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From: Jon Gunderson
Date: Thu, Sep 04 2003 9:39AM
Subject: Re: Section 508 Standards Compliance and Scripts
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Bryce,
In my experience most companies sales and technical representatives really
know very little about functional accessibility and hope that their
audience is just as ignorant. This allows them to make claims about
accessibility without really knowing if their product is very accessible
and people accepting it as true. Section 508 has many accessibility
deficiencies and loop holes so many people claim section 508 compatibility
without being accessible to people with many types of disabilities.

I think it is very important to distinguish between "Section 508 compliant"
and being functionally accessible to people with disabilities.

Jon


At 11:03 AM 9/4/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>I come to the community seeking enlightenment (especially if there are any
>of you out there w/ a legal background).
>Kentucky Virtual University is currently reviewing Section 508 standards
>compliance of several distance education course management systems (CMS).
>While doing so, I ran across this explanation of why a system is in
>compliance with the part of Section 508 that governs scripting:
>"[Software Package X] uses only minimal dynamic scripting for content
>presentation. It does use script to conditionally write some content to a
>page. Content rendered in this manner is written to the screen before the
>page loads, and can't be distinguished from standard content."
>It is pretty clear in the context of the paragraph this was taken from that
>they are referring to client-side JavaScript and not a server side solution.
>Correct me if I'm wrong (and it's been known to happen), but isn't
>JavaScript interpreted AS the page loads (at least in the case that they are
>describing)? How can scripting write content to the page BEFORE it loads?
>This statement makes no sense to me.
>KYVU currently uses a CMS that makes a similar claim about its product
>("content written to the screen before the page loads"). Disabling
>JavaScript while using that platform makes course material inaccessible.
>All an end user receives is a one sentence message stating that the page
>won't work w/ JavaScript disabled, and no other means to access the course
>is provided. How can this be considered compliance w/ 508???
>I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything. And TIA for all
>comments. (And to anyone who also subscribes to the Webdesign-L discussion
>list, I apologize for the cross-posting).
>
>Bryce Fields
>Web Developer
>Kentucky Virtual University
>http://www.kyvu.org/ <http://www.kyvu.org/>;
>
>1-877-740-4357
>1-502-573-1555 ext 288
>
>"Do or do not. There is no try." -- Yoda
>
>
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Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP
Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology
Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services
MC-574
College of Applied Life Studies
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
1207 S. Oak Street, Champaign, IL 61820

Voice: (217) 244-5870
Fax: (217) 333-0248

E-mail: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =

WWW: http://cita.rehab.uiuc.edu/
WWW: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund



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