Lisa,
There is an attempt
to set up a certification programme in Europe
under CEN-ISSS but driven by a European Commission funded project
“Support-EAM” see: http://www.support-eam.org/supporteam/default.asp
I, and I know
other’s, think there are some fundamental problems with such certification
programmes for Web accessibility.
For me the big
challenges are:
- Assuming you take the WAI
guidelines as the base line – how do you address the problem that it is
possible to conform to these guidelines and still not have a site that is
both accessible and usable by people with different types of
disability. To illustrate from my area of work which is educational
software/web sites: An image may have a valid “alt-text” but that
“alt-text” may not be appropriate for the pedagogic intent of using that
image in that particular context. Further there are those guidelines
that are difficult to make measurable – e.g. Guideline 13. Provide clear navigation mechanisms
from WCAG 1.0 or
Guideline 2.4 Provide mechanisms
to help users find content, orient themselves within it, and navigate
through it from WCAG 2.0. It is
perfectly possible to follow these guidelines but do so in a way that is not
appropriate for a given context e.g. a timed online assessment where the
mechanisms provided are too time consuming for a screen-reader user for
example.
- What are you certifying when
looking at large web-sites with frequently changing dynamic content? The
navigation as represented on the home page and the content displayed there
at the time of testing?
I think there are
other issues about the politics of certification and the potential of it to
effect the development of real expertise in accessibility based on the
understanding of users and their diverse needs and preferences and a reduction
in the already meagre use of real user testing but I won’t get onto that
soap-box now.
Cheers,
Martyn
________________________________
Martyn
Cooper
Head: Accessibility
in Educational Media (AEM) team
Institute of
Educational Technology
Open
University, UK
From: DCMI Accessibility Group
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Lisa Seeman
Sent: 23 May 2006 09:41
To:
[log in to unmask]
Subject: certification
program
ISO
IL (Israel accessibility
group) is starting to make a certification program for
accessibility. I have some concerned about it. If anyone has any experience
with certification in different countries can they be in
touch.
One control I thought was
essential to put in place was a test for accessibility to test the tester.
That will protect against people being able to certify sites because of
belonging to the right group, and also make sure that anyone qualified to give
accessibility certification will be able to do so without
prejudice.
Do we have a few test pages
of inaccessible sites for testing of testers/ guidelines /
etc
