Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 02:41:43 -0800 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "David Scheidt" <rufus@brain.mics.net> Cc: "Mike Meyer" <mwm@mired.org>, <advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG>, <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks Message-ID: <004201c165e6$75c34720$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSI.4.20.0111040959300.2371-100000@brain.mics.net>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: David Scheidt [mailto:rufus@brain.mics.net] >Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2001 7:14 AM >To: Ted Mittelstaedt >Cc: Mike Meyer; advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG; chat@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: RE: NatWest? no thanks > > >Most blind people aren't consumers of pornorgraphic images. You might find >a blind person who wanted to gather some images to give to someone else, or >something like that. > But even then they cannot make selection decisions because they cannot see what they are gathering and have no idea if the image is a real picture or a picture of an advertisement or is even worth looking at. So I think that because of this reason it's impossible to argue that everything on the Internet is usable by the blind and thus must be made accessible. > >It's a lot more complicated than that. First, it's not at all clear that >were the ADA to apply to commercial web sites that it would be acceptable to >require tha you use IE, as opposed to any generally accepted solution. Let's be clear on this, it's impossible for the website to require IE - all the website can do is require that the user use a web browser that appears to be IE. Since the browser is operated by the user, it's really in the power of the user to send back any browser ID string they feel like, support whatever active x ie supports, etc. Any accessible browser that someone might develop could be made to emulate IE, and in fact would have to do this to make it as accessible as possible. (since the entire point of such a program would be to give access, spoofing the ID is just another component of the access) >Braille terminals don't work very well with GUI interfaces, What you mean is that _existing_ Braille terminals don't work very well. It's not because of any inherent property of a GUI interface, it's because not enough effort has been put into the braille terminal software. Even with the navagation button example you later cite, well we have OCR software for reading documents, you could certainly use that to OCR a navagation button that had text in the image. >though there are >drivers for many of the newer models that allow work with windows. The >people I've known who used them have much prefered to use command line >interface. Possibly because nobody has put enough money into developing a decent braille browser. > Second, reading the text on a web site is often not enough to be >able to use it. Exactly my point. If the knowledge gained from something made accessible is unusable to the blind person, then what is the point to making it accessible to start with. >There are lots of things that flash UIs, which are utterly >inaccesable by the blind, and more that have images for navigation > buttons, >with no, or useless, alt attributes. Frankly, I've never met a sighted person, upon seeing Flash on a website, exclaim "Wow that really is something that really needs to be on this website" The response generally is more along the lines of "get this ^&*$ off the screen" So you won't get any arguements out of me if the Supreme Court tells all commercial entities that Flash cannot be used because it doesen't meet ADA. On the contrary I'll be jumping for joy. Keep in mind that I'm not arguing against a court judgement that forces the issue of ADA on commercial websites. If one came down everyone, including sighted persons, would benefit because there's far too much crappy HTML on commercial sites as it is. What I do think, though, is that it's very easy to push this thing way too far, much easier than something mundane like building access. It's easy enough to argue that public buildings need ramp access - not only is it good for the handicapped, but there's lots of normal everyday things like deliveries on handcarts that don't go through the loading dock and why should the minimum-wage UPS delivery kid have to throw out his back carrying loads up steps all day long? But, while ADA access to commercial websites really needs to be written into the law, it also needs to have a whole lot more exceptions in it than building access. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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