I don't know how to word this, but here goes...
We have the W3C's WCAG and Section 508...however, WCAG is just a set of guidelines; Section 508 applies to US federal agencies. I'm not asking that we legislate this (heaven forbid!) for the Web at large, but it seems there isn't yet a *widely accepted* standard that people are saying we ought to use?
I recently wanted to view a news video on the MSN site (there's always hope!), and I have my setting for captions/subtitling to be shown when available in the Windows Media Player that I have installed. Unfortunately, it seems the producers of the Web videos forget to include the subtitling /captioning, or the Windows Media Player isn't including the captions when the movie is downloaded, or whatever the case may be. Being deaf, I rely on whatever I can read in text along with the facial expressions and body language that I can see in order to get the information that is being presented. I have repeatedly submitted feedback saying things like "videos look great, but can't you caption them?" Of course I'm sure these companies get scads of feedback and are too busy to be bothered to reply with even a "got your note, thanks, we'll look into it".
We have a long, long way to go to achieve true accessibility in the world. Even I have much to learn and more to do...
So, what do we do here? How accessible should we be, to achieve the ideal?
Leslie Riggs
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