Dear All,
I just wanted to respond to the latest postings on the list about approved sites and accessibility. While I agree with the basic point that many sites in our sector fall short of meeting Web Accessibility Initiative validation, I think it is important that we maintain a sense of perspective on this. WAI compliance does not mean accessibility - it means WAI compliance. As the impending release of the new guidelines aptly demonstrates, this in itself is a movable feast and cannot be applied unilaterally when evaluating the accessibility of a given site.
I have yet to see a website which does not fail one of the automatic validation tools in at least one respect, and I am concerned that this is engendering a negative culture around the issue as a whole. The fact is that a large number of people have put a tremendous amount of effort into improving the accessibility of their sites, and highlighting the individual tags which fail to meet specifications does little to encourage them to continue their efforts. Validation, and the tendency of automatic tools to highlight very detailed technical points, were only ever intended to assist the developer in designing a better page. They do not by any means guarantee the accessibility or otherwise of that page.
On the subject of Flash, while I agree that there are specific issues surrounding the use of a proprietary embedded format (particularly where used to deliver navigation elements), there are equally issues around the fact that it enables even those of us with limited technical skills to deliver the kind of interactivity which the majority of our users expect. I am not arguing the case for the accessibility of Flash here, merely highlighting the point that it is by no means as simple as 'Flash is bad'. I would particularly like to highlight the cases in which Flash interactivity has rendered previously inaccessible content accessible to a whole range of users by virtue of the very interactivity which gives such cause for concern. It strikes me that far more evil is done in the implementation of Flash than is implicit in the format itself.
At the risk of opening the debate up still further - is there anyone else who thinks that too much of the accessibility debate thus far has centred around visual impairment? While I recognise that a web page is primarily a visual medium, it's main role is still to convey information. There is very little in the currently available standards (NOF or otherwise) about making content intellectually accessible to different audiences, about meeting the needs of the elderly, or those with learning difficulties, or those for whom english is not a first language. I would be interested to hear how people have approached these issues!
Best regards,
Nick
Nick Poole
ICT Adviser
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gray, Peter [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Monday, January 27, 2003 2:32 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Web sites of potential interest - access assessment
>
> > Also websites that use Flash are inaccessible to many users.
> > I know that
> > Macromedia are looking at the whole issue of accessibility but at the
> > moment Flash scores low on the accessibility front.
> >
> > Colin Hynson
> >
>
> Which is why you should only use Flash for additional functions that can't be delivered any other way, not for basic functionality, and certainly not for entire sites.>
>
> Flash MX claims to be accessible, it's just that there's only one screen reader (which of course you have to pay for) which currently supports it.
> <http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/accessibility/features/flash/faq.html>
>
> Best wishes
>
> Pete
> --
> Peter M Gray
> Museums Officer
>
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