Hi Helen
Thanks for raising this issue - I agree, it is important. I also think it
would be valuable for the development of institutional policies to be
informed by cross-institutional discussions, as you've suggested.
I know you're probably familiar with my various peer-reviewed paper on
this subject (most of which have been co-authored with David Sloan) - see
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/papers/#accessibility
What you won't be aware of is that when I've presented these papers (at
W4A 2007, ADDW2008 and Techshare 2009) there were members of WAI in the
audience who told me afterwards they didn't disagree significantly with the
ideas I was proposing.
After discussions at Techshare last week I became more aware that the WAI
model had been developed to support the development of guidelines within WAI
- an uncritical adoption of the guidelines within particular contexts does
not have to be done (although in the past our community has tended to do
this - and myself and Lawrie Phipps had confessed to initially promoting
this approach, without being aware of its limitations).
If we are serious about developing meaningful policies (as opposed to
well-meaning statements) we need to acknowledge various real-world
difficulties such as:
O Flawed browsers (this is longer an MS problem - *we* have old versions
of IEin our institutions - and potential users of our services will have
too).
O The lack of evidence that the WAI approach works
O The costs
O How innovation challenges slow-moving standards
O How not deploying services which may be valuable (including enhancing
access to people with disabilities) but do not comply with guidelines and
may not be 'universally' accessible may be a mistaken approach.
O The tensions between accessibility approaches for Web pages and Web apps
(see yesterdays' message about mobile apps).
O Blended accessibility (the accessible alternative for an elearning
resource may be a physical alternative).
I think the challenge isn't at the page level any longer but at the policy
level.
Brian
--------------------------------
Brian Kelly
UKOLN, University of Bath, BATH, UK, BA2 7AY
Email: [log in to unmask]
Phone: +44 1225 383943
Web site: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
Blog: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Managing institutional Web services [mailto:WEBSITE-INFO-
> [log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Helen Sargan
> Sent: 24 September 2009 10:23
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [WEB-SUPPORT] Trying to re-write accessibility policy for
> WCAG2.0
>
> [Cross posted, since it wasn't clear where the answers might come from]
>
> For a while I have been trying to get to grips with WCAG2.0 enough to
> rewrite our accessibility statement and guidelines. I was hoping that
> the abilitynet meeting this week would help, but it didn't. I have
> found a great summary of an event in Ireland
> (http://www.clickstream.ie/blog/2009/06/25/iia-event-demystifying-wcag-
> 20-and-web-accessibility/
> [but the legal refs are all to Irish legistlation]) and Brian's
> various talks, the latest being at Techshare last week
> (http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2009/09/23/reflections-on-web-
> adaptability-and-techshare-2009/)
> so I am moving towards getting somewhere but not finding it easy.
>
> So, how are other UKHE institutions doing with this? I'm finding it
> isn't so much writing the statement that's the problem, the bigger
> difficulty is describing for information providers in the University
> how they need to assess their pages - getting them to test the pages
> was enough of an ask, but setting out a set of time-consuming rituals
> will be a waste of time. I'd appreciate any advice or ideas!
> --
>
> ***********************************************************************
> *****************
> Helen Varley Sargan
> Information Provision & Webmaster
> University Computing Service
> New Museums Site email [log in to unmask]
> Pembroke St [log in to unmask]
> Cambridge CB2 3QH Phone 01223 334480
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