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Thread: Section 508 Refresh & Public participation

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Number of posts in this thread: 4 (In chronological order)

From: Robinson, Norman B - Washington, DC
Date: Fri, Jan 19 2007 8:00AM
Subject: Section 508 Refresh & Public participation
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List members,

Have an opinion on how legal issues and technical standards impact your
work? Does accessibility impact your development? Does it affect your
customers? You might be interested in providing recommendations for
updates or feedback to the refresh of the U. S. Section 508
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_508) Accessibility Standards.

This effort is being coordinated on an international scale. This is an
open process, please consider participating! More information is
available via http://teitac.org.

Please share this message as appropriate. I think this message is
appropriate given this forum, but please excuse me for this one-time
posting if unwelcome. I only thought there might be people interested
but not aware of this effort.

Regards,


Norman B. Robinson

From: Sarah Horton
Date: Fri, Jan 26 2007 6:10AM
Subject: Re: Section 508 Refresh & Public participation
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Norman B. Robinson wrote:
"I only thought there might be people interested but not aware of this effort."

Norman, I'm among those interested but unaware, but when I looked over the activities thus far I thought, Wow! There sure are a lot of people already involved! Do you have a sense of what's most needed at this stage in the process?

Thanks!

Sarah

Sarah Horton
Academic Computing
Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH USA
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =

From: Robinson, Norman B - Washington, DC
Date: Fri, Jan 26 2007 2:00PM
Subject: Re: Section 508 Refresh & Public participation
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There are many different groups working on different topics. As with any
mailing-list and wiki-based information, the best approach may be simply
to find something you are interested in, read up to the latest
discussion, and then contribute as best you can!

The notice via http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/update-index.htm would
have been useful in my original post.

Just don't be afraid to contribute. There will be many who find it
laborious to explain why the issues are organized the way they currently
are written. You don't necessarily need to understand Section 508 to
know when you have had issues with accessibility or when you've been
asked to make something compliant and found it confusing or wished their
was clearer instructions. None of us are above questioning - especially
me - but please be polite and respect that I might not be as smart as
you! <grins> I'll do my best to help anyone if they ask.

That said, Section 508 isn't really about the technical issues when
there is already technical bodies and technical standards that define
the specifics. It is more about functional performance criteria; what
the people purchasing a product should ask to ensure the products are
accessible. If you keep that in mind I think that would be enough to put
the existing discussions into context.

I hope that is useful to you and the list.

Regards,


Norman B. Robinson
Section 508 Coordinator
IT Governance, US Postal Service
phone: 202.268.8246


-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Sarah Horton
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 8:01 AM
To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Section 508 Refresh & Public participation


Norman B. Robinson wrote:
"I only thought there might be people interested but not aware of this
effort."

Norman, I'm among those interested but unaware, but when I looked over
the activities thus far I thought, Wow! There sure are a lot of people
already involved! Do you have a sense of what's most needed at this
stage in the process?

Thanks!

Sarah

Sarah Horton
Academic Computing
Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH USA
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =

From: smithj7@peoplepc.com
Date: Mon, Feb 05 2007 7:06AM
Subject: Re: Section 508 Refresh & Public participation
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Thanks so much for sharing about this. At the AIT Conference I got to meet
Shawn Henry who gave a wonderful overview of the possiblity of "harmonizing"
508 with w3 standards. I will definately read more on what is happening and
make some comments. 508 definately leaves our low vision folks behind and
ignores things I didn't think about "user agent standards", "authoring tools
standards".

By the way I also learned from Jon Gunderson and Jared Smith. I left
realizing how insular our world is in Florida State government.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robinson, Norman B - Washington, DC" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007 9:57 AM
Subject: [WebAIM] Section 508 Refresh & Public participation


> List members,
>
> Have an opinion on how legal issues and technical standards impact your
> work? Does accessibility impact your development? Does it affect your
> customers? You might be interested in providing recommendations for
> updates or feedback to the refresh of the U. S. Section 508
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_508) Accessibility Standards.
>
> This effort is being coordinated on an international scale. This is an
> open process, please consider participating! More information is
> available via http://teitac.org.
>
> Please share this message as appropriate. I think this message is
> appropriate given this forum, but please excuse me for this one-time
> posting if unwelcome. I only thought there might be people interested
> but not aware of this effort.
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Norman B. Robinson
>