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Thread: Accessible Cold Fusion up-charge

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Number of posts in this thread: 7 (In chronological order)

From: Farris (Buddy) Allison
Date: Thu, Jun 19 2008 3:20PM
Subject: Accessible Cold Fusion up-charge
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I am new to this group and fairly new to accessibility. As the accessibility coordinator of a state agency, I have been asked to verify the validity of a contractor's up-charge from 640 to 970 hours to build accessibility into a Cold Fusion application. The application is in the planning stage, with the only change being to make the application meet W3C Compliance Level A. The output is expected to be moderately complex scientific data, presented in tables.

My question is: does the revision from 640 hours to 970 hours seem reasonable?

From: Paul Bennett
Date: Thu, Jun 19 2008 3:30PM
Subject: Re: Accessible Cold Fusion up-charge
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A 50% increase in cost to build in 'accessibility'? Without knowing more about the application (your details are pretty thin), I'm inclined to say no.

From: Karl Groves
Date: Thu, Jun 19 2008 3:40PM
Subject: Re: Accessible Cold Fusion up-charge
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You say "the application is in the planning stage". Please clarify - you're
saying that no code has been written yet?
If that's the case then no, that doesn't appear reasonable.

Karl

-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Farris (Buddy)
Allison
Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2008 5:11 PM
To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Subject: [WebAIM] Accessible Cold Fusion up-charge

I am new to this group and fairly new to accessibility. As the accessibility
coordinator of a state agency, I have been asked to verify the validity of a
contractor's up-charge from 640 to 970 hours to build accessibility into a
Cold Fusion application. The application is in the planning stage, with the
only change being to make the application meet W3C Compliance Level A. The
output is expected to be moderately complex scientific data, presented in
tables.

My question is: does the revision from 640 hours to 970 hours seem
reasonable?

From: Gareth Dart
Date: Fri, Jun 20 2008 2:00AM
Subject: Re: Accessible Cold Fusion up-charge
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Hi,

Level A (aka Priority 1) isn't really that difficult - you can see a
reasonably non-technical explanation here:
http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/#wc-priority-1. Without further
details about the scope and size of the project, I'm hesitant to say,
but it sounds excessive to me. That increase is several weeks of
developer-hours. I would, at the very least, ask the contractor for a
breakdowmn of these extra hours and why they think they're necessary.
If they're reputable and competent, they'll be able to explain what they
need to do and why it's going to take so long.

We're a government agency aswell, and we put lots of 'moderately complex
scientific data, presented in tables' on the site on an almost daily
basis. It just requires that my content authors are trained in how to
mark-up an accessible table. They don't always _listen_, granted....

G

Gareth Dart
Web Developer
Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)
95 Promenade, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL50 1HZ
T 01242 211128 F 01242 211122 W www.hesa.ac.uk


-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Farris
(Buddy) Allison
Sent: Thursday 19 June 2008 22:11
To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Subject: [WebAIM] Accessible Cold Fusion up-charge

I am new to this group and fairly new to accessibility. As the
accessibility coordinator of a state agency, I have been asked to verify
the validity of a contractor's up-charge from 640 to 970 hours to build
accessibility into a Cold Fusion application. The application is in the
planning stage, with the only change being to make the application meet
W3C Compliance Level A. The output is expected to be moderately complex
scientific data, presented in tables.

My question is: does the revision from 640 hours to 970 hours seem
reasonable?

From: Austin, Darrel
Date: Fri, Jun 20 2008 10:10AM
Subject: Re: Accessible Cold Fusion up-charge
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> I am new to this group and fairly new to accessibility. As the
> accessibility coordinator of a state agency, I have been asked to
> verify the validity of a contractor's up-charge from 640 to 970 hours
> to build accessibility into a Cold Fusion application. The application
> is in the planning stage

If it's in the planning stage, then I'd say that increasing the project
fee by 50% is a bit ridiculous.

Retrofitting a bad application? Then I can see that being valid. But,
yea, if one plans for accessibility, there really shouldn't be much or
any additional costs.

-Darrel


From: John Foliot - Stanford Online Accessibility Program
Date: Fri, Jun 20 2008 11:30AM
Subject: Re: Accessible Cold Fusion up-charge
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Farris (Buddy) Allison wrote:
>> The output is
>> expected to be moderately complex scientific data, presented in
>> tables.
>>
>> My question is: does the revision from 640 hours to 970 hours seem
>> reasonable?

NO! This smells *very* fishy.

Gareth Dart wrote:
> I would, at the very least, ask the contractor for
> a breakdown of these extra hours and why they think they're
> necessary.

I totally agree here: an additional 330 hours is huge, given that (based
upon the limited information you have provided) the only *real* issue[s] you
might encounter with your proposed authoring environment/application are:

* 5.1 For data tables, identify row and column headers.
(appropriate use of <th> vs. <td>... This is basic HTML 101)

* 5.2 For data tables that have two or more logical levels of row or column
headers, use markup to associate data cells and header cells.
(this involves the use of scope and/or the headers/id combination. This
might be slightly more complex to envision/design, but it isn't rocket
surgery either... See: http://tinyurl.com/33ucw [W3C site])

IMHO, any agency or firm that cannot create, out of the box (never mind
mandated), web content today that meets basic HTML compliance and delivers
WCAG 1 Priority 1 compliance is probably an agency/firm that should be
passed over... In today's standards-based marketplace if they need to charge
you more to do things right the first time then they probably aren't a good
fit for you moving forward. (FWIW, Priority 1 maps almost directly to
Section 508 [http://jimthatcher.com/sidebyside.htm] and so any company that
wants to do business with a government organization should already be
producing accessible content as a matter of course...)

JF
====================================John Foliot
Program Manager
Stanford Online Accessibility Program
http://soap.stanford.edu
Stanford University
Tel: 650-862-4603

SOAP is a program directed by the
Vice Provost for Student Affairs

====================================

From: John Foliot - Stanford Online Accessibility Program
Date: Mon, Jun 23 2008 11:00AM
Subject: Re: Accessible Cold Fusion up-charge
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= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = wrote:
> I am new to this group and fairly new to accessibility. As the
> accessibility coordinator of a state agency, I have been asked to
> verify the validity of a contractor's up-charge from 640 to 970 hours
> to build accessibility into a Cold Fusion application. The
> application is in the planning stage, with the only change being to
> make the application meet W3C Compliance Level A. The output is
> expected to be moderately complex scientific data, presented in
> tables.
>
> My question is: does the revision from 640 hours to 970 hours seem
> reasonable?
>
>