[34] in Software Accessibility Project email archive
Re: comments on the guidelines
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jean Foster)
Wed Feb 14 10:29:44 2001
Message-Id: <200102141529.KAA26386@arizona.mit.edu>
To: Nina Davis-Millis <ninadm@MIT.EDU>
Cc: sw-access@MIT.EDU, jfoster@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 13 Feb 2001 14:10:49 EST."
<4.3.2.7.2.20010213140025.03a6f550@po9.mit.edu>
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Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 10:29:40 -0500
From: Jean Foster <jfoster@MIT.EDU>
> 1. This is getting really exciting!
>
> 2. A picky comments about wording. As it now stands, the document divides
> the world into two pieces: web pages and software. The assumption, I
> suppose, is that web pages are things we write ourselves and software is
> any application we buy, lease or build. If these assumptions are shared by
> the rest of you, then it becomes confusing where to place the thousands of
> leased web-based resources the Libraries offer to MIT. As I say, I think
> this is a question of wording more than anything else.
>
> 3. A more substantive comment. We had several discussions in which we
> acknowledged that in some cases the world of computing might not have
> developed enough in this area for a particular vendor or product to meet
> our requirements right away. As it now stands, this document could be
> interpreted as unreasonable -- that is, if it were seen as requiring us to
> demand the impossible of third-party vendors. Perhaps we need to define
> further what is meant by "Software ... needs to be reviewed for
> accessibility features" -- in other words, if the review takes place and
> the product fails in one or more aspects, what then?
>
These are both good points and are issues that have been bothering me as well.
The world isn't so neatly divided between "software" and "Web pages" since
there are so many software applications these days with Web front ends. Since
we are combining the Web access policy and the software access policy we should
probably also better integrate the Web and software guidelines. I'd have to
give some more thought to how this might be done, but the first thing that
comes to mind might be to write an overview page that discusses these points,
suggests boundaries and pulls things together.
If we want these guidelines (especially the purchaser's) to really be of use to
folks we have to acknowledge the fuzzy edges, and come up with some
recommendations for how to deal with them. Not so easy, but maybe we can use
some real life cases as examples. We had at some point discussed advising
people how to talk to vendors about accessiblity, for instance what questions
to ask. This might be added to the overview page as well.
-jean-
> Nina
>
