCAG are the guidelines developed by the WAI.
> >
> > Close enough. WAI is a "Program Office" at the W3C chartered to
> > oversee the "accessibility space"
> > (http://www.w3.org/WAI/IPO/Activity), and multiple Working Groups are
> > chartered to do the standards development work, overseen by the WAI
> > Coordination Group (http://www.w3.org/WAI/CG/).
> >
> > WCAG, and related documents are produced by the Web Content
> Guidelines
> > Working Group, who's charter is here:
> > http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/new-charter.html
> >
> > Non-standards related work coordinated by WAI include Education and
> > Outreach and the WAI Interest Group, which "maintains a public
> > discussion forum on web accessibility, provides a forum for exchange
> > of information on web accessibility..."
> >
> >
> > > >
> > > > On the other hand, the PDF UA is an ISO standard; ISO = the
> > > > International Standards Organization.
> >
> > Just to be clear, WCAG 2 is an ISO standard as well: ISO/IEC
> > 40500:2012 (
> >
> http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm
> > ?csnumber=58625
> > )
> >
> > From the ISO: "WCAG 2.0 success criteria are written as testable
> > statements that are not technology-specific. Guidance about
> satisfying
> > the success criteria in specific technologies, as well as general
> > information about interpreting the success criteria, is provided in
> separate documents."
> >
> > > > One more quirk in all this:
> > > > -- W3C sets the standards for HTML, so they can write any
> > > > standards and guidelines they want to cover websites.
> > > > -- But Acrobat PDF is controlled by Adobe, MS Word et al by
> > > Microsoft.
> >
> > Actually, the PDF standard has been an open standard since July 1,
> > 2008, and published by the International Organization for
> > Standardization as ISO 32000-1:2008. While Adobe has contributed
> > significantly to the standard, they don't "control" it.
> >
> > As well, Microsoft's Word application produces documents that are
> > based upon the Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF),
> and
> > authors can actually export/save Word Docs with the OTD filename
> > extension. (ODF is also an ISO Standard)
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument
> >
> >
> > > > So an outsider like the W3C can't tell these 2 corporations what
> > > > to
> > > do
> > > > with their software and proprietary formats.
> >
> > Correct, but other standards bodies CAN [sic] - the standards exist,
> > but it is enforcement, especially with regard to creating accessible
> > content in those formats, that remains the biggest issue. Expecting
> > the W3C to police that mess however is both unfair to the W3C, and
> > unrealistic.
> >
> > Again, to be clear, standards bodies, be it the W3C, or any of the
> > other standards bodies referenced here, are not in the job of
> policing
> > or enforcing adherence to their standards - they publish them (and
> > effectively all standards bodies come to their standards through some
> > form of agreement/consensus process), and then they encourage users
> > (authors, tool manufacturers, etc.) to conform to those standards,
> but
> > no-one is obligated to do so.
> >
> > Enforcement to adherence is a legislative responsibility (so get off
> > your back-end US Access Board), and internally within any
> organization
> > adoption of, and adherence to, standards must be a policy decision
> for
> > that organization, and monitoring for compliance (and consequences of
> > non-compliance) remain the responsibility of that organization.
> >
> > Anyway, if you've made it this far, you've likely learned more than
> > you thought you wanted to. If you have any questions, happy to try
> and
> > assist - you can reply to this email thread or write me off-line.
> >
> > Cheers!
> >
> > JF
> > Standards Weenie First-Class :-)
> >
> >
> > > > > > list messages to = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> >
> > > messages to = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =

From: Ron Stewart
Date: Fri, Feb 06 2015 8:37PM
Subject: Re: W3C structure, Standards bodies, and more (wasHow is PDF accessibility evaluated?)
← Previous message | Next message →

Not sure why I am bothering at this point. There are those of us who actually try to solve problems such as the discussion that originally started this thread. Instead of focusing their energies on esoteric conversations that at the end of the day don't deliver a pragmatic answer to the question being posed. What comes to mind at this point is the longdesc battle, or the abandonment of XHTML which were both very detrimental to the end user who was trying to get what they needed at the end of the day.



If the original poster would like to contact me directly. I would be more than happy to help you work through your dilemma since it is something I deal with on a regular basis in my work with developers and delivers in the higher education space. On a regular basis I deal with the issues of web, vs. digital, curriculum vs. legal requirements in this space and it is a very murky space. I find that instead of worrying about nuance and the end of the day it is about getting the person the material they need in a way that they can use it.



Ron Stewart

= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =



From: Ron [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ]
Sent: Friday, February 06, 2015 8:31 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] W3C structure, Standards bodies, and more (was RE: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?)



Standard proposing and standard setting are two very different things. By the charter of the W3C this is very clear.

As usual the rest of your comments support my comments. And as usual you have missed the point of my comments.

I am not going to get into another public debate with you on things. The facts speak for themselves.

Ron Stewart

On Feb 6, 2015 8:23 PM, "John Foliot" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

Ron wrote:
>
> The W3C is the developer of specifications for web based content. They
> are not a standards board.

I'm afraid I must correct Ron - the W3C is most certainly a standards creating
organization:

"W3C standards define an Open Web Platform for application development that
has the unprecedented potential to enable developers to build rich interactive
experiences, powered by vast data stores, that are available on any device."
(source: http://www.w3.org/standards/)

The W3C is also recognized as a standards creating body by other such
organizations, and has formal agreements in place with other standards bodies
such as the ISO.
(see: http://www.w3.org/2001/11/StdLiaison#dejure)

To be overly pedantic, the W3C produces "Recommendations", which is simply
their internal nomenclature for Standards, and a visit to the W3C web site
will find multiple references to both terms: http://www.w3.org/standards/faq



> There are actually several different standards organization's in this
> space both domestically and internationally.

Correct, for example IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force - who produce
RFC's - which are their term for standards), ECMA (European Computer
Manufacturers Association - the standards org for JavaScript), SMPTE (Society
of Motion Picture and Television Engineers), AES (Audio Engineering Society),
and others.

Fortunately for us, these organizations are all "friendly" with each other,
and in large organizations it is not surprising to see the same individuals
show up at multiple standards bodies. As well, there are instances of
"cross-body" work, for example the .png graphic format
(http://www.w3.org/TR/PNG/) [if you reference that link, look under "2.
Normative References" to see the inter-mingling of standards bodies and their
standards involved in the PNG standard]


Meanwhile, "Chagnon | PubCom" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> > Susan wrote: "So I shouldn't be using the WCAG guidelines (and I
> > thought the W3 was a standards board) at all?"
> >
> > WAI is the standards board for accessibility, under the larger W3C
> > organization.
> > WCAG are the guidelines developed by the WAI.

Close enough. WAI is a "Program Office" at the W3C chartered to oversee the
"accessibility space" (http://www.w3.org/WAI/IPO/Activity), and multiple
Working Groups are chartered to do the standards development work, overseen by
the WAI Coordination Group (http://www.w3.org/WAI/CG/).

WCAG, and related documents are produced by the Web Content Guidelines Working
Group, who's charter is here: http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/new-charter.html

Non-standards related work coordinated by WAI include Education and Outreach
and the WAI Interest Group, which "maintains a public discussion forum on web
accessibility, provides a forum for exchange of information on web
accessibility..."


> >
> > On the other hand, the PDF UA is an ISO standard; ISO = the
> > International Standards Organization.

Just to be clear, WCAG 2 is an ISO standard as well: ISO/IEC 40500:2012
(http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumberX625)

From the ISO: "WCAG 2.0 success criteria are written as testable statements
that are not technology-specific. Guidance about satisfying the success
criteria in specific technologies, as well as general information about
interpreting the success criteria, is provided in separate documents."

> > One more quirk in all this:
> > -- W3C sets the standards for HTML, so they can write any standards
> > and guidelines they want to cover websites.
> > -- But Acrobat PDF is controlled by Adobe, MS Word et al by
> Microsoft.

Actually, the PDF standard has been an open standard since July 1, 2008, and
published by the International Organization for Standardization as ISO
32000-1:2008. While Adobe has contributed significantly to the standard, they
don't "control" it.

As well, Microsoft's Word application produces documents that are based upon
the Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF), and authors can
actually export/save Word Docs with the OTD filename extension. (ODF is also
an ISO Standard)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument


> > So an outsider like the W3C can't tell these 2 corporations what to
> do
> > with their software and proprietary formats.

Correct, but other standards bodies CAN [sic] - the standards exist, but it is
enforcement, especially with regard to creating accessible content in those
formats, that remains the biggest issue. Expecting the W3C to police that mess
however is both unfair to the W3C, and unrealistic.

Again, to be clear, standards bodies, be it the W3C, or any of the other
standards bodies referenced here, are not in the job of policing or enforcing
adherence to their standards - they publish them (and effectively all
standards bodies come to their standards through some form of
agreement/consensus process), and then they encourage users (authors, tool
manufacturers, etc.) to conform to those standards, but no-one is obligated to
do so.

Enforcement to adherence is a legislative responsibility (so get off your
back-end US Access Board), and internally within any organization adoption of,
and adherence to, standards must be a policy decision for that organization,
and monitoring for compliance (and consequences of non-compliance) remain the
responsibility of that organization.

Anyway, if you've made it this far, you've likely learned more than you
thought you wanted to. If you have any questions, happy to try and assist -
you can reply to this email thread or write me off-line.

Cheers!

JF
Standards Weenie First-Class :-)

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Fri, Feb 06 2015 10:10PM
Subject: Re: W3C structure, Standards bodies, and more (was How is PDF accessibility evaluated?)
← Previous message | Next message →

Thanks for catching those details, John (JF).
I'll refrain from more discussion about who controls what at the ISO as it's
not for this public discussion.

I think we all agree on one issue:
There are a lot of standards-writing organizations (boards, committees,
whatever), but none of those standards can be enforced until someone adopts
them, such as through government legislation that mandates adhering to
particular standards.

And those of us in the US probably unanimously agree on another:
Please please please, US Access Board, get the 508 refresh out!
This is a huge embarrassment. We have the tools and software to make most
documents fully accessible, without blowing the US budget. It's "do-able."

--Bevi Chagnon

From: John Foliot
Date: Fri, Feb 06 2015 10:26PM
Subject: Re: W3C structure, Standards bodies, and more (was How is PDF accessibility evaluated?)
← Previous message | Next message →

Chagnon | PubCom wrote:
>
> Thanks for catching those details, John (JF).

NP, and really, it was only to be specific about the roles we and they all
play.

> I'll refrain from more discussion about who controls what at the ISO as
> it's not for this public discussion.

I'll agree that it is off-topic at this point, however at some level I think
that it is important that we all have a basic understanding of how all the
pieces fit together. And if anyone ever wants to ask a question in that
realm, they can contact me directly, and I'll try to help.

>
> I think we all agree on one issue:
> There are a lot of standards-writing organizations (boards, committees,
> whatever), but none of those standards can be enforced until someone
> adopts them, such as through government legislation that mandates
> adhering to particular standards.

Yep.

>
> And those of us in the US probably unanimously agree on another:
> Please please please, US Access Board, get the 508 refresh out!
> This is a huge embarrassment. We have the tools and software to make
> most documents fully accessible, without blowing the US budget. It's
> "do-able."

Agreed! It will be interesting to see how hot a topic this will be at this
year's CSUN.

JF

From: Karlen Communications
Date: Sat, Feb 07 2015 4:04AM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

I am going to reluctantly wade into the fray and then back out of it.

I am, and those of us on the various PDF/UA committees for our countries are advocating for the adoption of PDF/UA into legislation and genral "this is what an accessible PDF is" standard. I am on the Canadian committee and have been for many years. I also use adaptive technology.

I look at inclusion from a global perspective and the Incheon Strategy to Make the Right Real in the Asia Pacific Region which is a strategy to implement the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities states that for digital content international standards are to be implemented. This is quite progressive and allows for the immediate adoption and implementation of standards as they are developed.

In terms of the Access Board "standards" or guidelines or best practices, I have some serious concerns about the direction they are headed or it looks like they are implementing. I was at a webinar this past week and was gobsmacked to hear them recommend as a standard/guideline/best practice/requirement that tables be used for design layout in Word, that text boxes be used in Word instead of formatted styles and that the null attribute be used for decorative images in Word documents.

One person did ask if the null attribute worked the same way in Word as it did in HTML and the response was telling in terms of an understanding of how standards/guidelines/requirements are being perceived and even knowledge about accessible document design in general. The answer from the people who created this training and guidance/requirements was that it didn't work in Word but it was a WCAG requirement/technique so it was included in their new standard/guidelines/requirements.

I used the slash to separate the terms standard/guidelines/requirements/best practice because during the 90 minute webinar these terms were used interchangeably and I still don't know if these are going to be what the Access Board and Department of Education as well as federal agencies are going to mandate be put in place and accepted.

This training/requirements/guidelines/standards/best practices were developed by a small group and the focus seems to be on those using screen readers and not really paying attention to what we know is and isn't accessible or even good document design. There is also no mechanism for anyone outside of the committee that created these standards/guidelines/ requirements/best practices to comment or help them reshape their documentation.

I am a Microsoft MVP for Word and a Microsoft Accessibility MVP. I know that work has been done to make text boxes in Word more accessible and although progress has been made, access is still hit and miss in terms of the adaptive technology. It also appears that the material developed by/for the Access Board and Department of Education is not thinking of backward compatibility even to Word 2007. The example they gave for using tables for design layout is actually a good example of where Tab Stops should be used to optimize the content for accessibility.

...and the next webinar and set of standards/guidelines/requirements/best practices are on accessible PDF!!!!!!

As someone who has been working in this field for over a decade, has written books on creating and working with accessible PDF, Word and PowerPoint as well as general accessible document design and done a lot of training and workshops at conferences, and someone who depends on adaptive technology to access digital content, I am really concerned that adoption of these standards/guidelines/requirements/best practices are going to create more inaccessible content that will need remediation before it is accessible.

Going back to the PDF part of this discussion. PDF/UA gives us the tool to answer the question "what do you mean by or want in an accessible PDF? We can now say, it has to be PDF/UA compliant. We don't really care how you get there, but this is where you need to end up.

To add more fuel to the discussion, here is a link to an interview I've done in advance of my PDF/UA session at CSUN.
http://www.accessiq.org/news/features/2015/02/accessible-pdfs-and-the-potential-of-pdfua

Backing out of the fray now and skulking in the background. Nice to hear from you Loretta!

Cheers, Karen

From: Katie Haritos-Shea
Date: Sat, Feb 07 2015 5:14AM
Subject: Re: W3C structure, Standards bodies, and more (wasHow is PDF accessibility evaluated?)
← Previous message | Next message →

Just as an aside. You might actually want to get off the back of the US
Access Board - they are awaiting on the oversight and approval of their
proposed new standards' financial/budgetary implementation by OMB. There
are still a few more steps before a final rule is published in the Federal
Register - which in the US government space is the official launch of a new
standard or regulation.

* katie *

Katie Haritos-Shea @ GMAIL
On Feb 7, 2015 12:27 AM, "John Foliot" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> Chagnon | PubCom wrote:
> >
> > Thanks for catching those details, John (JF).
>
> NP, and really, it was only to be specific about the roles we and they all
> play.
>
> > I'll refrain from more discussion about who controls what at the ISO as
> > it's not for this public discussion.
>
> I'll agree that it is off-topic at this point, however at some level I
> think
> that it is important that we all have a basic understanding of how all the
> pieces fit together. And if anyone ever wants to ask a question in that
> realm, they can contact me directly, and I'll try to help.
>
> >
> > I think we all agree on one issue:
> > There are a lot of standards-writing organizations (boards, committees,
> > whatever), but none of those standards can be enforced until someone
> > adopts them, such as through government legislation that mandates
> > adhering to particular standards.
>
> Yep.
>
> >
> > And those of us in the US probably unanimously agree on another:
> > Please please please, US Access Board, get the 508 refresh out!
> > This is a huge embarrassment. We have the tools and software to make
> > most documents fully accessible, without blowing the US budget. It's
> > "do-able."
>
> Agreed! It will be interesting to see how hot a topic this will be at this
> year's CSUN.
>
> JF
>
>
> > > >

From: Susan Grossman
Date: Sat, Feb 07 2015 6:59AM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

This conversation has been both incredibly helpful and a bit confusing.
And thank you for the interview link.

I should state up front that I validate PDF's based on corporate standards
that were created from the WCAG 1.0 & 2.0 PDF techniques, and some US
State and University guidelines and Medicare requirements. When validating,
there's a series of visual, hand and validator tests/tasks (including color
analysis) before listening to and testing short-cut keys in JAWS. Among
many things we look for semantic tagging, clarity in alt tags, that
repetitive text (like a common footer) is set as backgrounds after one
instance, that table headers are read out in cells, languages inline are
set correctly, and so forth.

Like others have mentioned, my original knowledge came from seminars years
ago, and reading articles/other materials. Was taught that accessibility
can be subjective, there's an end goal to be all inclusive, and there are
guidelines to help you reach that goal with some suggested methods.
Methods can vary as long as the goals are met. And I have used the W3C
guidelines to help understand the goals. And yes, "standards",
"guidelines", and other terms are used a bit similarly along with W3C and
WAI as being synonymous bodies, as pointed out by others as incorrect.

Was never exposed to PDF/UA and did not realize that what I've been
considering as an accessible PDF, may not actually meet all requirements
and that training I've done based on the above may not be adequate.

Luckily we teach marketers to create Word and other documents initially as
accessible as possible. Tables for tabular data only and using headers,
using columns, think about their heading levels, setting language in the
properties, etc. So at least we have it together there.

Thanks - Susan



On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 3:04 AM, Karlen Communications <
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> I am going to reluctantly wade into the fray and then back out of it.
>
> I am, and those of us on the various PDF/UA committees for our countries
> are advocating for the adoption of PDF/UA into legislation and genral "this
> is what an accessible PDF is" standard. I am on the Canadian committee and
> have been for many years. I also use adaptive technology.
>
> I look at inclusion from a global perspective and the Incheon Strategy to
> Make the Right Real in the Asia Pacific Region which is a strategy to
> implement the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities states
> that for digital content international standards are to be implemented.
> This is quite progressive and allows for the immediate adoption and
> implementation of standards as they are developed.
>
> In terms of the Access Board "standards" or guidelines or best practices,
> I have some serious concerns about the direction they are headed or it
> looks like they are implementing. I was at a webinar this past week and was
> gobsmacked to hear them recommend as a standard/guideline/best
> practice/requirement that tables be used for design layout in Word, that
> text boxes be used in Word instead of formatted styles and that the null
> attribute be used for decorative images in Word documents.
>
> One person did ask if the null attribute worked the same way in Word as it
> did in HTML and the response was telling in terms of an understanding of
> how standards/guidelines/requirements are being perceived and even
> knowledge about accessible document design in general. The answer from the
> people who created this training and guidance/requirements was that it
> didn't work in Word but it was a WCAG requirement/technique so it was
> included in their new standard/guidelines/requirements.
>
> I used the slash to separate the terms
> standard/guidelines/requirements/best practice because during the 90 minute
> webinar these terms were used interchangeably and I still don't know if
> these are going to be what the Access Board and Department of Education as
> well as federal agencies are going to mandate be put in place and accepted.
>
> This training/requirements/guidelines/standards/best practices were
> developed by a small group and the focus seems to be on those using screen
> readers and not really paying attention to what we know is and isn't
> accessible or even good document design. There is also no mechanism for
> anyone outside of the committee that created these standards/guidelines/
> requirements/best practices to comment or help them reshape their
> documentation.
>
> I am a Microsoft MVP for Word and a Microsoft Accessibility MVP. I know
> that work has been done to make text boxes in Word more accessible and
> although progress has been made, access is still hit and miss in terms of
> the adaptive technology. It also appears that the material developed by/for
> the Access Board and Department of Education is not thinking of backward
> compatibility even to Word 2007. The example they gave for using tables for
> design layout is actually a good example of where Tab Stops should be used
> to optimize the content for accessibility.
>
> ...and the next webinar and set of standards/guidelines/requirements/best
> practices are on accessible PDF!!!!!!
>
> As someone who has been working in this field for over a decade, has
> written books on creating and working with accessible PDF, Word and
> PowerPoint as well as general accessible document design and done a lot of
> training and workshops at conferences, and someone who depends on adaptive
> technology to access digital content, I am really concerned that adoption
> of these standards/guidelines/requirements/best practices are going to
> create more inaccessible content that will need remediation before it is
> accessible.
>
> Going back to the PDF part of this discussion. PDF/UA gives us the tool to
> answer the question "what do you mean by or want in an accessible PDF? We
> can now say, it has to be PDF/UA compliant. We don't really care how you
> get there, but this is where you need to end up.
>
> To add more fuel to the discussion, here is a link to an interview I've
> done in advance of my PDF/UA session at CSUN.
>
> http://www.accessiq.org/news/features/2015/02/accessible-pdfs-and-the-potential-of-pdfua
>
> Backing out of the fray now and skulking in the background. Nice to hear
> from you Loretta!
>
> Cheers, Karen
>
>
>

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Sat, Feb 07 2015 12:34PM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

Karen wrote: "I was at a webinar this past week and was gobsmacked to hear them recommend as a standard/guideline/best practice/requirement that tables be used for design layout in Word, that text boxes be used in Word instead of formatted styles and that the null attribute be used for decorative images in Word documents."

Karen, thanks so much for your review of the Access Board's webinar last week.

I am shocked, no, make that gobsmacked, to hear this. Using tables for page layout is extremely shortsighted because not only is it highly unlikely that tables will provide accessibility in both Word and the PDF, but they foul up the entire publishing workflow.

Roughly 75% of government Word documents (looking at US federal documents) are exported to some other format. So, what starts in Word, ends up in one or more of the following formats:

1) PDF for websites and electronic distribution.
2) PDF for press, which has a very different set of technical requirements.
3) Imported into Adobe InDesign or another desktop publishing program for highly-designed layout.
4) Exported into an ePUB/eBook format.
5) Converted to XML, HTML, and other mark-up languages for use in websites, streaming, feeds, and other dynamic content.
6) Stored in a content management system (CMS).

If a Word document contains tables for layout, then the folks creating numbers 3 through 6 are S O L (translation, "sheet" out of luck).

This is not the way to get standards adopted. No one with experience in any facet of publishing and communications will start using tables for page layout in Word because doing so will cost them their job. I'll be kind and just say that whoever developed that recommendation had only a very narrow understanding of what happens to content and data in the real world of communications.

And re: the null attribute for graphics in Word...Is this even possible to do? Having been a Word expert since version 1 for DOS, I haven't seen this feature yet in MS Word. If I'm wrong, please let me and others know!

Gobsmacked. Thanks Karen for bringing back fond memories of a British colleague who used it daily. Translation, it's a lovely British-ism for astounding...to the n-th degree!

--Bevi Chagnon

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Sat, Feb 07 2015 3:00PM
Subject: Re: W3C structure, Standards bodies, and more (wasHow is PDF accessibility evaluated?)
← Previous message | Next message →

Katie wrote: "...You might actually want to get off the back of the US
Access Board..."

No. I won't. We should have been at this point a few years ago.
Having been a publishing consultant to all US Federal government publishing
offices for 40 years, I have to honestly say that the Access Board has acted
at a snail's pace.
Slowest.
Speed.
Ever.

I have several family members, close friends, colleagues, and clients with
disabilities that include pretty much everything covered by Sec. 508. It
sickens me to see them struggle year and year while they wait for the
revised guidelines to give them equal access to information for both their
personal and work lives.

Reviewing the timeline, which is excerpted from the Access Board's website:
- February 3, 1998 - Board publishes original Telecommunications Act
Accessibility Guidelines.
- December 21, 2000 - Board issues original Section 508 Standards.
- March 22, 2010 - Board releases draft ICT proposed rule to update the
Section 508 standards and Telecommunications Act guidelines.
- December 8, 2011 - Revised draft proposed rule released for comment.
- February 23, 2014 - Proposed rule submitted to the Office of Management
and Budget (OMB) for review (OMB has 90 days to complete its review).

It is now 15 years and 2 months after the first Sec. 508 standards and we
are still waiting for it to be fixed. Per law, we must follow
regulations/standards/guidelines that are 15 years out of date and no longer
reflect today's technology and people's needs.

If OMB had 90 days from last February - one year ago - to review the draft,
what's stalling the process 9 months later?
Why, in the first place, did it take the Access Board 14 years to develop
the revised standards now under review?
Since OMB is under direct White House control, is there any chance we'll see
new standards by the time President Obama leaves office in 2 years? I worry
what our chances will be with the successor White House administration.

I don't make these comments off the top of my head.
I speak as someone who has worked inside countless US federal agencies and
helped them publish millions (and probably billions) of pages of government
regulations, legislation, and public documents.

I don't understand why it's taking so long for the 508 Refresh. Yes, it's a
complex issue, but not nearly as complex by, say, EPA regulations. Yes, the
standards have to go through legally mandated procedures and review. But
it's 4 years and 2 months since the 2011 draft (the latest one that's
public).
Why.
So.
Long?

If OMB is the bottleneck, maybe we ordinary citizens should organize a
protest in front of their offices near the White House. Can you imagine the
PR? A few hundred disabled Americans chanting, "Hell no we won't go, until
you give us the 508 refresh!" OK, the rhyme needs some work. But I can get
all the major news outlets to cover event, local and national. That could
move the 508 Refresh up to the top of the stack of paper on someone's desk!

--Bevi Chagnon
(Proud US citizen, but still not a happy 508-camper)
(And apologies for the Washington shoptalk)

From: Cliff Tyllick
Date: Sat, Feb 07 2015 10:55PM
Subject: Re: W3C structure, Standards bodies, and more (wasHow is PDF accessibility evaluated?)
← Previous message | Next message →

Go, Bevi!

And thanks for the shoptalk—it's great to hear that perspective.

Cliff Tyllick

Sent from my iPad

> On Feb 7, 2015, at 4:00 PM, Chagnon | PubCom < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> Katie wrote: "...You might actually want to get off the back of the US
> Access Board..."
>
> No. I won't. We should have been at this point a few years ago.
> Having been a publishing consultant to all US Federal government publishing
> offices for 40 years, I have to honestly say that the Access Board has acted
> at a snail's pace.
> Slowest.
> Speed.
> Ever.
>
> I have several family members, close friends, colleagues, and clients with
> disabilities that include pretty much everything covered by Sec. 508. It
> sickens me to see them struggle year and year while they wait for the
> revised guidelines to give them equal access to information for both their
> personal and work lives.
>
> Reviewing the timeline, which is excerpted from the Access Board's website:
> - February 3, 1998 - Board publishes original Telecommunications Act
> Accessibility Guidelines.
> - December 21, 2000 - Board issues original Section 508 Standards.
> - March 22, 2010 - Board releases draft ICT proposed rule to update the
> Section 508 standards and Telecommunications Act guidelines.
> - December 8, 2011 - Revised draft proposed rule released for comment.
> - February 23, 2014 - Proposed rule submitted to the Office of Management
> and Budget (OMB) for review (OMB has 90 days to complete its review).
>
> It is now 15 years and 2 months after the first Sec. 508 standards and we
> are still waiting for it to be fixed. Per law, we must follow
> regulations/standards/guidelines that are 15 years out of date and no longer
> reflect today's technology and people's needs.
>
> If OMB had 90 days from last February - one year ago - to review the draft,
> what's stalling the process 9 months later?
> Why, in the first place, did it take the Access Board 14 years to develop
> the revised standards now under review?
> Since OMB is under direct White House control, is there any chance we'll see
> new standards by the time President Obama leaves office in 2 years? I worry
> what our chances will be with the successor White House administration.
>
> I don't make these comments off the top of my head.
> I speak as someone who has worked inside countless US federal agencies and
> helped them publish millions (and probably billions) of pages of government
> regulations, legislation, and public documents.
>
> I don't understand why it's taking so long for the 508 Refresh. Yes, it's a
> complex issue, but not nearly as complex by, say, EPA regulations. Yes, the
> standards have to go through legally mandated procedures and review. But
> it's 4 years and 2 months since the 2011 draft (the latest one that's
> public).
> Why.
> So.
> Long?
>
> If OMB is the bottleneck, maybe we ordinary citizens should organize a
> protest in front of their offices near the White House. Can you imagine the
> PR? A few hundred disabled Americans chanting, "Hell no we won't go, until
> you give us the 508 refresh!" OK, the rhyme needs some work. But I can get
> all the major news outlets to cover event, local and national. That could
> move the 508 Refresh up to the top of the stack of paper on someone's desk!
>
> --Bevi Chagnon
> (Proud US citizen, but still not a happy 508-camper)
> (And apologies for the Washington shoptalk)
>
>

From: John Foliot
Date: Sat, Feb 07 2015 11:31PM
Subject: Re: W3C structure, Standards bodies, and more (wasHow is PDF accessibility evaluated?)
← Previous message | Next message →

What Cliff said - I love scrappy fighters :-)

JF



>

From: Karlen Communications
Date: Sun, Feb 08 2015 4:20AM
Subject: Re: W3C structure, Standards bodies, and more (wasHow is PDF accessibility evaluated?)
← Previous message | Next message →

Thanks Bevi!

I too don't understand the "advice."

For the most part the webinar provided a good set of best practices. It was
the three standards/guidelines/requirements/best practices that I mentioned
that I have a real problem with...and the fact that this seems to be a
closed process.

I would add that a document using tables for design layout would require a
lot of remediation to be put into Braille or large print.

My comments were to say that I don't understand, with all we know about
accessible document design and the wealth of knowledge in our community, how
three items that promote the creation of inaccessible documents could be in
a set of standards/requirements for "accessible documents."

I would think that knowing that these requirements are moving forward and
being taught now would motivate our community toward asking questions,
challenging and changing this not accepting that within a short time Section
508 looks like it will mandate the creation of inaccessible content and the
use of techniques that don't work in a word processing environment.

...and then there's the potential for litigation that could result from
publishing these inaccessible documents.

Cheers, Karen

From: Dona Patrick
Date: Sun, Feb 08 2015 9:39AM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 2:34 PM, Chagnon | PubCom < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> And re: the null attribute for graphics in Word...Is this even possible to
> do? Having been a Word expert since version 1 for DOS, I haven't seen this
> feature yet in MS Word. If I'm wrong, please let me and others know!


Bevi--

I went to a training for HHS/ACF employees and folks that do consulting
work for them. The presenters (not HHS/ACF employees) said to use "" in the
Alt text area of the Format Picture dialog box in Word (or PowerPoint and
probably Excel) and that when it was converted to a PDF file it would be
ignored by screen readers. They were wrong -- I tried it and both NVDA and
JAWS read it as "quote quote". (Same goes for Word. It is read as "quote
quote".)

Dona

From: Jonathan C Cohn
Date: Sun, Feb 08 2015 12:47PM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

What about hiring college students to do the work? I suppose that might be dangerous.


> On Feb 8, 2015, at 11:39, Dona Patrick < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 2:34 PM, Chagnon | PubCom < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
>> And re: the null attribute for graphics in Word...Is this even possible to
>> do? Having been a Word expert since version 1 for DOS, I haven't seen this
>> feature yet in MS Word. If I'm wrong, please let me and others know!
>
>
> Bevi--
>
> I went to a training for HHS/ACF employees and folks that do consulting
> work for them. The presenters (not HHS/ACF employees) said to use "" in the
> Alt text area of the Format Picture dialog box in Word (or PowerPoint and
> probably Excel) and that when it was converted to a PDF file it would be
> ignored by screen readers. They were wrong -- I tried it and both NVDA and
> JAWS read it as "quote quote". (Same goes for Word. It is read as "quote
> quote".)
>
> Dona
> > >

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Sun, Feb 08 2015 1:32PM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

> They were wrong -- I tried it and both NVDA and JAWS read it as "quote quote". (Same goes for Word. It is read as "quote

Agreed this is definitely wrong and will be more harmful. I'll reach out the community of practice to provide input on this.

Jonathan

--
Jonathan Avila
Chief Accessibility Officer
SSB BART Group
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =

703-637-8957 (o)
Follow us: Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Blog | Newsletter

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Sun, Feb 08 2015 2:10PM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

> I validate PDF's based on corporate standards that were created from the WCAG 1.0 & 2.0 PDF techniques

This is a misconception that we all too often see with techniques, especially sufficient techniques. Organizations adopt them as their standards when in fact the sufficient techniques are only that -- techniques that are known to work with a common technology stack to meet a success criteria. Use of the documented sufficient techniques are not required to meet WCAG success criteria -- in fact there are often many sufficient techniques listed where only one is needed to meet the criteria but all are listed as known techniques. Even with failure techniques, a success criteria can still be met other ways even when a failure technique fails. Failure techniques are often a stronger bet that a success criteria won't be met -- but as I said no guarantee. Unfortunately there are some success criteria with no documented failures -- so organizations can't rely on failure techniques either as a checklist.

Text discussing this appears at the top of each technique but still there is and has been confusion about this in the community around this.

I see PDF/UA as a standard that also happens to provide sufficient techniques that will get you most of the way to meeting the WCAG 2 guidelines.

Jonathan

--
Jonathan Avila
Chief Accessibility Officer
SSB BART Group
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =

703-637-8957 (o)
Follow us: Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Blog | Newsletter

From: Duff Johnson
Date: Sun, Feb 08 2015 2:40PM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

> Text discussing this appears at the top of each technique but still there is and has been confusion about this in the community around this.

If WCAG would change the document's title from "Techniques for WCAG 2.0" to "Example Techniques for WCAG 2.0" I think that would help.

> I see PDF/UA as a standard that also happens to provide sufficient techniques that will get you most of the way to meeting the WCAG 2 guidelines.

Bingo!

Duff.

From: Ryan E. Benson
Date: Mon, Feb 09 2015 6:26AM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

Dona,

I am guessing they really meant to say is to keep it blank. People, I found would type null, or put a space into the box. They probably did "" because in HTML you do alt="" to tell assistive technology to ignore it. I am guessing that this connection was not made in that presentation. There is no way to mark an image as null in MS Office products. The current practice we use at work is to leave the description field empty. Assistive tech will say "image" when encountering it, but that's all. If you do a file > save as > PDF, the built in checker in Acrobat will flag it as an image with no alt, so you need to tag it as an artifact. Now if you use something like CommonLook Office to create the PDF, you can tell it to make the image an artifact when you convert it. The behavior remains the same as I mentioned above in the word doc.

--
Ryan E. Benson
Sent from my iPad

> On Feb 8, 2015, at 11:39, Dona Patrick < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 2:34 PM, Chagnon | PubCom < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>>
>> And re: the null attribute for graphics in Word...Is this even possible to
>> do? Having been a Word expert since version 1 for DOS, I haven't seen this
>> feature yet in MS Word. If I'm wrong, please let me and others know!
>
>
> Bevi--
>
> I went to a training for HHS/ACF employees and folks that do consulting
> work for them. The presenters (not HHS/ACF employees) said to use "" in the
> Alt text area of the Format Picture dialog box in Word (or PowerPoint and
> probably Excel) and that when it was converted to a PDF file it would be
> ignored by screen readers. They were wrong -- I tried it and both NVDA and
> JAWS read it as "quote quote". (Same goes for Word. It is read as "quote
> quote".)
>
> Dona
> > >

From: Dona Patrick
Date: Mon, Feb 09 2015 7:33AM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

Thanks Ryan

I questioned them on this (using "") and they assured me that it was what
we were supposed to do in Word. I said I thought a screen reader might say
"quote quote" but they assured me that wasn't the case. I didn't argue
because my colleagues were getting annoyed at my questions.

Dona

On Mon, Feb 9, 2015 at 8:26 AM, Ryan E. Benson < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:

> Dona,
>
> I am guessing they really meant to say is to keep it blank. People, I
> found would type null, or put a space into the box. They probably did ""
> because in HTML you do alt="" to tell assistive technology to ignore it. I
> am guessing that this connection was not made in that presentation. There
> is no way to mark an image as null in MS Office products. The current
> practice we use at work is to leave the description field empty. Assistive
> tech will say "image" when encountering it, but that's all. If you do a
> file > save as > PDF, the built in checker in Acrobat will flag it as an
> image with no alt, so you need to tag it as an artifact. Now if you use
> something like CommonLook Office to create the PDF, you can tell it to make
> the image an artifact when you convert it. The behavior remains the same as
> I mentioned above in the word doc.
>
> --
> Ryan E. Benson
> Sent from my iPad
>
> > On Feb 8, 2015, at 11:39, Dona Patrick < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> >
> >> On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 2:34 PM, Chagnon | PubCom < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> wrote:
> >>
> >> And re: the null attribute for graphics in Word...Is this even possible
> to
> >> do? Having been a Word expert since version 1 for DOS, I haven't seen
> this
> >> feature yet in MS Word. If I'm wrong, please let me and others know!
> >
> >
> > Bevi--
> >
> > I went to a training for HHS/ACF employees and folks that do consulting
> > work for them. The presenters (not HHS/ACF employees) said to use "" in
> the
> > Alt text area of the Format Picture dialog box in Word (or PowerPoint and
> > probably Excel) and that when it was converted to a PDF file it would be
> > ignored by screen readers. They were wrong -- I tried it and both NVDA
> and
> > JAWS read it as "quote quote". (Same goes for Word. It is read as "quote
> > quote".)
> >
> > Dona
> > > > > > > > > >

From: L Snider
Date: Mon, Feb 09 2015 7:52AM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

Could they have meant an empty space between the quotes? I remember this
discussion a while back:

http://webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread?thread=5953

Cheers

Lisa

On Mon, Feb 9, 2015 at 8:33 AM, Dona Patrick < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> Thanks Ryan
>
> I questioned them on this (using "") and they assured me that it was what
> we were supposed to do in Word. I said I thought a screen reader might say
> "quote quote" but they assured me that wasn't the case. I didn't argue
> because my colleagues were getting annoyed at my questions.
>
> Dona
>
> On Mon, Feb 9, 2015 at 8:26 AM, Ryan E. Benson < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> wrote:
>
> > Dona,
> >
> > I am guessing they really meant to say is to keep it blank. People, I
> > found would type null, or put a space into the box. They probably did ""
> > because in HTML you do alt="" to tell assistive technology to ignore it.
> I
> > am guessing that this connection was not made in that presentation. There
> > is no way to mark an image as null in MS Office products. The current
> > practice we use at work is to leave the description field empty.
> Assistive
> > tech will say "image" when encountering it, but that's all. If you do a
> > file > save as > PDF, the built in checker in Acrobat will flag it as an
> > image with no alt, so you need to tag it as an artifact. Now if you use
> > something like CommonLook Office to create the PDF, you can tell it to
> make
> > the image an artifact when you convert it. The behavior remains the same
> as
> > I mentioned above in the word doc.
> >
> > --
> > Ryan E. Benson
> > Sent from my iPad
> >
> > > On Feb 8, 2015, at 11:39, Dona Patrick < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> > >
> > >> On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 2:34 PM, Chagnon | PubCom < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> > wrote:
> > >>
> > >> And re: the null attribute for graphics in Word...Is this even
> possible
> > to
> > >> do? Having been a Word expert since version 1 for DOS, I haven't seen
> > this
> > >> feature yet in MS Word. If I'm wrong, please let me and others know!
> > >
> > >
> > > Bevi--
> > >
> > > I went to a training for HHS/ACF employees and folks that do
> consulting
> > > work for them. The presenters (not HHS/ACF employees) said to use "" in
> > the
> > > Alt text area of the Format Picture dialog box in Word (or PowerPoint
> and
> > > probably Excel) and that when it was converted to a PDF file it would
> be
> > > ignored by screen readers. They were wrong -- I tried it and both NVDA
> > and
> > > JAWS read it as "quote quote". (Same goes for Word. It is read as
> "quote
> > > quote".)
> > >
> > > Dona
> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >
> > > >

From: Stanzel, Susan - FSA, Kansas City, MO
Date: Mon, Feb 09 2015 10:38AM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

In one of these message it was mentioned to tag the image as an artifact. What is an artifact?

Susie Stanzel

From: Olaf Drümmer
Date: Mon, Feb 09 2015 11:06AM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

The PDF standard (PDF 1.7, as defined in ISO 32000-1) says in the context of the Tagged PDF provisions:

---

The graphics objects in a document can be divided into two classes:

• The real content of a document comprises objects representing material originally introduced by the document’s author.

• Artifacts are graphics objects that are not part of the author’s original content but rather are generated by the conforming writer in the course of pagination, layout, or other strictly mechanical processes.

(copied from ISO 32000-1, Document management — Portable document format — Part 1: PDF 1.7, 14.8.2.2 Real Content and Artifacts)

---

PDF has a mechanism to mark a piece of content as being an artifact. Assistive technology or content conversion tools would then by default not bother to present such artifact content to a user or export it to some other representation. At the same time there are mechanisms in PDF that make it possible to classify artifacts - e.g. whether an artifact is a page background, or a page number, or a running header, etc. - in case a user wanted to access these anyway.



Olaf




On 9 Feb 2015, at 18:38, "Stanzel, Susan - FSA, Kansas City, MO" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> In one of these message it was mentioned to tag the image as an artifact. What is an artifact?

From: Ryan E. Benson
Date: Mon, Feb 09 2015 1:10PM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

This is incorrect. I probably can find out who did the training via internal contacts. But you're correct, if you type "" into the description box, AT will say quote quote, two double quotes, or a flavor therein.

Sent from my iPad

> On Feb 9, 2015, at 09:33, Dona Patrick < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> Thanks Ryan
>
> I questioned them on this (using "") and they assured me that it was what
> we were supposed to do in Word. I said I thought a screen reader might say
> "quote quote" but they assured me that wasn't the case. I didn't argue
> because my colleagues were getting annoyed at my questions.
>
> Dona
>
> On Mon, Feb 9, 2015 at 8:26 AM, Ryan E. Benson < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> wrote:
>
>> Dona,
>>
>> I am guessing they really meant to say is to keep it blank. People, I
>> found would type null, or put a space into the box. They probably did ""
>> because in HTML you do alt="" to tell assistive technology to ignore it. I
>> am guessing that this connection was not made in that presentation. There
>> is no way to mark an image as null in MS Office products. The current
>> practice we use at work is to leave the description field empty. Assistive
>> tech will say "image" when encountering it, but that's all. If you do a
>> file > save as > PDF, the built in checker in Acrobat will flag it as an
>> image with no alt, so you need to tag it as an artifact. Now if you use
>> something like CommonLook Office to create the PDF, you can tell it to make
>> the image an artifact when you convert it. The behavior remains the same as
>> I mentioned above in the word doc.
>>
>> --
>> Ryan E. Benson
>> Sent from my iPad
>>
>>>> On Feb 8, 2015, at 11:39, Dona Patrick < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 2:34 PM, Chagnon | PubCom < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> And re: the null attribute for graphics in Word...Is this even possible
>> to
>>>> do? Having been a Word expert since version 1 for DOS, I haven't seen
>> this
>>>> feature yet in MS Word. If I'm wrong, please let me and others know!
>>>
>>>
>>> Bevi--
>>>
>>> I went to a training for HHS/ACF employees and folks that do consulting
>>> work for them. The presenters (not HHS/ACF employees) said to use "" in
>> the
>>> Alt text area of the Format Picture dialog box in Word (or PowerPoint and
>>> probably Excel) and that when it was converted to a PDF file it would be
>>> ignored by screen readers. They were wrong -- I tried it and both NVDA
>> and
>>> JAWS read it as "quote quote". (Same goes for Word. It is read as "quote
>>> quote".)
>>>
>>> Dona
>>> >>> >>> >> >> >> > > >

From: Ryan E. Benson
Date: Mon, Feb 09 2015 1:15PM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
← Previous message | Next message →

In other words, for most part you can think of making something an artifact is similar to doing <img alt=""> in HTML. If you are using Acrobat, you can select the image, and choose the "background" button via the touchup reading order tool.

Ryan

Sent from my iPad

> On Feb 9, 2015, at 13:06, Olaf Drümmer < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> The PDF standard (PDF 1.7, as defined in ISO 32000-1) says in the context of the Tagged PDF provisions:
>
> ---
>
> The graphics objects in a document can be divided into two classes:
>
> ' The real content of a document comprises objects representing material originally introduced by the document's author.
>
> ' Artifacts are graphics objects that are not part of the author's original content but rather are generated by the conforming writer in the course of pagination, layout, or other strictly mechanical processes.
>
> (copied from ISO 32000-1, Document management — Portable document format — Part 1: PDF 1.7, 14.8.2.2 Real Content and Artifacts)
>
> ---
>
> PDF has a mechanism to mark a piece of content as being an artifact. Assistive technology or content conversion tools would then by default not bother to present such artifact content to a user or export it to some other representation. At the same time there are mechanisms in PDF that make it possible to classify artifacts - e.g. whether an artifact is a page background, or a page number, or a running header, etc. - in case a user wanted to access these anyway.
>
>
>
> Olaf
>
>
>
>
>> On 9 Feb 2015, at 18:38, "Stanzel, Susan - FSA, Kansas City, MO" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>>
>> In one of these message it was mentioned to tag the image as an artifact. What is an artifact?
>
> > >

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Mon, Feb 09 2015 2:42PM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
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> The real content of a document comprises objects representing material originally introduced by the document’s author.

So would that make it inappropriate to artifact purely decorative document content supplied by the author?

Jonathan

> On Feb 9, 2015, at 1:07 PM, Olaf Drümmer < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> • The real content of a document comprises objects representing material originally introduced by the document’s author.

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Mon, Feb 09 2015 3:16PM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
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Remember that Adobe's products (namely Acrobat and InDesign) use 3 terms interchangeably throughout their programs:
Background
Decorative
Artifact

Regardless of the term, they do the same thing: label the item as hidden to screen readers.

--Bevi Chagnon

From: Olaf Drümmer
Date: Mon, Feb 09 2015 3:34PM
Subject: Re: How is PDF accessibility evaluated?
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The idea in PDF is that anything that is presentational only or goes back to a mechanical process (like pagination or even hyphenation), and is not inherently semantic (i.e. carrying some meaning as intended by the content's author), is an artifact. Besides referring to the process of pagination, PDF 1.7 also speaks of " • Purely cosmetic typographical or design elements" - which are also artifacts.

Olaf



On 9 Feb 2015, at 22:42, Jonathan Avila < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

>> The real content of a document comprises objects representing material originally introduced by the document’s author.
>
> So would that make it inappropriate to artifact purely decorative document content supplied by the author?
>
> Jonathan
>
>> On Feb 9, 2015, at 1:07 PM, Olaf Drümmer < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>>
>> • The real content of a document comprises objects representing material originally introduced by the document’s author.
> > >