Jesse, I'll agree it makes them think about it for about ... 10 seconds. Then they go and start using those automated evaluators and mess it all up. I've used every evaluator there is and none come as close to meeting my experience as I would like.
You can pass those automated test very easily and then totally ignore some very important elements. One accessibility presentation I went to had a company representative look like a fool when he was showing how JAWS worked with their pages. The designer passed all the automated tests, but failed to lineate the table correctly so JAWS was jumping all around the screen reading things out of order. Yep, Bobby said it passed - Bobby lied too. Yes, much of the Assistive Technology relies upon Microsoft. Didn't you realize that Microsoft doesn't allow anyone access to their core functions? Oh, that's last millennia's news. We should fire the federal judges that ruled in favor of Microsoft. They just gave too much power to Microsoft and I'm not talking their anti-competitive attitudes. I'm talking embedding their browser further into their operating systems. It's going to get to the point that their browser will enable any web site to take control of the computer again ... just like when we used to cause hard drive formats. Jesse, please tell me how Canada falls under Section 508. I realize Canada falls under our telecommunications acts, but I wasn't aware that Canada had to comply with Section 508. As I understood it, Canada's rules, although not totally accepted, required bi-lingual sites and even more accessibility than Section 508 requires. Please correct me if I'm wrong; I like to keep up with how other countries are handling the issues. Thanks, Lee Roberts -----Original Message----- From: J Rodgers [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2004 5:42 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [WSG] 508?? > Have you looked at the other assistive technologies available? Yes I work closely with our Office for Persons with Disabilities, even presented at their Assistive Technology Fair last year. This year I will as well and sounds like it will be even bigger than last year. There are some very cool technologies out there. > England and the other countries requiring accessible web sites state > 508 did not meet their requirements for accessible web sites. So, how > can we state that Section 508 is the end-all solution when other > governments are saying it isn't enough? Not saying it was an end-all, just saying it was a decent place to start. At the very least it is forcing a lot of software developers and web designers to think accessible design. > AT developers have the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines they have > to follow. There is at least one person from the JAWS team on the > working group. > > Since JAWS uses Internet Explorer and the Microsoft Accessibility > Agent, I would hope that Microsoft starts supporting standards better than they do. > And that they stop with their proprietary stuff. Netscape has begun > to support OBJECT so we don't need to use EMBED/NOEMBED any longer > unless you want to support earlier versions. Oh my, do we want to > support Netscape 4.x? I don't and don't even come close to trying any longer. That is likely the biggest problem with Assistive technology, it relies on other over priced bloat ware that is unstable at the best of times and refuses to follow any standards properly. Why not move to Moz? Why build Assistive technologies for Linux where you have more control? Oh that is rhetorical. One thing I did notice with a lot of Assistive Technologies is that they rely heavily on Microsoft. I think that is a shame. Jesse ***************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ***************************************************** ***************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help *****************************************************