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Giving the Blind Better Web Access
crimeandpunishment writes "Decades ago, the breakthrough for the disabled was making buildings wheelchair accessible. Today, it's making their world Web-accessible. Disabled groups are hailing new legislation Congress has sent to the President. Among other things, the measure will give the blind greater Internet access through smart phones, and require devices like iPhones and Blackberrys to be hearing-aid compatible. 'It breaks down barriers for all of us,' says Mark Richert of the American Foundation for the Blind."
These sorts of well-intentioned pieces of legislation are the kind of thing that ostensibly are for our betterment and they always look great on paper. But when you're actually have to design a website and you start running into the requirements of Section 508 and other such well-meaning laws, the feel-good shine wears off fast. Inevitably they mean considerably more work in the best case scenario, and a "dumbing down" of a website in the worst case scenario (if you follow the "suggested" best-practices). You can look at the "cultural heritage" laws in Quebec as an example of where good intentions can go. It starts off with a noble goal of not excluding French-speakers from public life, and eventually leads to something like Bill 101, which all but outlawed English in the region, complete with a language gestapo.
I'm all for the blind being able to use the web. But wouldn't it be much better to approach the issue as a technological one on the viewer's end, and not a legislative one on the designer's end? I would much rather be asked to do something that TOLD to do it, under threat of law.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
.... just stop them from putting their cane through the screen!
No, this does not "break down barriers for us all". It breaks down barriers for certain people, while putting up barriers for anyone creating web content.
How do you have to pay more? If you are designing your webpages and using CSS2 correctly, you have no additional work. Your webpage should degrade gracefully and there are no problems.
It also has provisions for CC or subtitles for the HOH/deaf. This has me hoping. Despite the fact that most of the players support CC, the online video/movies seem to ignore it. It strikes me as odd that every DVD has either CC or Subtitles (they have to by law), but only 18 movies in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy catetory at the itunes store have CC.
Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
This has nothing to do with the Web. It's about telephony in its VoIP form, broadcast content redistributed over the Internet, and mobile browsers. It doesn't affect web sites. See S.3304.
Just as an exercise, geeks, try running your computer without a monitor for no less than 4 hours. It is a lesson you won't soon forget.
Even worse: The way the ADA is currently 'enforced' is through your local building inspection office. If you want to build a building, you can't get a permit until they review your plans for, among other things, ADA compliance. Somewhere, someone is planning a 'web site permit' to enforce this crap.
Companies frequently justify discrimination on the basis of cost. But as more and more services move to online only or mainly online, there's a greater and greater need for this to be considered a human right. Even if it does mean that a few CEOs will have to settle for gold bathroom fixtures instead of platinum.
...by investing in tech and science that can make them see it with their EYES!
While it is nice to see the gov't pass laws like this, it would be even nicer to see them put up the funding for developing the tech/science further behind studies like the one I linked to. Or lifting the ban on stem cell research so that we can really get on track with giving back the senses that have been robbed from so many people, among other things.
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
It's really not that hard, put a blind fold on and use a screen reader. Of all the disabilities out there, blindness is one of the easiest to simulate.
%s/right/standards compliant/g
Does that sit better?
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
Google Analytics tells me that I got 20k visitors yesterday. Four of them used NS4. 1500 of them used IE6. There are few NS4 users that I honestly don't care how my site renders in their browser. There are enough IE6 users that I do have to care how my site renders in their browser.
How can I get Google Analytics to tell me how many of my visitors are blind and using screen-readers?
why spend so much time and money making all of these devices hearing-aid compatible? why not just make the hearing-aids device compatible? install bluetooth receiver in hearing aid. problem solved.
FOXTROT UNIFORM CHARLIE KILO
pumping plain text to anyone identified coming to my website as impaired.
It is the safest route to follow. Any attempt by me or other others to gracefully handle it only will invite lawyers whose occupation is find those who slip up while acting on good intentions. No, take it to the minimums required and forget it. This is a far different issue than handling weaker devices. You are not up against a finite thing, that is what a device is capable of, your up against a new infinite, what the impaired user thinks they can accept. You can't win except by going for zero.
Been there, done that, you won't believe the crap with ADA my cousins have been hit with at a bakery/cafe. There are people out there whose only business is to use laws like to make money, they could care less that you finally complied, they want money.
The flip side is, perhaps we will get back to deliver information instead of delivering effects. I am so tired of websites that make me work for the content
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Except that the ADA covers far more than building design. That's actually a tiny portion of the accessibility allowed by the ADA. Most of the ADA is enforced by people suing after they are discriminated against, which is a pretty haphazard approach.
The building thing is easier because the planning permit system was already in place. No one issues website permits.
The summary notes (and the article agrees) that:
Among other things, the measure will give the blind greater Internet access through smart phones
Laws provide nothing. They are demands a layer of government makes that are backed by a specified threat for not providing what is demanded.
Developers, researchers, and other technical people will provide this capability
And if you think this is nitpicking, consider the difference between having an idea and implementing an idea.
Government is, therefore, the original model for the patent troll. Claim that something should happen, wait until someone accomplishes it, then take all the credit.
The difference is that government gets to create pain before and until implementation rather than after.
http://www.apple.com/accessibility/
Granting I would like to pick up a few extra rifles that had 'Never fired, only been dropped once'.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
So, Apple doesn't provide hardware support for T-coil users, for instance. A hearing impaired user must find a third-party accessory that works, with luck, with Apple products... until Steve decides it hurts his user experience.
Everything on that page tell me that Apple takes accessibility in similarly serious fashion that Microsoft takes POSIX / open systems compliance. It's a bullet in their checklist, and they implement it minimally just to stay in government-style approved vendors lists...
This guy's been trying to kill Flash since 1938 !
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
it would be easier for small companies to open if they didn't have to put in handicapped ramps or dispose of toxic waste properly, so we should get rid of those requirements too right?
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
If you can't see a distinction between those two, you're irretrievably brainwashed already.
This used to be a really evil thing, but now it's a blessing in disguise. The right way of making a web page (nice clean <p>s and unordered lists, alts on all the images, styled with CSS) is extremely accessible. The more people do that, the better!
If I had mod points, you would get some!
I have said this for years. It forces people to learn to use CSS properly in order to be 508 compliant. It also has the benefit of (hopefully) weeding out so many of the "programmers" that give web programming a bad name. If a company has to legally make a site 508 compliant, then we won't have all of these horrendous websites that only work in IE nor will we have the programmers that make them still in the field. Hey! My bank! I'm looking at you!!!!
Of course, I'm sure that the legislation will be fubar somehow...
Unfortunately the "right way" is typically the way your manager or boss thinks is the "right way" which often means the "fastest cheapest way"
The standards-compliant way is often the "fastest cheapest way" to serve your customers with disabilities.
Handicapped accessible == machine readable.
Machine readability can be a bad thing when human eyeballs are the product and the information on your web site exists solely to entice humans to look at your advertisements. Watch as TV listings sites have introduced CAPTCHAs and distort the listings in ways that only a full CSS layout engine can untangle, specifically to deter machines that screen-scrape instead of paying per month for API access.
If you grok HTML and CSS then I fail to see how an accessible design costs a whole lot more than a non-accessible one.
Accessible design costs more if you incur costs per day or per view that advertisers are supposed to pay, but they don't pay if most of your visitors are scrapers. To take a bad gaming analogy: is it desirable to make a first-person shooter "accessible" to aimbots?
I'm looking at the percentage of gays and the percentage of blind people, noticing they are the same and getting a kick out of it.
Because someone else can't tell the difference.
We're not blind and don't need to.
Some of your customers are blind, and you need to understand how your customers "see" your company.
Why don't you go for a swim without using your arms or legs?
Does this video count?
Next to it would be the audio captcha button.
I tried the audio CAPTCHA here and could not solve it. It consisted of indistinct voices buried in layers of backwards speech. Do I need to turn in my human card?
Why not just make Flash illegal?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Worst. Car Analogy. Ever.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it