A-Tech Review

Make Accessibility Standard in Software

Accessibility needs to become a standard offering on Web page authoring tools. Right now, it's so difficult to maintain sites responding to screen readers that hardly anyone does so.

As Darrell Shandrow at Blind Access Journal notes, even the U.S. Senate can't meet the standards. There are great free tools out there like WebXact which can measure whether a site measures up, and the Web Access Initiative offers advice, but we really need software.

One Ring To Rule Them All

There are so many disabilities, and their needs contradict. Getting them onto the same technology page may be impossible.

So Mike Davies, a leader in trying to build accessibility technology into open source through Isolani, has come to believe. (The ad, on behalf of Joe Clark's Accessibility Research Project, is from Mike's site.)

Recently Davies called out some of the groups he feels haven't met user needs:

GAWDS has failed. Accessifyforum has failed. Accessites is fundamentally flawed. WCAG 2.0 is in trouble.

Naturally, a spirited discussion followed. Mike was quoted, writing "we need a community of people working on the Web (as a content producer, as a browser - or plugin - vendor, as an assistive technology provider), focused on accessibility. And that we simply don't have." Some users attacked Mike while others, like Mike Cherim, defended the efforts he derided.

The truth is something common to open source. Money. Money is needed to get work done, to have that work incorporated into Web standards, and to turn that work into Web sites that are accessible to all.

The money's failure to materialize in the free market is a chicken-and-egg problem. We want something to invest in. I need money to create that. You need protection for the resulting IP to get the money. Which takes you out of the Web standards game entirely, because imposing a fee for using Web standards is just impractical.

Web 2.0 For All

One continuing frustration is the lag between technical improvements and their adaptation for disabled users. (Image from AndyBudd.)

The Apple iPhone, for instance, does not meet the requirements of Section 255 in the Federal Communications Act. That means your needs haven't been considered, and you really shouldn't be considering it.

As Chairman Mal (the newest addition to our blogroll) notes,

I’m still waiting for access to I Tunes and those nifty little I Pods.  During the ice storm last week, I thought there might be a chance this could happen, but hell froze over with no word from Apple!

The same problem exists with the improvements known as Web 2.0.