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Federally enforced HTML compliance
gmezero writes "Well, well, well, it looks like we might finally start seeing an end to the craptacular websites that can only be viewed with "Web Browser v9.5 beta 3". Acording to an article on ZDNet, the Fed will begin forcing all federal sites and those of companies doing business with the government to be handicapped friendly. Gee maybe now we can finally seperate the "real" HTML coders from the (insert ANY page builder tool name here) loosers! " Interesting idea-it seems heavy-handed, but the article itself does a good job of explaining why this would be a good thing.
This is a damn good idea. Perhaps it can also be taken up and noticed by those few sites that are set up as either "Explorer only" or "Netscape Only - sorry, we've detected you're using Explorer and will not allow you access to our page".
We use LINUX, we love LINUX and it is the backbone of our work. But we also co-exist with Windows 95, and nothing is more frustrating then trying to access a site, from a Win95 users machine, using Explorer and being told we cannot connect because that WWW authors page deems it politically incorrect to allow access to a microsoft product.
Could these authors realise that we are deeply indebted to their invaluable work (and invaluable content) within their pages, but please, remove the block to Explorer access!
If Macroshaft and Netscrape hadn't written "enhancements" that violated the HTML standard in the first place, we wouldn't have this problem. Stupid corporate bastards.
Last I checked, Netscape was available for Windows as well. In fact, companies would be ludicrous NOT to standardize on the cross-platform Netscape.
My company is making an ecommerce site for a company that sells computers to the government. Its certainly not graphics intensive (we're perl coders, not web designers) but surely will take a bit of effort to convert all the forms to be lynx-friendly... billed at the standard rate.
heh heh heh
Impatient people have rights too, you know! Perhaps it's time that Microsoft went back to basics and concentrated on the simple things like rendering text to the page ASAP instead of working on how to break the next standard.
Browsers need to comply to standards too, not just web creators. If it wasn't for IE then maybe Frontpage may have stuck to HTML standards and then it would produce nicer results for all to enjoy. Hotmetal Pro has a nice feature that checks your pages for accessability for people with disabilities.
-Gary, UK.
...because slashdot is such a blatent abuse of HTML. :p
...?)
BTW, anyone else thing someone who writes the wrong word for loser and thinks there's such a thing as an HTML coder is a bit lame? Yep, I thought so. Still, this is a great thing - thanks for letting us know about it. Actually, it shouldn't be anything new; it follows directly from the ADA, which theoretically requires all businesses in the US to be accessible by disabled persons...
(Altho one does wonder...is it illegal to make a brochure for your products without also making a version on tape? It it ok if the text is legible and can be recognized by OCR and then played using a speech synth?
- RF (dfelker@cnu.edu)
What does that have to do with giving the handicaped better access to federal sites?
Well it's nice to know that the U.S. knows how things should be (once again). Lets see if any characters outside of ASCII table work after some... standardizing. Something like this should be an ISO job, after all.
i guess your not handicapped. if the government madnadtes that it's websites and business it works with must be handicapped accesible, then that is their right. they are not saying your private site must be.
trying thinking, then responding...it usually helps.
A frames hating AC
The situation in the EU is obviously slightly
more complicated because of the multiple layers
of legislature.
Anyway, IANAL etc, but: the European Human
Rights Convention (which is enacted in member
states through additional legislation as far
as I know) _probably_ affects provision of
servies including on-line services.
In the UK, the Disability Discrimination Act
makes requirements of most sectors (sadly
education currently has an exemption) to make
sure that provision of services does not
discriminate against the disabled by being
unreasonably difficult to use.
Links to policies in a range of countries can be found at:
http://www.w3.org/WAI/References/Policy
What about the rights of people with disabilities to have access to their government?
It's not your fault. Most folks don't think about these things unless they have difficulty.
Try this. Set you browser to 640x480, set your fonts small, turn off images and keep it that way for a while.
I just *love* dealing with them.
"Ummm....what's the tag for making a form email someone?"
"You need a script."
"Where do I get one? Do you have one?"
*hits head against monitor*
Blocking based on your browser is silly and ineffective in most cases. Sickened by Netscape which returns the line:
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.08 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.0.36 i586) whenever I hit a www site, I ended up altering NS to return:
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.05 [en] (Win95; I)
or even:
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 [en] (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT)
The moral of the story: you can't always judge a browser by it's user-agent...
'great, i was blinded back in 1945 by the atom bomb at hiroshima, but
now thanks to the allmighty US government i can view their web pages with ease. as long as i have a 4500$ braille terminal' --suzie shimamura
'when that american land mine blew up while i was picking vegetables and shattered
the surface of my corneas, i thought id never be able to look at a web site again.
thanks to the US government i will now be able to browse many wonderful
sites that i never would have been able to see' --billy huang
'at first i thought the US government was wrong for blowing up my grandmother and causing me to go blind
but once i left serbia i realized that it was all for the better, and that the US government really does care about the little guy' --ladko vadich
'well, i got locked up in prison in 1991 because a US federal marshall planted 0.5 oz of crack in my pocket, i havent ever seen the web' -- ronald s. grimer, es.
"Remember, the U.S. government is the largest single employer in the world." That's right, and a lot of their employees have disabilities. If companies want to do business then they should do those minimal changes the government is asking for.
Can I get the exclusive on translating the great paintings to text so that all government museums and museums doing business with the government wanting to display their paintings on the net will have to some to me? I can also be hired to translate great musical pieces into paintings or text.
I do not want to make fun of this matter, but some things just cannot be accesible to everyone. While I see no reason to no be available where possible, these articles don't give enough depth to allow us to see possible pitfalls in their implementation.
I also don't like making new criminals where this is not necessary....
Well, aren't you special ? Just what kind of product would that be?
Is there anything we can do without f-ing gov't regulation? Why not let market forces determine it. If a company is stupid enough to make a site that few people can view then they will go out of business. Instead the gov't nazis will pass more regulations about technology they have no clue about. BAD IDEA BAD BAD BAD IDEA!
IE is FAR and AWAY THE most standards compliant browser ON THE MARKET! It's ALSO the most accessible.
Get a frigging clue!
"Violates freedom of the press?" I don't know if I've ever seen a lamer appeal to Constitutionality. Clue: "Freedom of the press" refers to the ability to print what you want. Violating freedom of the press is, by definition, censorship. Handicap access is not censorship and does not violate your right to free speech.
The point of the government is basically to protect the interests of minorities, in case you hadn't realized. Otherwise whoever is in the majority always gets their way and you don't have a democracy. And sorry, capitalistic forces aren't going to force people to make their sites handicap-friendly because they won't go out of business. (Duh -- these companies haven't gone out of business so far.) Don't be so naive as to think that a pure capitalistic anarchy is a utopian solution to all problems. Yeah, government overregulation can be really bad, but some government regulation is necessary. It's even worse when the people in charge are the only ones who get their interests served.
Most of us don't think so.
Are we blinded by or anti-M$ feelings ?
Nope.. It's you who are by you pro-M$ feelings..
maybe this will help you realize that.
--
"A one eye man is a king in the world of blindness.."
Dumb grass hoper.
I think the purpose of the government is more than guarantor of individual freedoms. It should also play a role in ensuring that at least some groups other than whatever majority is in power can have at least some of their needs met. Personally, I don't want to live in a society with a "Screw you Jack, I've got mine" mentality.
Exactly.
Remember OS/2's webex? It died b/c IBM chose to adhere to standards while Netscape was off writing all those stupid tags of theirs that later became the de-facto standard.
I hate netscape as much as I hate Microsoft, and I think Netscape is even more to blame for the HTML mess than Microsoft is.
I had an idea to convert old arcade games into
standup coin-op linux-based 'net terminals.
This sounds like a good reason to find another project, If I'm reading correctly.
Without this, there is no point in having a USA. There are governments such as the ones you speek of, and our founders left them because they wanted something diffrent, something that gave men (and women) the chance to stand on thier own two feet.
I submit that there is nothing wrong with "meeting the needs of the less fortunate," but that was never to be the purpose of the USA.
Why take the one country in the world that does things this new way, and try to change it to be more like the countries that it was developed to be diffrent from? If someone want's to lend a hand, there is nothing stopping them. When the government dips into MY back pocket and tells me THEY know who needs my help more than I do, I AM offended.
So, Yes, the USA was founded and chartered on the principles of "Screw You Jack, I've Got Mine." But I suggest you read some of the founders inital intentions, maybe some readings from Jefferson and Washington, and see exactly why they felt that way. Plus, they wrote it in much more elegant terms that "screw you."
Some people live and thrive where they understand it's up to only themselfs to sink or swim. That is why the country exists today. If it's not for you, go elsewhere, don't screw it up for the rest of us. There are hundreds of places where the government does exactly what you seem to want, but the USA is the only one that isn't. Leave it that way.
Some studies have actually shown that personal contributions to charity are actually directly dependant on taxs, and when taxes go down, charitable contributions go up, and the needs of the less fortunate are met with greater efficentcy. But, you don't want to let people do it themselfs, do you, no, let the government deal with the less fortunate, so you can feel good and not have to actually think about it....
"Oh, I want my government more like EU governments" God forbid you actually go there to get what you want. Why don't you "I want my UNIX more like Windows" "I want my truck to ride more like a car" "I want my pizza to taste more like hamburger" while your at it, just elminate all our choices....
You go up to the painting and there's a box with a button on it. You press it and a voice describes the painting to you.
You are right, IE5 support many CSS and HTML 4 tags that Netscape or Opera still ignore completely. Even the W3C folks admit that IE5 is the browser the closest to standard compliance (though not perfect).
Just because it's MS means it's bad, there's a fine line between fair criticism and fanatism. Sometimes MS does things right, and IE5 and Outlook Express are very good programs (maybe because there IS still competition on these market)
Gah. I've been making sites for 2 years, i don't know half the HTML tags, and my Dreamweaver-generated code works perfectly with IE and Netscape.
And no, i don't work for Macromedia.
Yes, but if Netscape and Ms hadn't added extra feature before the W3C (can you say TABLE ?), then we would still surfing with very poor looking sites because the W3C would have stayed with a very limited HTML. The W3C was forced to improved HTML functionnality by browsers. The normalisation body is good for normalising, not that good for adding new features...
Legal requirements to make web sites viewable in voice/text based browsers, I'm sorry, it ain't gonna happen. This would be stuff like a legal requirement for every image to have the "title" attribute set with a 2 paragraph discrption and crap like that.
At one time the US Gvmt also required systems that it bought to be POSIX compliant.
Along came the Microsoft desktop and killed off the notion of open standards (and Unix along with it).
There is just no good way to make the web accessible to blind people. As a web designer, I have to use complex tables and lots of HTML tricks to get web pages to look good. It would probably sound horrible in a speech synthesis. How is a speech synthesier going to handle navbars and multiple columns? Sure, I could make my web pages look like the awful-looking "lynx-compatible" pages, but that would make a bad first impression with most people.
The article said that 1.6 million people are blind. Thats only about 0.6% of the US population. Why go to all this trouble for 0.6%? It just isn't worth it.
One of the reasons the Web is so popular is because people are impressed by great-looking multimedia pages. Why try to ruin that?
How long will it be before everyone has to follow government HTML standards. Seems I did about $2000 dollars worth of business with the Fed as of April 15th.
Yes, but if Netscape and Ms hadn't added extra feature before the W3C (can you say TABLE ?), then we would still surfing with very poor looking sites because the W3C would have stayed with a very limited HTML. The W3C was forced to improved HTML functionnality by browsers. The normalisation body is good for normalising, not that good for adding new features...
You're right in that the W3C was very slow about adding features to the earlier standards, and that at the time the netscape extensions made sense, but the HTML 4.0 standard is very modern, so proprietary standards are no longer appropriate or necessary. I wish now that microsoft would get on the ball, like netscape has with mozilla, to support the standard for the benefit of everyone.
Great in theory, except it would probably cost you more than that in legal fees, and it would take 2 years to see the money even if you won. Gotta love the legal system.
Are we going to see government standards requiring the same thing for books? No book can be published unless there is a large print version, the book is not permitted to come with a CD unless all the information from the CD is also printed in the text, the book must be printed so that it opens flat without needing to be held open (for ease of use by people with physical problems) and the book cannot contain unlabelled pictures or tables that are hard to read by scanners that might be used to read text to the blind?
It's no business of the government to set these things. It may seem to be a good cause, but the idea that the government can restrict what you can say, for a good cause, sets a dangerous precedent that next time, might not be used for such a good cause.
And is this going to mean that every 12 year old with a web page is going to be forced to bring it into compliance? (The article makes an analogy to current laws about publically-accessible buildings. That 12 year old's page isn't going to be on a private network, nor will it be password-protected--which means it would be publically accessible.)
And before you think that's impossible, consider the implications of the following:
Once these standards are implemented later this year, observers say, the same sweeping changes in store for the public sector are likely to hit commercial Web site operators, too.
I write (note that I don't say code, because it's *NOT* coding) all my HTML myself, because I find that all the HTML editors I've seen (which pretty much amounts to just netscape ;) try to do all sorts of wysiwyg stuff and are pittiful when it comes to standards conformance. OTOH, if there's a good one that doesn't do such crap, I certainly don't mind if someone uses it rather than writing by hand...
:)
My point, however, was just that it's lame to call oneself a coder for writing HTML. I *write* something in HTML just like I *write* something in LaTeX; I *code* something in C...
- RF (dfelker@cnu.edu)
P.S. If you've ever been on efnet #coders, perhaps you know that this problem with newbies thinking HTML is coding gets old after a while...
It's not your fault. Most folks don't think about these things unless they have difficulty.
Try this. Set you browser to 640x480, set your fonts small, turn off images and keep it that way for a while.
This is going to simulate being blind? or deaf?
In the above example of a RA file with no textual companion, it would seem logical to me that the solution is to develope a speech-to-text browser plug-in, not to mandate that the site in question pre-translates the audio. I'd much rather see the gov't make grants to the innovative companies that develop software to translate existing pages into handicap-friendly pages than to go down this path. Plus, translation software makes *everything* accessible, not just those companies that deal with the gov't.
So you think it would be easier to write a plug-in that can, in real-time, translate audio in any format, in any language, to text. Oh and this 'magical' plug-in would also have to work on all browsers also. I don't think any amount of government funding is going to make that a reality any time soon..
This whole thing may seem innocuous on its face, but the zealous do-gooders in the District of Corruption never stop with "good enough" and tend to take things to the extreme. I imagine this sillyness will be extended to the entire Internet in one way or another.
Oh I know.. all these evil handicap do-gooders.. trying to make information accessible to all.. bastards.. next thing you know they are going to take more parking spaces.. the constitution says I have the right to park anywhere I want doesn't it??
...by your so-called ``great-looking'' multimedia web pages. Everyone I know, from clueless newbie to expert, finds that sort of bloat that takes forever to load annoying, not to mention distracting when trying to read the content. (``Wait, wtf?'' I hear you saying, ``You mean there's supposed to be content?!?! No way!!'')
Seeing a sidebar full of graphical section labels and lots of banners and ads all over the place (all the big news sites come to mind) while trying to read an article is just plain obnoxious. Why can't you idiots (who happen to be making loads of money off other idiots who pay you to design their pages) get that through your think skulls?! If I wait more than 5 seconds for anything to be visible when loading a page, and I'm not DAMN sure it's something I want to see, I hit the back button - simple as that - and you've lost a potential viewer who may have considered buying your product, listening to your opinion, or whatever.
Go back to wanking over your cable modem that makes your crappy pages load remotely fast if you really want; meanwhile, I'll be working on stuff that's pleasant to view, accessible, and non-lame.
- RF (dalias@brightrain.dyn.cx)
Something like this should be an ISO job, after all.
no, the iso's job is to make standards, the gov in this case is just enforcing one of the important ones...
HTML compliance, while not explicitly stated, is there in the fact that many pages that are layed out using Tables (as opposed to CSS) come out as gobblitygook on most browsers used by the handicapped (specifically, ones for the blind).
Then improve the browsers used by the handicapped but for god sake leave the web pages alone!
It's scary when the idiots are trying to enforce their stupidity upon us.
Legal requirements imposed seems a bit much, and I think I am against it still. Maybe someone should from a privately funded project using GNU/GPL tools, to promote internet access for the disabled, and make things easier for them. Now, that would not only get my support, but it would also get some of my cash.
The disabled already have tools that work fine, but if someone is too lazy to use tags then the best browser in the world isn't going to describe a picture to them.
Sounds pretty close to censorship to me
Its NOT close to censorship at all. Its actually the opposite, because its making sure that what you have to say is available to all, not just those that can see, or hear, etc.. And besides, this isn't going to affect your aol wArEz page, just sites that are government related.
I used emacs' W3 at work to test my pages. A bit more realistic than lynx, but very strict, nonetheless.
Jeez, why not just kick my old boss (blind, and a great SW engineer, BTW) in the balls and tell him to piss off!
Put yourself in their shoes for just half a second - it is not inconcievable that you might lose your sight - and think how you'd feel then.
It is NOT hard to make good looking web pages that are accesible - read the w3c guidelines.
I've seen a few referances to Bobby, can anyone post the URL or something?
That's crap. They're not limiting what you can say or how you say it. All you have to do is make it available in a way that handicapped people can access too. If you want to put up two different pages, fine. Some people do that. And clue time: there isn't any law that says that you have a right to express yourself "any way you want".
Yet another person who reinterprets the Constitution according to their own attitudes.
You also seem to be naive enough to think that most people are not inherently selfish. It would be interesting to see the citations for "some studies".
And extending your poorly-chosen charity example... suppose that I believe that the web pages of government contractors should be web accessible. How exactly am I going to get all of them to do that? I can't even "vote with my checkbook" if I'm not a direct customer of theirs. Sometimes entities just have to be made to do things.
Yeah, I agree. If they aren't Upper-middle class, healthy, heterosexual ;-)
anglo-saxon protestants, forget about 'em
Are you saying that writing code that writes HTML is useless ?
I can use slash from lynx. Can you say the same for your site.
Actually, CSS was designed to allow older browsers to read the page without errors, and so it allows you to put the HTML commenting tag around the style sheet data.
If you do this by the CSS standard (so that your page is more universally compliant with Lynx and various and sundry others), IE ignores everything within the comment tags. I'm sorry, that does not constitute, for me, compliance with the CSS standard.
Opera, on the other hand, does just fine.
Since I use the comment tag to be sure that those
that can't read CSS don't get their pants in a
bunch, I have not yet determined how well IE
reads the CSS functions. Opera reads all of the
ones I have used (mostly white space controlling
functions like indentions, borders, padding,
and page controls) pretty well.
Not to bash Microsoft, of course - Netscape seems
to have the same trouble. So to either of these
multimegabyte browsers, my page looks like plain
jane H1, H2, P, etc.
The government is only regulating itself. They're not telling any private
citizens what they can or can't do. They only tell you what to do if you
want some of *MY* tax money that *I* paid. I'm glad they've decided to
spend their "web-site-budget" on making standards-compliant pages instead
of funding Microsoft and Netscape under the table by indirectly spreading
FUD about the non-big-2 browsers.
BTW, I tried to file my state income tax over the web. It said I had to
use MSIE or Netscape Navigator. It said that I wasn't allowed to use my
web browser. So I went to the Settings-Network menu, and chose Netscape
for the "Spoof As" option. Then it let me in. That is seriously fucked
up. Somebody should get fired for that.
More strawmen.
On the WWW, a page can be displayed in black-on-white if the end user so desires. This really doesn't have anything to do with authoring, as any decent browser allows the user to override author preferences.
Furthermore, H1 does not necessarly make text bigger. It merely flags text as important. Example: a stylesheet defines h1 as same-sized, but in italic. Or, look at h1 in Lynx.
HTML is not a visual medium. Visual presentation is just a possibility
Some of the attitudes I'm seeing are scary. The underlying attitude seems to be: "Why should I have my style cramped just because of some crip?".
Adding wheelchair ramps, braille signs, and so forth to comply with ADA cost money. Making your website accessible doesn't cost any money, doesn't require any constraints. It just means doing it right. If you can figure out what "right" is. Or are these negativists just a bunch of HTML skript kiddies who can't figure out how to effectively use the language?
(sorry for the flamebait, but the reactionism really got to me. If you really think the ADA is a bad idea, blindfold yourself for a day and try that)
A table is for marking up tabular data not for you to mimick a newspaper.
A browser is for viewing these tabulars not for you to flame every single person who happens to build creative pages. If you dislike this fact, why don't you go in China where conformism is in vogue. We are better not to show you any piece of innovation or you will sue us.
Don't bother to reply if you can't put your name behind it.
Your identity shall not conflict with your convictions. If it does, the reason might be that Big Brother want to know where to reach you when he doesn't like the way you think.
-- A not so Anonymous Coward on a network line with lots of Little Brothers looking at him.
Interesting, I use to work for a buisness that took government orders occasionally. And, from what I remember, this is wildly inaccurate.
The government can and will return later to inforce new standards on companies it use to deal with, at the comapanies cost. Espically with reguard to any and all forms of documentation.
I wish I could be very specific here, but I'm posting as an AC for a reason.
So, the government buys excess of this item, way excess, and then a year later sells this excess off. These are nonparishable items. This small buisness buys the excess, with all data sheets and test sheets.
Another year later, the government takes bids on the parts again. This small company puts in a bid, and includes the tests supplied with the parts when bought in surplus from the government, plus independant tests. The government buys the parts from this company because of the low bid.
Then, another year later, the FBI is at the door, with guns in hand, and treets the employees brutally. Old men, old women, young secertaries, everyone his treated as if they were a spy. The files are seized, the computer logs are drives are seized, and the buisness is shut down.
The case comes to trial, and the buisness owner, a old kind fellow close to retirement age, is convicted of a fellony, "Attempting to defraud the U S Military." Why?
Well, aparently, the parts in question did not include "Manufactures Test Data Sheets." Yes, that's right, independant tests, and the tests that the government did themself were not suffecent. Even though the government was aware of the status of the tests when they purchased the parts, they choose to buy, and pay for the parts.
Never attempting to return the parts, never objecting to the transaction, never refusing payment. The government demanded reimbursment, did not return the parts, drove the company out of buisness, and put the family that owned the busness in the poorhouse and hung "fellon" tags around thier neck. Shocking?
Well, since I worked there, and can verify this all first hand, I can say I was shocked. But, later I come to find out this isn't an isolated case. Aparently there were at least a dozen companies in this area of buisness that had the exact same things happen to them.
Yes, this is the US government, and US buisnesses. And yes, I believe that the argument that you can't trust them to not "retrofit laws." If you sell them even ONE CD, or one widget, to the smallest government office, your better dot your "i's" and cross all you "t's" and now, be damn sure you html is all black and white, and contains alt tags.
When the cold war has died, and there are literally thousands of government agencies trying to justify thier existance, it is nessary to cover your ass, because they will come after you just to prove thier jobs are still important.
You have the right to publish whatever you want and the government shouldn't tell you what format you need to use.
Bzzzt, thanks for playing "Constitutionally Recognized Liberties!"
The First Amendment says very specifically that Congress is forbidden from passing laws abridging the freedom of the press. (The Fourteenth Amendment then extends the First Amendment to also prohibit State legislatures from doing likewise.) This is a Good Thing, and a great boon to the American democracy (don't forget, kids, the First Amendment is not universal -- many other democracies don't have freedom of the press held in such sacrosanct regard as we do).
However, the First Amendment does not say that the Government is compelled to do business with those whose speech they find objectionable. The Government would not be forced to publish their budgets in the newsletter of the Ku Klux Klan, for instance -- the Government would choose instead to publish their budgets in a more community-oriented paper. Hustler magazine is not invited to White House press briefings, but the New York Times and Washington Post certainly are.
The Government has no ability to say "Hey! You! I don't like what you're saying, or the HTML format you're using! Change it!"
The Government does have the ability to say, "If you want to do business with us, then you must adhere to these guidelines."
The first is an example of tyranny, of the Government quashing the free press by edict. The second is an example of capitalism, of the Government engaging in contracts and agreements with the free press.
The first is absolutely un-American, while the second is quite comfortably within the social contract the United States was founded upon.
According to half-wit Simpson, quoted in this article,"this is...a civil rights issue." Since when did anyone have a "right" to the work of another person, or to force another to make his work meet their needs?
I can't help but think that this is just the beginning of federal meddling with the net.
God save us from clueless bureaucrats.
slashdot broke my sig
What concerns me is not the government wanting to make their sites work for the disabled, it's Miss Simpson's assertion that "it's a basic right." It isn't. Do the government have a right to demand that companies doing business with them make their web sites conform to their standards? I don't know, I don't recall any legislation on this.
This whole thing may seem innocuous on its face, but the zealous do-gooders in the District of Corruption never stop with "good enough" and tend to take things to the extreme. I imagine this sillyness will be extended to the entire Internet in one way or another.
slashdot broke my sig
The last time I checked, the owner of the parking lot still has the right to determine who can park where, if at all, the feds' misguided efforts to the contrary notwithstanding.
No one wants to keep disabled people from reading their web site, they're just steamed at everyone trying to tell them how they are to use their property.
slashdot broke my sig
Just require that pages can be optionally viewed and used with text-only browsers such as Lynx.
---
I think your being paranoid about it. Think about how modern HTML is supposed to work: your HTML pages have the content, and the formatting is specified in CSS files. Thus, if someone needs huge fonts and b/w, if all the content in the HTML file should be decoupled from the formatting info in the CSS, they can just overrride your style sheet.
And, it doens't say that it's government contracted websites, it seems to imply that it's companies that do buisness with the government. So, if someone in the government want's to buy a copy or Red Hat, then all of the Red Hat sites have to conform? It's not clear, but, again, it's not something that I would put past the government.
I am inclined to think this "business with the government" language is the reporter's bad choice of words ;).
The point, IMHO, is that the government, if it wants to buy a product from some company, it should choose one that meets some accessibility standard. Not that companies are forced to meet that standard, but that unless they meet it, the government won't do business with them.
So, if someone in the government want's to buy a copy or Red Hat, then all of the Red Hat sites have to conform? It's not clear, but, again, it's not something that I would put past the government.
It's not clear, you're right. But there could be a case for it. If the government decides to spend its money on Red Hat, shouldn't the greatest number of tax payers be able of seeing what is it that their government spends their money in?
Of course, this argument, in this form, is bogus, since it can give rise to the situation you fear, that is, govt buys a single RH 6.0 copy and demands RH to rewrite their site, at RH's cost.
But make a small change in it. Now, make government restrain itself from buying stuff from companies that don't run accessible sites. Now you have given an incentive to companies for making their sites accessible (otherwise they can't compete for government PO's).
Not that I believe every single purchase government makes should be from a supplier with accessible web pages, BTW. It would be nice, though.
---
Yeah, right. Handicapped people have been around for as long as civilization has been around. Can you tell me examples of special services for disabled people springing up in free market societies without government intervention?
The point is: Contrary to your first premise in the paragraph above, what if there are not enough handicapped users out there so that it should create a great market for handicapped friendly webpages? (I should add "reasonably priced" to that, too.)
Do you believe that people have a right to know where their taxpayer dollars go? And if so, do you believe that a handicapped person has any less rights in this matter?
---
WYSIWYG HTML editors and tools improve ease of design of a web site many times over. Things such as Macromedia Dreamweaver and Cold Fusion aren't exactly newbie tools.
Creating really complex web pages gets quite difficult when working exclusively in text. Sure it's possible to do, but if you have a nice WYSIWYG editor which generates standard compliant HTML, why not take advantage of it?
I'm not saying people shouldn't work in text. On the contrary, slight modifications and fixes are sometimes easier to do when working in a text editor... however when you start moving layers from one side of the page to another and working with javascript hooks.... it makes more sense to do it in a WYSIWYG editor.
--
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
Actually, there is a nice provision in copyright law for books. I believe that if the original publisher of a book does not produce a braille edition with a specified period of time, then a braille publisher is allowed to create one without having to negotiate a contract with the publisher/author. This is the sort of legislation that makes a great deal of sense.
While blind people may not be able to use the web to its fullest, I never cease to be amazed at how well the blind (and the deaf) manage to live such normal and productive lives in the ordinary world without much in the way of assistance. It is truly a tribute to the human spirit.
If you think providing facilities for the disabled and the often legally mandated assistants that must be hired to help them don't cost anything, you are delusional. There is a lot more to the cost than lawsuits.
Here in Chicago, the Chicago Transit Authority claims it is spending 25% of its capital budget on ADA retrofits. This is for a system that is in horrible condition and requires a lot of capital money just to keep it running at all. I happen to think that the CTA overstates what it spends on ADA compliance, but there is no doubt that elevators at L stations cost money, wheelchair lifts for buses cost money, paratransit services cost money, etc. This is a public, not a private example, but it should demonstrate plainly that ADA compliance costs money.
By saying that Muni could have avoided the lawsuit by providing an alternate format, you only prove my point. If the web format isn't accessible, no one can have it. To put up text would require additional money to both assess the requirements for the blind, create the files, and then maintain them. They would probably take the easy way out and produce text only documents, thus taking away a potentially useful graphical feature from the vast majority of the people who are not blind. (Actually, I oppose PDF myself, but that's because I think the format sucks).
As for not wanting my charity, the disabled certainly don't want to be labeled as receiving charity, but in fact they do want to force me to spend money providing facilities for them. They want the law to force businesses to provide these facilities - again, regardless of any demonstrated need - then the business passes the cost along to its customers and owners. I guess technically it isn't charity since it's not voluntary, so we'll have to label it a tax.
To say that because each and every disabled activist isn't a radical is just a dodge. It's certainly a valid criticism of the free software community that it has a large percentage of flamers in it. It is no less valid to say that there are a large number of extremists among the disabled activists. Of course disagree with them (as I do) and you'll be labeled "able-ist", a version of the "race card" I notice that you couldn't resist trotting out at the earliest opportunity.
Like I say, we should build facilities for the disabled where they make sense. Curb cuts are cost effective. Ground level ramps at buildings are usually cost effective. If demand for disabled services are there, other less cost effective services might be warranted. But it is ridiculous to say that every facility constructed everywhere must be fully accessible to the disabled without regard to cost or whether or not they will be used (which is what the ADA requires) it simply wrong.
Other services (such as paratransit) for the extremely disabled should be provided by government agencies out of social service funds.
This is a major trend. There has already been a lawsuit against Muni (the SF transit agency) for using PDF graphics on their site. Disabled activists claimed that devices for the blind can work with them as easliy as with text.
While I think we should provide for the truly disabled (which compose only a tiny fraction of the outrageously large number of people the government classifies as disabled), the ADA is a terrible piece of legislation. It is rooted in the philosophy of a twelve year old kid, who whines when "Jimmy gets to have a BB gun" and wonders why he can't have one too. Fundamentally, the premise behind this law is that if each and every person can't have something, nobody should have it.
Of course the proponents call it "civil rights" legislation. But real civil rights don't require other people to spend huge amounts of their own money. The ADA is really a huge tax bill. It forces private America to spend large amounts of money on facilities and assistants for the disabled without regard to benefit/cost, how many people will actually use them, etc. If the government had actually passed a huge tax increase and used it to pay for these things, the people would have rebelled. So instead, the government just passes a law the makes businesses pay for it, which gets passed on to consumers as a hidden tax.
Make no mistake, taking care of the disabled is a matter of charity, not civil rights. The disabled advocates demand that (often hurling vicious insults that would never be tolerated from anyone else at government officials who won't do what they demand. I know, I've sat through public meeting on this) this be treated as a civil rights issue so they can have "dignity". It's just a way to disguise the handouts they receive.
Don't get me wrong, for those people who are truly disabled (such as those who are paralyzed) I fully believe that the government should raise funds via taxes to provide services and accomodations for them. Many of these people suffer a tremendous drop in quality of life as a result of their disability and any compassionate society would do what it can to help these people. The mentally ill should receive treatment. Businesses should get tax breaks and assistance for employing disabled individuals. Reasonable facilities such as accessible restroom and curb cuts should be provided. But these should be provided as matter of charity and kindness, not entitlement. Making it an entitlement only leads to ever more demands and ridiculous claims and lawsuits (the list is endless, examples on request).
Posted by MurphAndTheMagicTones:
If I put a picture of my dog Spot on my personal web page without an audio file describing the picture, will this constitute a hate crime?
Posted by kiezkahse:
.gif and makes an HTML image map to go over it. Imagine how that would look in Lynx... (shudder!)
Please, don't go blaming corporate mutation of a bad language for even worse code. No matter what NS or MS did, it doesn't change the fact that lots of people (webwankers?) use img src="whatever.gif" and leave it at that without the kinder, gentler height= and width= for graphics-enhanced browsers, let alone an alt= tag for Lynx, the preferred ADA-Compliant browser where I work. And it certainly wouldn't change the fact that Corporate-made GUI HTML spawners will screw up pretty bad -- anybody seen MS Publisher HTML? It converts the file to a
--
Kiez Kah-se'
Some Guy Out West
Posted by Alice in Uberland:
If the government regulates the proper use of HTML, this could be a great benefit to the internet as a whole. It starts with making pages handicap accessable, which isn't that difficult from a design standpoint.
If we're lucky, the government will carry this on to browsers. What I wouldn't give to force browsers to follow a stardard so that I can design under one and know that it will work with other browsers equally well.
This is just the benefit to the designers. Give the blind people a break. They're already blind, isn't that challenge enough without people making things more difficult for them out of sloth?
I worry about that because where I work we want to develop a user interface that will need Java, and we are federally funded so this law could affect us.
(What we want to do is not even possible in a CGI form, so that's why we are looking at Java.)
Also, some things don't make any sense for handicapped access anyway - for example making a site that produces roadmaps be accessable to blind people on braille terminals makes zero sense. If they can't see the site, they can't see the maps it produces either.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
[going off-topic here, but...]
Whoever wrote the headline (hemos?) didn't read the article carefully.
I've noticed a lot of that recently -- people will submit articles (sometimes not having read them all the way through themselves), then they get posted, and other people get all up in arms over a headline and blurb that have been sensationalised.
-lee...not suggesting anything more that that people actually read through and understand articles before they submit. it'd save everyone a lot of trouble in the long run.
First, I think people are confusing standard HTML with handicap-accessible HTML. One can certainly write standards-compliant HTML that links to a Real Audio file, but without a text translation, that file wouldn't be accessible to the deaf. By the same token, various proprietary HTML tags are quite understandable to the disabled.
Second, I'm concerned at whether the gov't will enforce wrong-headed design on the web. In the above example of a RA file with no textual companion, it would seem logical to me that the solution is to develope a speech-to-text browser plug-in, not to mandate that the site in question pre-translates the audio. I'd much rather see the gov't make grants to the innovative companies that develop software to translate existing pages into handicap-friendly pages than to go down this path. Plus, translation software makes *everything* accessible, not just those companies that deal with the gov't.
...
There is obviously some material that cannot be
.gov
presented to handicapped users in any valid format.
There's no way to change this. But the article
is not about making music available to deaf people,
or graphics available to the blind; instead, it's making content that *can* be represented in words
and sentances (Such as tax forms, new bills in
Congress, contracts, EULAs, documentation for
software products, etc etc) into a form that all
web users will be able to access. And this form
already exists: It's called HTML (at least,
as defined by the W3C). If a page is written
in an HTML 4.0 compatible manner, then those with
disabilities will be able to use the page
without hassle by the browsers specifically made
for them.
If you have Real Audio or Flash or other A/V content on a site, then it should be possible
to present a text-version of the above without
too much extra work. For example, if a
site made available Clinton's State of the Union
address as an RA stream, they can also make it
text only and present that as well. If, on
the other hand, the A/V material is eye or
ear candy, as opposed to useful content, then you
can simply provide, as ALT text, that the material
is only for presentation only, and need not be
heard or seen to appriciate the rest of the content
on the sight (Namely, this can be done with ALT="").
But in all serious, this is a *good good good* thing. The HTML and the Web space in general has
been polluted by the Browser Wars, and taking
steps to finally distill the waters such that
there is one standard that *all* browsers on
*all* platforms for *all* users can understand
and present without difficulty.
(And if you want some more fun, read up in
comp.infosystems.web.authoring.html, and look
for a loon called Schlake who thinks the entire
ng is out to get him.)
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
HTML compliance, while not explicitly stated, is
there in the fact that many pages that are layed
out using Tables (as opposed to CSS) come out
as gobblitygook on most browsers used by the
handicapped (specifically, ones for the blind).
Also, this will require those that use images
to include ALT tags to make sure that the pages
are navigatable.
And in the end, this makes it a better web for all
of us.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Are you using IE 2.0 or something? IE V5.0 seems to be the MOST non Compliant Browser to date. In addition, it tries to format the screen BEFORE displaying ANY text. This is backwards thinking. I want to start reading TEXT right away, and look at the pictures later... Microsoft needs to spend more time getting a product to WORK, and NOT being first to market. My .02 worth.
-Smrf_Slyr U.S.A.
And as far as the social darwinists who seem to hate any charity towards their fellow humans, Universe! People who would check any code before installing it onto their box will let just about any stupid meme infest their brains. Clue phone ringing! We don't have a free market economy - never did. Look at all the corporate handouts, tax cuts, subsidies, etc. we give out! Make one move towards helping out actuall human beings, however, and some people get all in a tizzy. How dare that big bad government give my money to some starving half blind quadrapelegic person! I want them to give my money to ConglomoChem so they can compete with those nasty foreign companies.
What makes me most sad is when people take the meanest, most selfish and self indulgent parts of a philosphy and use them as a stick to bash others. We all know governemnt is a Bad Thing(tm) according to libertarian party dogma, but hey, this is a free association issue. We wouldn't limit a company's or individual's freedom to associate with whomever they choose, according to whatever guidelines they want to set, but let the government say they won't do business with people who don't comply with certain (minimal, sensible) guidelines regarding information accessibility, and all the libertarians and social darwinists get all irate.
Making sure everyone has equal access to information is a Good Thing(tm) and a prerequisite to a real free market.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Suppose I made some product which would be of no interest to any persons with any sort of disability?
I'd be interested if you could give an example; I certainly can't think of any.
The world has changed and we all have become metal men.
The
The world has changed and we all have become metal men.
Whoops, shouldn't trust pre-beta software...
The world has changed and we all have become metal men.
No, read his statement again:
Suppose I made some product which would be of no interest to any persons with any sort of disability?
He was suggesting that there is some product he could make which would be of no interest to anyone with any disability. That's what I was disagreeing with. He'd obviously not considered the needs of disabled people very carefully.
I'd suggest you've fallen into the same trap. Many people who are registered blind actually have some eyesight, but need extremely strong and unusual prescriptions - they'd be very interested in an opticians site. People who've lost limbs often want their replacement limbs to look unobtrusive, hence interest in well-padded footware like running shoes, and gloves.
I must admit defeat on the subject of people without any ears though!
As to whether I'd want someone to say "do it anyway", I understand that that's the point of the "Americans with Disabilities" Act - to enforce companies to make provision for disabled access to their services, even if there is no evidence of strong demand for such access. This move is just an extension of that same philosophy into the Information Superhighway (© Al Gore).
I guess one of the drivers for this policy is that government departments have to be seen to be non-discriminatory employers. If you believe the stats on the zdnet article, that would imply that up 1 in 30 government employees "have vision problems" (sic). That's probably a lot of employees who, unless something positive is done, will find their jobs harder to do as business moves more and more into internet technologies for their interactions.
The world has changed and we all have become metal men.
Businesses, once "forced" to hire disabled workers (by no longer having an excuse not to) usually find them to be especially motivated workers.
Absolutely - I've worked with a wheelchair-bound woman, and when I consider the challenge getting into work was for her, I can see how the rest of the day was a doddle for her! The difficulty is in forcing people to think a little before making silly decisions which inadvertantly put disabled people at a disadvantage.
The world has changed and we all have become metal men.
Well, the U.S. Government _created_ the Internet. Even before Al Gore ;-)
Any page that makes use of tables for layout purposes isn't friendly. That's about 99% of the WWW.
/mill
One needs to understand the semantics as well as the syntax of HTML. Tables aren't for layout - period.
The whole point of HTML is to have a format that is accessible. If people really don't give a damn about this they should use postscript or PDF. They get full control of the appearence on the client end and they don't pollute HTML with crap.
/mill
Lets say you are interested in the development of the Linux kernel. Every day you go to http://www.flashykernelnews.com to read the latest about the kernel developments. Unfortunately one day you get run over by a car and you lose your sight. Are you now not interested in the Linux kernel developments? Because now http://www.flashykernelnews.com is not accessible to you anymore.
'They make a product that is of no interest to a disable person like you'.
When used correctly HTML is accessible without any additional cost. Producing multiple versions (tape, braille, whatever) have additional costs. BUT of course all govt material should be accessible to all its citizens. Any other way would make people that can't access the govt material second rate citizens. If they are they shouldn't pay one dime to this govt that treating them like that.
CSS1, CSS2, and CSS-positioning takes care of that. Of course CSS came at the same time Netscape decided to implement all their kewl extensions instead of doing the right thing.
/mill
Btw, I have no problems with tables or images - when they are used correctly.
Artists that express themselves in sound or visually should do just that. Those forms of expression are mostly inaccessible.
HTML on the other hand was created to address these problems. People that misuse HTML is flipping the bird to all people with disabilities who had a great chance to a better life with HTML.
I want to be a fly on the wall when one of these artists/web designers explain for their blind son/daughter that they can't access daddy's/mommy's work because daddy/mommy has been 'creative'.
I can write a compiler for C that changes the semantics of "+" to mean substraction. Obviosly this also means what I have created isn't C anymore either.
/mill
If you want to tell the user agent how to visually render your pages it should be through style sheets. Using tables are a bad hack that is undermining the benefits of HTML.
I was trying to point out the flaw in considering a certain kind of information uninteresting to people with disabilities.
/mill
I won't force anyone to use HTML in a correct way, but a government should do what is best for all its citizens. It is a good thing they are enforcing this on their own sites.
I don't want govt to legislate this however. I will do my best to make things hard for those that do misuse HTML though.
Umm, if morons like you would use HTML correctly we wouldn't have to put a anti-moron filter in the browsers.
/mill
A table is for marking up tabular data not for you to mimick a newspaper.
Hmm, lets see. HTML+ (http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/HTMLPlus/htmlplus_1.html ) was circulating in 1993. Netscape was founded (http://home.netscape.com/company/about/background er.html#milestones) in April 1994. HTML+ contained tables.
/mill
Hakon W. Lie's style sheet proposal (http://www.w3.org/People/howcome/p/cascade.html) that influenced CSS greatly came in Oct 1994. At the same time Netscape released Navigator 1.0. Version 2 came about a year later and still no sign of style sheet support in it. Say hi to FONT, BLINK et al though.
In contrast Viola (http://ftp.sunet.se/pub/www/clients/viola/) supported tables in May 1994 (looking at the screenshots at Sunet) and had rudimentary style sheet support. Heck, just look at the screenshots and consider where we are 5 years later.
Creative pages? Nothing creative with misusing a tool.
/mill
All these so called "web designers" try to accomplish is to map their previous experiences of newspapers and such to the WWW. The WWW is not a newspaper. It is a different media with a different way to do things.
If you want full control over the visual appearence of a page you should use postscript or PDF. What you are doing now is no better than MS creating their own version of Java or trying to change the meaning of "open source".
http://www.cast.org/bobby
/mill
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL has lots of information on accessibility in general.
The government in the USA seems to regulate EVERYTHING they can thing of for the sole purpose of justifying thier existance. IMHO, thier purpose is to insure that no one infringes on anothers freedoms. And, it's not my god give write to use whatever browser I wish and force companies to comply to writing web pages that I can read.
Given our politicians known backgrounds, I suppose this affects porn sites most.
I finally got threw to it, and it does say for the disabled. But, I found something very uncomfortable about some of the wording.
Standards, yet, no definition what so ever about how or what is to be standardized. This potentially could mean black in white, with everything written with an H1 tag so it's easy to read. I don't doubt that something that stupid is possable.
And, it doens't say that it's government contracted websites, it seems to imply that it's companies that do buisness with the government. So, if someone in the government want's to buy a copy or Red Hat, then all of the Red Hat sites have to conform? It's not clear, but, again, it's not something that I would put past the government.
I don't like the looks of it still, but I do see more clearly where it's comming from. I would probably say that if the government were to put all thier money and energy into something to accomplish this goal, it might be better served by writing some guidlines that SUGGEST how to make sites better for the disabled, and spending some time working on the disabled side (better browser preformance for disabled, etc).
Legal requirements imposed seems a bit much, and I think I am against it still. Maybe someone should from a privately funded project using GNU/GPL tools, to promote internet access for the disabled, and make things easier for them. Now, that would not only get my support, but it would also get some of my cash.
Me: Legal requirements imposed seems a bit much, and I think I am against it still.
AC: but if someone is too lazy to use tags then the best browser in the world isn't going to describe a picture to them.
I shouldn't be making light of this, but this is actually humorous. K, if it should be a law, will we have special net police who track down the lazy evil villans who forget to put ALT tags in thier HTML, and imprison them for, what, say 5 years? "what are you in for man?" "Who me? Oh, I sold software to the government, and didn't put ALT tag's in my web page..." "oh, I ran a mall public internet kiosk, and forgot to put a 'warning, some internet web sites may cause dizzyness' sign on it."
Ack... Spend money on awareness, not legislation. You really think the legal system, police, courts, judges, and all that don't have enough stupid laws to deal with, now THIS should be a law?
I think he's trying to compare Lynx to an old car that has to run on leaded gas. And in one sense, I suppose, he's right.
However, I find a disturbing trend among the people posting here: those in favor of this idea seem to insist that all WYSIWYG editors are evil and are the cause of this problem. Actually, they're not: a perfectly Lynx-compliant site can be constructed in an editor.
What makes these sites unaccessible is stuff like images without ALT tags, recorded speeches when a transcript is not posted, and things like that. Now granted, I tend to work a lot in "hand-crafted HTML" myself, but I use a WYSIWYG editor for the basic design (I then hand-code the pages based off of that design). Nonetheless, I make sure my page displays acceptably in all sorts of browsers, from Netscape to IE to iCab all the way back to WebTV and Lynx. Sure, I do use enhancements in some places, but never those which cripple the page on another browser (or, if they do, I provide alternative access to the data). It's not terribly difficult.
WYSIWYG editors are not Bad Things. It's the designers who misuse them. These editors are meant to be tools, not crutches.
About the start of 97, a law was passed in Australia that no-one can restrict the viewability of thier web site, by any minority, or they _can_ be sued, this was set in place by the equal opportunities board, the main point that I heard when I was listening to this, is that you should: "Always ALT tags, and always test it in as many web browsers as you can, even a browser called lynx...".
VK3TST
-- "People aren't stupid. Usually." -- jd
There is more to it. Things like descriptions in tables and images which can be converted to speech.
If you want to check conformance to usability guidelines and have some advice on what you could do to improve usability try Bobby
Just because I have no use for a given product does not mean that I have no interest.
I could be shopping for someone else. I could be doing research on a product or company.
In the above example of a RA file with no textual companion, it would seem logical to me that the solution is to develope a speech-to-text browser plug-in, not to mandate that the site in question pre-translates the audio.
And which browser does your plug-in work with? Please don't say, "all," because that's not believable. The point is to make the page content available to all regardless of the browser used. That pretty much requires the accessability features mentioned.
Doug Loss
People need to remember that this is not the Federal Governments job. They have been sticking their fingers into too many pies over the last few (well, 40 or 50) years. Its time that people wake up and stop allowing their rights to abrigated by an intrusive Federal Government that mandates to everyone how you will act, think, and feel concerning all subjects.
I cannot believe the comments that I am reading - re: Standards are good - Don't you realize what this is? It is a gigantic infringement on our 1st Amendment rights, not to mention the involvement of a burdensom federal bureaucracy in the fastest growing economic force in the world. Actions like these stifle economic growth, not encourage it.
Yes, its a good thing to make your HTML easy to use by everyone (you hit more markets by doing this, more customers and more money) BUT IT ISN'T THE FED'S BUSINESS how I design my webpages.
If there are enough handicapped users out there then that should create a great market for handicapped friendly webpages. You could even go so far as to create an organization that tests and awards a 'handicapped friendly' logo to pages that are handicapped friendly. But don't go and use the force (yes, force, as in the barrel of a gun or trigger of a bomb) of Government to make everyone else comply with your own personal adjenda or beliefs. Use the free market. It has been shown to work wonders.
Brian
I think it's dubious to argue that a requirement I include descriptive ALT tags for images and make pages that are navigable without using image maps (not requiring pages to be without image maps, just giving an alternate form of navigation), if (and only if) I wish to do business with the government, somehow affects my ability to speak freely and openly.
If you make a product that's of no interest to any disabled person, that doesn't mean a disabled person might not be browsing your site as part of their job function. (Suppose they're a purchaser for an agency.)
People should keep in mind that HTML 4.0 requires those alt tags for just these reasons, and has several other required features which make pages more accessible to the disabled. A page that's strictly HTML 4.0 compliant (or compliant with a future successor, more than likely) is likely to pass a "disability test" without modification.
Last but not least, I think a pure "free market rah rah rah" attitude would be that any customer is free to set whatever requirements to do business with them that they want, and there's no reason that shouldn't extend to government agencies as customers just like it does to private groups. If you think it's just too much to comply with the requests of a potential customer, you're free to not do it, and they're free to go to someone who doesn't feel that way.
i agree every web pages should display correctly with non-standard browser, including lynx (text mode), NetPositive from BeOS, Voyager from QNX, Opera, etc. There's live outside netscrape and internet exploiter! :-(
what i don't like when i look a site are all the buggy java applet that take forever to load and does not work with NS/IE and really don't work with N+ or Voyager
--
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
Actually it as quite the article of forced compliance... Browsers used by the handicapped tend to fall in to the camp of Lynx. While there are newer versions of Lynx out there that support tables and such. From what I've encountered in my experience, a majority of handicapped users are still using low-end equipment that is frequently "hand-me-down" caliber. We're talking 386/486 running DOS/Win3.1 and quite possibly a DOS based lynx browser. ...No tables, no sound, no java/javascript, no CSS, etc...
A well designed, HTML complient site fails gracefully down to the lowest common denominator browser, and a well designed HTML complient site is attractive and easy to navigate be it viewed in Lynx of IE5.
If you had a better understanding of the technology, you wouldn't be making the comment you made.
HTML compliance holds to a principle of your page being able to fail gracefully down to the lowest common denominator, no matter what wigged out browser specific tags you throw into the mix might do.
HTML allows for you to put anything you want into that page, but you better allow for alternate methods to view the content when the target browser isn't available.
Compliance doesn't mean you can't build a garbage page, only that it be designed for everyone to share in the garbage to the best of their ability.
Why? Because HTML 4.0, CSS and even XML, provide all the tools necessary to provide accessibility while letting designers imaginations roam free. Take a look at the specs on the these standards ( w3c.org). There is some really cool stuff one can do with the new standards.
Is it a tax on companies? Not really. The Federal government has always had standards for companies that want to work with it (frome safety and health issues to civil rights). The companies have always had a choice, though. If they didn't like the government's rules, they could do business with someone else.
Even private companies have standards they hold one another to when conducting bussiness.
Finally, even if you don't care about people with disabilities, there is a very good reason for the Federal government to be pushing standards compliance: effeciency. If every company keeps using non-standard (and incidentally non-accessable) HTML, every document will have to be examined or at the very least, undergo further processing befor it can be integrated with standards compliant data. We the tax payers will save money and time by mandating that standard HTML, XML, CSS, and even DOM and RDF are used.
To me, it appears that the ultimate benefits of requiring accessibility will reach far beyond simply allowing more access to government docs. This effort will help all of us be more standards compliant, reducing the need for re-processing data and wasting time that could be better spent understanding its meaning.
All New York state web sites must be designed to be viewed by HTML 3.2 and have ALT's for all graphics. I think there are more standards, but those are the major ones.
microsoft does business with the gov't. it will be nice to see their new site. :)
sure, the net is more then the us, but the us doesn't have to be alone here. somewhere on the european union's website (http://europa.eu.int) are noises about disabled rights (i hope). wonder if the eu and it's member states can enact similar legislation?
time to go find my mep...
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
>One needs to understand the semantics as well as
>the syntax of HTML. Tables aren't for layout -
>period.
It's easy to be an HTML purist when such statements are true, but I've seen some really well laid out sites that use tables for such a purpose. I'm all for accessability, but what a bland tasteless web we'd have woven if it weren't for some of these enhancements (ie. tables, images).
Face it, the web isn't just for engineers and the odd computer scientist any longer. Strip out all of the advertising, and it's the people's web. How can an artist express him/herself with only a gray background and some ugly browser-defined font?
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
That article is not about standards compliance in the way we normally think of it. It's about the government controlling the way websites present the information. Sounds pretty close to censorship to me. One thing I don't get... the government doesn't tell book publishers that they have to conform to a specific guidline (font size, line spacing, etc...). So why do they have the right to tell me how my page looks. Granted it makes sense to make a page accessible to as many people as possible even from a business point of view. But it's my page, it's my information, and I'll damn well make it look anyway I want. If I want to enclose the entire page in a blink tag I will.
They made TCP/IP compulsory for Milnet and Arpanet. Was this a bad decision? Nope.
Now let's just hope that no-one can subvert w3c. Otherwise the government will have to ratify each w3c standard instead of leaving w3c to work things out itself.
Being text-mode friendly would be nice, but it might cripple a few things. If you designed your site sanely it wouldn't matter though.
... neoplanet IS internet explorer (with a different looking interface, just like aol's browser).
"onward!" cried the copper man, little knowing brass corrupts...
You do realize that perfect spelling with no caps makes you look as big a schmoe as the "loosers" you rightfully dreide, don't you?
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
anyone else get that problem (I have to use it for work BTW)
--
enterfornone - logging in for a change
no, I'm just impatient - it wont render it properly unless it's fully downloaded it. I guess that's what "based on Mosaic" means.
--
enterfornone - logging in for a change
All hail the big, nasty HTML coder. I'm skeeerrd...what will (s)he try next? C++?!
"Professional coder on closed source. Do not attempt."
> This idea is complete bs. It's just going to create added work for authors and violates freedom of the press.
I bet you're imagining HTML-cops policing every website and didn't bother to even read the summary to see that it's a government standard. As in government pages and government business. Believe it or not, there are other specs you have to follow when you do business with the government too.
But I guess it wouldn't be slashdot if people actually read and comprehended, would it?
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Yeah, suddenly it's "all so clear". Pardon me while I put down my pitchfork and kick the mud off my boots.
Any connection to enforced HTML standards is implied, not stated. "Standards" are to be "unveiled" - this could mean tighter compliance requirements so that crippled browsers (no pun intended) or it may mean a set of plaintext guidelines that bear resemblance to handicapped building access laws. It makes no connection at all to "clean code" in the article.
Hence my criticism. But, of course, with no understanding of technology, who am I to talk?
--Tiger
This sounds to me almost like someone misrepresenting an article to get his name up on /.
.txt file format."
/.ers may have. This is not an article about HTML compliance, however.
Did anyone actually read this? The article's simply about enforcing handicap access to websites - making sure that special multimedia content is accessible in alternate form by people who aren't capable of using that content.
Not one word did I see that said anything about HTML standards compliance. For all we know, they can still crapulate out those super-non-standard pages, and provide a little text link that says, "Go here to see all this in boring
Proof these articles, guys. Sure, forcing HTML standards compliance is a dream many
--Tiger
The Government does have the ability to say, "If you want to do business with us, then you must adhere to these guidelines."
Let's not forget that the government is so incredibly huge now (thanks to legislation like this, ironically), it's virtually impossible to avoid doing business with the government if you're doing any business at all.
Now who knows what "doing business with the government" means (the sloppy journalism was commented on earlier), but that's irrelevant to the argument at hand.
Most commercial sites don't seem like they'd be too hard for any disabled person to navigate through. It's really just those lame tits n' warez pages or the "World's most annoying webpage" type things. Death to Javascript! I'm not disabled so I could be wrong...
Web Accessibility Initiative by W3C
Accessibility by Web Design Group
best accessibility meme: gracefully degrading pages
The U.S. Government is looking at doing something good to the Internet...
The end is nigh!!!!!
The thing is, most pages that are truely up to the standards, and are well designed don't do too bad in Lynx. It's people who don't bother with things like 'alt="text"' on their image links, and who worry more about big flashing graphics that can't design sites that work in Lynx.
Also, as far as these new rules go, Lynx friendlyness may be more likely mandated than actually being standares-friendly. After all, some disabled people are considered disabled because they have this problem called 'blindness' - they have to use speech programs to read web pages to them, and anything that is Lynx friendly will go very smoothly through a speech program. Things that are not lynx friendly will not work well with those readers at all.
And after teaching HTML and WWW design at my U for three years, I'm allowed to rant about people with poor design skills all I want, I've marked over 500 of the most horrid web site projects on the planet, and less than 300 of the good ones. Ugh. Glad I moved on to a different job with no marking involved, and very little HTML.
Since when did anyone have a "right" to the work of another person, or to force another to make his work meet their needs?
Well, since it's the Government's web sites that are most affected by this, and the sites of those who do buisness (other than just paying taxes) with the Government, I think not only do people have a "right" to see it, but the makers of the pages (Government and the companies doing federal contracts) have a responsibility to the people to make that information available to all of them. And what is the main requirement that's going to be put on them? Make your sites legible. Damn, that's really gonna crimp their style, ain't it? (For those who think I'm being sarcastic, think again. Most Web designers today seem to think that the harder it is to read a page, the more "stylish" it must be. Excuse me while I puke.)
Hehe... be happy you just had to deal with those two. Back when I was marking projects, I was a real bastard - I marked with Netscape, Lynx, Amaya, Arena, Opera, and a nifty little parsing program that I used to find specific standard violations in projects, all at once. (Amaya is REALLY cool for marking web pages, it spews out a listing of HTML errors, and it tells you what line they happen on.) If I was still doing it now, I'd probably be using Gecko and NeoPlanet too, but still no IE, since it hates me almost as much as I hate it. (Does anyone else have trouble getting it to load anything? Dosen't matter what version I use, it just ignores me.)
... neoplanet IS internet explorer (with a different looking interface, just like aol's browser).
Not really, they put a new interface on it, which actually responds when I tell it to do things. It's the weirdest thing - I think IE knows that I don't like it or something. Also, the next version of NeoPlanet is supposed to be based on the Gecko engine, which means that it will be 100% standard compliant.
They're only controlling their own sites, and the sites of buisnesses that deal with them. If you want to (ab)use the Blink tag, go right ahead. Ignore standards all you want, don't use alt text on your images, set your background to lime green and your text to bright orange. (I've seen it done. *shudder*) The Gov't won't care. Unless of course you do that when you're making a site for them, or for one of the buisnesses that they deal with. Then they'll say: 'No, make it legible, take it down, or we'll cancel our contract with you.'
You've done a good job of setting up strawmen to knock down:
/are/ used for layout, do it in a way that makes sense, from left to right, top to bottom, so that the page is readable for those that can't or don't want to use tables.
Images aren't forbidden. They just need alternative content (possibly none) specified for those who can't or don't want to view images. Tables aren't forbidden. They're best used for row x column situations, but if they
You're not limited to a grey background either. You are bound to the fact that I can turn off your background color, and use my own. The same thing with fonts. What you think is a nice font, I'll probably find butt-ugly and hard to read. So I'll use my own.
If your web site breaks because of these things, you're done a very poor job of understanding the web. The web is not strictly a visual medium. A visual rendering is just one possibility.
pooptruck
"Violates freedom of the press?" I don't know if I've ever seen a lamer appeal to Constitutionality. Clue: "Freedom of the press" refers to the ability to print what you want.
Print what you want, how you want. That's the whole drive behind creative expression! If it's mandated that I must express myself in a particular way, it's not censorship, but it is definitely limiting my freedom to express myself how I see fit.
http://www.flashykernelnews.com to read the latest about the kernel developments. Unfortunately one day you get run over by a car and you lose your sight. Are you now not interested in the Linux kernel developments? Because now http://www.flashykernelnews.com is not accessible to you anymore.
If I was the one hit by a car, would the loss of my sight by my problem, or someone else's? That's the point here...this is just one more step in the relentless drive by our government to make everyone's problems everyone else's problems.
And clue time: there isn't any law that says that you have a right to express yourself "any way you want".
With few exceptions, the First Amendment has been held to protect exactly that right.
You mean I will be able to actually use linux and netscape 4.51 to fill out the onlice fafsa??? I had to go through a lot of crap to get that filled out. Couldn't use netscape 4.51 on winblows either, had to use IE. This sounds like a "Good Thing (TM)"
BTW, they are coming to get your guns too.
Sounds a little paranoid to me.
-- "Most people prefer a popular myth to an unpopular truth"
I had to respond, this knuckle dragger doesn't deserve such a high score.
I think you really don't have enough context or understanding of the ADA to be as critical of it as you are. As is usually the case, you also appear to confuse the provisions of ADA with the entitlements of SSI. For the most part, ADA doesn't cost anyone anything. Damages awarded in civil suits against those who fail to comply cannot be considered a spending provision.
Fundamentally, the premise behind this law is that if each and every person can't have something, nobody should have it.
There is simply nothing in the legislation which offers this opinion. If you are implying that the Muni PDF case does, you are wrong. The problem there is that Muni was unwilling to provide the PDF documents in any other format. Had a text only format had been available there would be no court case. period. No one asked them to get rid of PDF.
There are many other examples of this type of bonehead intransigence by government/ semi-government/ big companies who serve the public. You say that this type of law is another example of big brother, I say the opposite: it enables people to fight big brother. Do you imagine that these byzantine bureaucratic agencies would change their policies without the law suits?
With few exceptions nobody but lawyers makes any money from the lawsuits, but that rarely is the point for the people pursuing them. The Muni elevator's lawsuit settled last year resulted in a settlement of approx. $14000 for each of the complainants. For the two and half years of work they put into the suit, that's peanuts -- even for the supposed welfare bums you imply most of the disabled are.
BTW, curb cuts were not invented as part of the ADA legislation -- guess what -- it took a lawsuit. Before the lawsuit had even reached trial it had become standard practice for city engineers all over, not just in the US to specify them in construction projects. As is obvious to anyone, they don't cost more, but why was it that they had not been implemented earlier? It took a little fear to spur the actions of the otherwise good thinking city engineers.
The disabled advocates demand that (often hurling vicious insults that would never be tolerated from anyone else at government officials who won't do what they demand. I know, I've sat through public meeting on this)
That's some people. I don't like the way that some open source advocates behave either. What you said would been immediately unacceptable to most people if you had used the word "black" or "Jew" or "Gay" instead of "disabled". Stereotyping the disabled as a bunch of whining freeloaders is offensive to me.
Don't get me wrong, for those people who are truly disabled...charity and kindness...
If you are not happy with the criteria by which disability is defined then work to change it. (I also think it is too broad and this dilutes people's respect for the measures which are meant to provide equality). Most of the disabled don't want your charity. (Many who would want it probably would still want it if they weren't disabled--it has nothing to do with being disabled). Next time you are at one of those public meetings, offer $50 to the loudest disabled advocate. Get back to me if you survive.
-- "Most people prefer a popular myth to an unpopular truth"
Actually, MS's site is already compliant. The article says that the sites have to be able to be viewed by handicapped, etc. If you look at www.microsoft.com in lynx, it actually comes out quite well(not to mention their own text-only page), but the graphical version actually does well in Lynx. I was impressed.....
-Julius X
remove "-whatkindofspamdoyoutakemefor-" from email to send
So you use Explorer at work?
Is there a special force that keeps you away from Netscape?
I'll tell you a site that isn't blocked for MSIE. - www.netscape.com
It may be blocked by BackOffice (as seen on their howto page) by you'll get around that.
Then you download the installer and you have a nice new browser.
When I have to use the computers in my school, they have MSIE.
I have kindly asked for Netscape (being that they erased it when I installed it),
and now everyone can use his/her favorite browser (unfortunatly some prefer MSIE for some reason).
Sites that blocks MSIE are preserving our freedom, even though they actually block it.
Over the past many commercial sites (many, but not all of them belong Microsoft somehow),
have blocked Netscape for Money and World Domination.
It's a positive thing that someone stood up against them.
Alas, that's not all of it.
Sites that have been generated by Frontapge,
Use broken MSIE HTML to force the use of MSIE.
They "block" Netscape or any other non-msie page, and are very common.
And should I mention "sorry you must use ActiveX" sites?
Many sites like that, contain also ? instead of 's, if we browse them with linux.
I can tell you, that almost every commercial site never cares, and we are being "blocked".
Generaly as a policy, I decide not to give a damn over the users of MSIE.
I won't block them or anything,
but they have a full choice to use netscape,
and for the cost of being enslaved to Microsoft, they better do.
"If you want a good browser use Netscape, otherwise, don't complain and just go away".
(I don't respond to emails with doc attachments too)
See the point?
Sometimes a political stand, is much more important then a content.
---
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I'm going to live forever, or die in the attempt.
Why not also require that cars are able to run on leaded gasoline?
Tell me where I can buy leaded gasoline in the US, and then it might matter. I'm serious, I've got an old (pre-1973) car that loves leaded gas.
It is actually simple to make any car designed to run on unleaded gas work with leaded gas... You just have to remove the catalytic converter and replace it with a properly sized piece of straight pipe. Of course if you live in a state with emissions checks, your car will flunk. Luckily for me, we have no emissions checks or inspection where I live.
At any rate, your question was actually backwards. It was the federal government who required that all cars be able to run on unleaded gas when they forced all cars sold in the US to have catalytic converters on them whether they could meet the tailpipe emissions without one or not (because GM, Ford, Chrysler, etc. complained about Volkswagen and Honda being able to meet emissions without a converter and thus being able to build a cheaper car).
So even in the world of cars, the government gets their hands into "standards", and is often forced to bow to the interests of vendors.
It seems unlikely to me that anything rigid enough to be a federally enforced standard will both catch the significant majority of instances of pages that are difficult to read by handicapped persons, and not rule out a vast number of pages that are not actually difficult to read.
In other words, I don't believe it's just using certain tags, etc., that make a page difficult/easy to read for a handicapped person, anymore than it is for anyone else. That opinion comes from some effort spent in designing pages and imagining how they might "sound" through a speech synthesizer.
If they just mandate ALT tags, alternatives to scripting, etc., this will certainly improve the situation, but not rule out a large number of pages that will be hard to navigate.
But I'd be delighted if a visually impaired person weighed in on this issue!
Just checked him out on Dejanews... pretty interesting stuff :-)
It would also seem that the cost of converting your websites, supporting the disabled users who buy these products etc, might just mean that you figure that you may not wish to support them.
*Shrug* I am all for an individual making a choice to offer or use a service.
Standards are good. However, following standards does not mean that one will produce good code or content.
I am not too sure if I like the comment about folks who use 'page builders' to build their sites is very valid. I am sure there are some very good writers, artists, musicians who would not be on the web if they didn't have a GUI environment.
This move also takes away some freedom of choice by the webmasters. While I can understand that government sites are required to follow certain guidelines why would I as a possible supplier have to follow them? Suppose I made some product which would be of no interest to any persons with any sort of disability?
How does this affect companies like Real? Macromedia? Adobe? The companies that have invested a fair amount in producing good tools for graphics savvy sites?
Lastly, if one extends this back to publishing on dead trees, will the govt insist that all its publications be made available in braile? Will all govt phone lines have teletype available for the deaf? Hmmm .. the Clinton hearings would sure have had some interesting moments if they had showed some of the testimony in sign language ;-)
Shri
Its the nature of government to start small, then expand their program when it doesn't work out the way they planned. I bet within a couple of years, this same agency will complain that the original plan is being 'subverted' and that they need to tighten the regulations. They will probably argue for disabled access to ALL pages in the United States. Next thing you know, your family webpage will have to include the 'script' to any audio files you have posted, and don't even think about using fancy graphics.
So you use Explorer at work? Is there a special force that keeps you away from Netscape? I'll tell you a site that isn't blocked for MSIE. - www.netscape.com It may be blocked by BackOffice (as seen on their howto page) by you'll get around that. Then you download the installer and you have a nice new browser.
Many institutions have extremely strict policies on what can and cannot be done by their end users. Software installation is usually on the "Cannot do" list.
(unfortunatly some prefer MSIE for some reason).
I happen to prefer IE, thank you very much. I wish MS would get their heads out of the sand and port it to Linux.
Sites that blocks MSIE are preserving our freedom, even though they actually block it.
Sites that block IE haven't figured out that MS's lock on the desktop has more to do with Win, Office, and undocumented APIs as well as OEM deals, not browser dominance. They do not (yet?) own the W3C. The choice of user agent is not political.
Alas, that's not all of it. Sites that have been generated by Frontapge, Use broken MSIE HTML to force the use of MSIE. They "block" Netscape or any other non-msie page, and are very common. And should I mention "sorry you must use ActiveX" sites?
That is so not true. Frontpage may not generate perfect HTML, but Navigator (not Netscape! That really bugs them!) usually renders it fine. Granted, Navigator doesn't always render table cell backgrounds correctly, but that's hardly Frontpage's fault.
Many sites like that, contain also ? instead of 's, if we browse them with linux. I can tell you, that almost every commercial site never cares, and we are being "blocked".
The question mark/apostrophe thing is an issue of character sets. I've often run into the same problem when converting documents from Mac -> PC and back again. Again, not an issue of political importance.
Sometimes a political stand, is much more important then a content.
And sometimes, you'll just annoy people into thinking people with your stance are bothersome and immature.
Mike
--
Mike
--
"Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?"
$ lynx http://members.tripod.com/~msherman
---->8----
THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Listen as hope and peace try to rhyme.
Michael Jay Sherman
[LINK]
[LINK]
[LINK]
[LINK]
[LINK] [LINK]
"...A Porsche is not built to be something for everyone. But
everything to someone."
Obi-Wan and Darth Maul slashdot.org Open-source software SGI Irix 6.5
Episode I
© 1999 Michael J. Sherman m.sherman@erols.com Nedstat Counter
---->8----
Hmmm... How about some "alt" tags?
It would be nice if this meant that the government was requiring suppliers to honor W3C accessibility recommendations, but the article says that they're actually going to set their own standards. If Federal suppliers are required to adhere to the government's standard, it's likely to make any competing W3C recommendation irrelevant.
It would also be nice if they decided to coordinate with W3C on these issues, or adopt the W3C accessibility recommendations, but I'm not holding my breath.
This idea is complete bs. It's just going to create added work for authors and violates freedom of the press. You have the right to publish whatever you want and the government shouldn't tell you what format you need to use.
Television isn't even held to these standards even though it is much wider used. The government dosen't force the use of closed captioning and thats how it should be.
And to the idea that this will standardize HTML and put an end to the "This page is best viewed with" crap is also bs. All the article talked about is making disabled access more friendly. All of the unlucky webmasters are just going to have to add text to pictures and audio. It never said that the pages had to comply 100% to w3c standards. Even if 100% w3c compliance was forced, I'm sure that I'd still see all of the best viewed with crap.
I'm not saying that the government dosen't have the right to make their pages accesible. But forcing companies that do business with the government (and there are a lot of them) shouldn't have to do this. Just because they do do business with the government dosen't mean that their pages are filled with information about the government. If they only forced government sites to do this, disabled people could still have access to their government.
|This idea is complete bs. It's just going to create added work for authors and violates freedom of the press.
Maybe you didn't even bother read it properly because I never did say all sites were subject to these standards. I was refering to the authors that this would affect and you shouldn't of assumed that I was talking about everyone.
I have no idea. It would be kinda of cool to be able to extradite them. But if they are unlucky and are in the US, I have the right to sue them for $500 for each piece of spam.
Any email client that keeps messages in an Access database gets crossed off my list before it gets installed.
In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
It's about time someone did something about this ;}.
problem. I can't stand those sites that
insist on using non-standard HTML. Standards
are a *good* thing
Gee, maybe some of these web page designers will
actually have to learn HTML!
I've just been using vi to generate web pages
for the last 5 years; works fine for me, and
I certainly stick to standard HTML.
--- witty signature
You might want to spend just a minute and check out Opera and information on their web site re:compliance with standards.
Where did you read that table comment?: Web Design 101?
One can make a strong argument that a tool does not have to conform to what is was intended for, but instead what it is used for.
For as long as tables are the only way to achieve the desired layout, that is what they are for - period.
As far as handicapped accessibility is concerned, alternate methods must be used top augment tables tables. In this way you provide accessibility without handicapping your pages.
/*---------------------------*/
Man? What is man?
But a collection of chemicals with delusions of granduer.
Blind : Prescription Eyeglasses,
No Legs : Running Shoes,
No Hands : Gloves,
No Ears : Ear Muffs....
the list can go on...
Not to be crass, but it's not that hard to envision some products that disabled people have no need for. Also, what if you could claim that the small percentage of the market that handicapped people represent (for your product), is not worth the extra investment in usability testing. (I realize that is a stretch, because the extra time is minimal usually.. but for arguments sake) Would you want someone saying 'Do it anyway.'?
/*---------------------------*/
Man? What is man?
But a collection of chemicals with delusions of granduer.
(Sorry, hit the wrong key)
Just as owning a hammer doesn't make one a carpenter, having a automagical page builder doesn't make one a graphic designer -- at least, not a competent one, judging by far too many ugly, painful, or downright illegible pages I've seen.
So if you can't stand it, someone should do something? Bad idea, brother. It sounds like you want legislation that forces web page designers to actually have to learn HTML! The article is about one organization, (a big one, I know) who has long standing policies concerning discrimination against the handicapped, and their new policy to write better web pages.
You are already doing your part, and if you head an organization, you can encourage everyone there to do a good job writing their web pages. But, my point is that it's no better of an idea to force people to write good web pages than it is to force people to put elevators in their own house, or for all publishers to publish large-print books and audio books for every one of their products. Yeah, the government may decide on this course of action, but there's no way everyone should be forced into it--- even if it is a particularly sore spot for you.
Peace.
w3c validation and weblint don't favor this page at all. I'm sure a DOCTYPE declaration could eliminate a bunch, but, still...
Peace.
I have to agree with you completely on this. I've seen people who hand-code html in vi who STILL produce some of the most non-standards compliant pages around. It has almost nothing to do with the editor.
Granted, those who use an editor like Frontpage are going to wind up with very bad html. But those that would use Frontpage to edit their pages are already clueless.
--
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Jason Eric Pierce
Geez. Everyone stop telling him to change to netscape! Don't you think he KNOWS netscape exists on windows? For whatever reason, they've chosen explorer. I don't use it, but for some people, it's actually better.
Don't pull a Microsoft and be exclusionary! This is the kind of attitude we blast them for day in and day out. "If it's not our product, screw 'em." With restrictions like this, people's freedom is limited. That's ridiculous, since the whole free software movement is based on giving you more freedom.
--
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Jason Eric Pierce
Beautiful.
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Jason Eric Pierce
First, I'm not to sure if I agree with the government regulation of html.
However, I must say that your plan has some pretty detrimental consequences. If you let market forces determine everything, then smaller markets won't mean squat. This includes most the handicapped. Since the handicapped don't make up a significant portion of most companies target market, they can go to hell. At least, that's how it sounds.
You might not see anything wrong this, but most civilized countries profess to offer equality to all. You can hardly say you're treating someone like an equal when you put up roadblocks for them at every turn.
--
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Jason Eric Pierce
Why not also require that cars are able to run on leaded gasoline?
- Displayed with fgcolor = bgcolor.
- Not displayed due to proprietary HTML extensions.
- Not displayed due to required, obscure plugin. (Plugin frequently NOT avail. for my platform)
- Unprintable due to choice of fgcolor or bgcolor.
And that's just what comes to mind in a few seconds!Additionally, with the current state of technology and the growing number of handicapped persons using the web there is no reason why the ADA should not be applied to web pages.
The WAI Quick Tips Reference Card is short, clear, and allows unlimited personal expression even if followed to the most extreme levels.
One important thing to keep in mind while developing a page: Text to Voice synthesizers used by the blind find the reading of multi-column tables to be difficult at best.
Don't rely on your editing tool to provide a well formatted page. MS-Word WWW Wizards and FrontPage both produce some of the most indeciferable HTML I have ever tried to read. Netscape Composer removes hard coded CRLFs in the file so server based authenticators are munged. While a WYSYWYG editor speeds up development there is still no substitute for a final hard code look at your code with a text mode editor (VI, EMACS, DOS Edit, Windows Notepad, etc...)
D. Keith Higgs
CWRU. Kelvin Smith Library
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
Yet she goes on to say, "The Internet is subject to market forces, but it didn't start through market forces, it was started by the federal government." Sounds like she a little offended at what we're doing with *her* fucking internet!
Brewer, with the W3C's "Web Access Initiative" opines "We have a major problem, and the trend is toward making sites even more complex, which decreases accessibility even further." So they want to federeally regulate internet trends.
--
: tedd
The new version of FrontPage 2000 is actually pretty good at many aspects of HTML creation. It reads in existing sites without screwing up the formatting and creates more compliant HTML than past versions of the software. It also has an editor for dealing directly with the HTML.
One thing it still likes to do is drop in a lot of <-- Comment --> stuff that only is there to help FrontPage later when the page is edited again. If you use FrontPage themes, you can double or even triple the size of an HTML document because of these comments.
This idea is complete bs. It's just going to create added work for authors and violates freedom of the press. You have the right to publish whatever you want and the government shouldn't tell you what format you need to use.
This does not remove anyone's rights to create Web sites that Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles are unable to use.
It only affects federal government sites and the sites of companies that want to do business with the federal government.
Anyone who wants to ignore the guidelines is free to not feed at the federal trough.
It requires not only the Fed sites to become "access-enabled" but allows anyone doing business with the government from the largest company in the US selling billions to them or the smallest company selling a $.02 pen to the government.
These companies are choosing to do business with the government. If they don't want to be subject to the government's standards for how they should create their Web sites, they can choose to find another client.
If a company benefits from selling to a client as big as Uncle Sam, it is not unreasonable for the client to make some demands of that company. Happens all the time in business-to-business transactions.
This kind of "pocketbook" government is a great tool. Any company that considers the regulations to be too restricting is free not to sell to Uncle Sam.
The issue isn't just about using an ALT tag with your images. The use of tables as a layout device, specific font faces, specific font sizes, and colors for links and text makes an HTML page much more difficult for a differently abled person to use.
The original version of HTML was much more usable by a visually impaired person than today's HTML as implemented by Netscape and Microsoft. The biggest problem is that the Web has become a much more visual medium, and the graphics designers cared a lot more about the look of a page than the geeks who launched HTML. Those high-energy physicists who were among the Web's first users were focused on the information that was presented, not how it looked.
Cascading Style Sheets are the way to rescue the Web for people who need different access to it. CSS separates the appearance of a site from the information offered by the site.
I'm glad the feds are doing this, because the browser companies and leading Web designers are paying almost no attention to accessibility issues.
Besides, accessible HTML is generally much better written and more standard HTML, too. All Web users could benefit from more of that.
The article said that only sites run by the government and sites that do business with the government will be affected. Slashdot will remain free to abuse all the standards it chooses 8*) If I choose to be a lamer and post gifs without the alt tags I will be free to do so.
The government is only saying that if you want to do business with us through a web site you have to make your site accessible to all of our citizens. While not a 'basic right' as the clueless advocate in the article would like to believe, moving to make government information accessible to the largest number of citizens is a good thing.
But I reiterare for the 'loosers' who still haven't got the point. This is not a W3 standard. This is a requirement to do business with the government. If you don't like the requirement, don't do business with them.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
I couldn't agree with you more. Claiming to be more hardcore because you "code" your own HTML has got to be the most ludricrous idea I've heard in weeks. People use page editors because they're usually faster. HTML is busy work, not programming.
I am user most (all?) Slashdot people know about this, but just in case:
http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/
Makes me wonder, Anyone doing business with or is a US Government body must comply to standards set down by federal law. That actually doesn't narrow it down much really does. And consider how much of the internet is located outside the US where federal law has no duristiction ( can't spell I know ). What is really needed is an international body to standardise it, perhaps a UN commitee would be the best idea.
Regards Redemption
hum,
MEPs are usually harder to track down than a student grant. I should imagine if the EU parliment enacted similar legislation about companies it itself deals with, and the governments, their state and semi-state bodies deal with we could be talking about ALOT of european industry.
I doubt that they would be willing to do it, they wouldn't want to distabilise industry in certain member states more than it already is
Regards Redemption
Washington State Resident - I'll sue if you spam Just out of interest, not threat. If someone from indonesia spamed you ?. What realistically could you do about it ? Apart from spam them back ofcourse
Regards Redemption
Along the lines of the posts above, you apparently didn't read the article closely.
It requires not only the Fed sites to become "access-enabled" but allows anyone doing business with the government from the largest company in the US selling billions to them or the smallest company selling a $.02 pen to the government.
Yes, we need to have access to our government, no matter what your situation is, but the regulations affects non-governmental sites too.
It may cost a little for each site to comply, but that little adds up to a lot considering the sheer number of sites and companies that do business with the government. Remember, the U.S. government is the largest single employer in the world.
RB
... inserting Click here for text version in the page! ...
Surely a html-speech engine can be designed to look and favor these kind of links
You have to try hard at abusing HTML to get a site which is not accessible, especially with HTML 4.0, which mandates the ALT attribute on images. It's a sad fact that web design tools generally try their best not to write proper HTML.
Properly thought out sites are also a great benefit even to those who are not diabled, since ALT attributes allows modem users to turn off image loading and get to the content much easier.
I wholeheartedly support this initiative. IMHO, if you don't know how to write HTML which degrades gracefully, you have no business running a web site.
"The good die first." "Most of us are morally ambiguous, which explains our random dying patterns." --- MST3K
I've yet to meet anyone capable of producing worthwhile work who cannot learn HTML, a very simple markup language. If they want to get fancier and use Javascript, they really need to learn that as well. If they don't, they will just be producing cliche'd crap that anyone with the same visual tool could crank out.
Strawman. Disabled people have exactly the same range of interests as the able. One accident and you could join their ranks - say you lose your sight. Would you suddenly not want to be able to get information about your favorite band or singer? Try visiting any record company site with Lynx. Just try...and maybe you'll get the picture.
By definition, a "good tool" produces decent HTML. A bad tool puts in images without ALT attributes, makes frames without prompting the user for useful NOFRAMES information, etc. These are not difficult things to add.
Strawman again. HTML, by default, is accessible. You have to work harder to make simple HTML inacessible.
The hearings were available to the deaf via Closed-Captioning, included in every larger new TV set.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
It's simple fairness. Surely nobody is suggested that only companies who are already employing the disabled should provide facilities for them. The cold hard truth is this: if Big Business isn't required to behave humanely, they won't. It's obviously easier to just not hire someone with the excuse that it would be too expensive to make accomodations. The ADA specifies "facilities". My reading is that the web is a facility. A vital one, and one that, is naturally accessible.
Businesses, once "forced" to hire disabled workers (by no longer having an excuse not to) usually find them to be especially motivated workers.
I've yet to see any web site that could not be made accessible.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
I agree, i remeber doing some coursework at uni where we had to design a funky web page for one of our departments.
It was a nightmare, Netscape 4.whatever supported this but not that and IE4 supported that but not this.
Thats just the two mainstream GUI browsers (not mentioning other versions and other vendors!!)
And to using GUI tools, foo that, they create more mess that HTML code!
Everyone with a certain minimum level of I/O capacity has the right to interact with the government. One problem with this sort of thing, however, is bureaucratic busybodies never define their scope ahead of time, allowing government to become ever more intrusive in your daily life.
/.er here, in the middle of a rant accusing one commentator on having an inability to read, never noticed the above either, apparently. Folks, this isn't going to stop with federal sites or those sites dealing directly with the feds.
What does the following have to do with government access?
---------------------
Once these standards are implemented later this year, observers say, the same sweeping changes in store for the public sector are likely to hit commercial Web site operators, too.
---------------------
Another
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The potential? Sites that use dizzying graphics will have to consider their impact on users with visual impairments.
---------------------
Does this really sound like a good idea to you? I want to see the final document but whenever I hear this sort of ambiguous crap, I'm reminded of the IRS and the tax code.
usually when i post something for all the world to see, i like to make sure it's spelled right. word in question: "loosers" take care.
As a hearing person who works in the Deaf community, I have a significant interest in this topic. A gross misconception need to be cleared up:
THIS IS NOT ABOUT HTML COMPLIANCE.
Whoever wrote the headline (hemos?) didn't read the article carefully.
I haven't a clue what the federal standards for web accessibility for the disabled will be. A good model, though, is the W3's Web Accessibility Initiative (http://www.w3.org/WAI/). If anything, the federal standards will probably be less restrictive than the W3.
It's important to note that making web pages accessible DOES NOT REQUIRE STANDARD HTML. You can meet the W3's WAI standards with Front Page98, NetObjects Fusion, or whatever . . . and you can hand-code the worst, most inaccessible pages with thoroughly compliant HTML 4.0.
Nor is this about the federal government mandating how private corporations or individuals web pages must be designed. The upcoming federal standards are about making web pages OF FEDERAL AGENCIES that comply with standards of accessibility for people with disabilities, NOT about making web pages that comply with HTML 3.2 or 4.0 standards.
Making web pages accessible is generally extremely simple if you start with accessibility in mind. It can be more difficult to go back and "retrofit" existing web sites for accessibility, depending on their complexity.
The article also says that "firms doing business with government agencies" will have to comply with the standards, though I suspect that the phrase "doing business" is an example of crappy journalism. Typically, the government only extends that kind of regulatory weight to firms that CONTRACT with the Federal government -- which is a different thing than "doing business" with the Federal government. The government might buy computers from Vendor X (i.e. "do business"), but Vendor X is not necessarily a Federal contractor.
I would definitely want to see more information about the implementation of these proposed federal standards before I believed that they could apply to everyone who "does business" with the government.
Java applications and applets can indeed be made accessible, quite easily! If you use the IBM Self-Voicing Kit (SVK) with the Sun Java Foundation Classes ("Swing"), it's pretty easy to build Java programs that interface seamlessly with assistive technology.
There is a section on Java Accessibility on the
AWARE Center
website, at http://aware.hwg.org/tips/. Enjoy!
Kynn's page: http://kynn.com/
There's a bit of a problem in the way that
articles on this topic have been written --
reporters glossing over the facts in favor of
a more sensational headline, and of course that
makes it harder for the average person to
understand what's going on here.
One thing to keep in mind here is that this is
primarily a story about the federal government
deciding to mandate accessible web authoring
practices on their own pages. In one sense,
this is no different from any other large
company deciding that they will follow a certain
standard level of HTML coding on their own
websites.
In a broader sense, however, it's vitally
important that information that the government
provides can be used by everyone, and not
necessarily exclude one type of person, especially
not on basis of a disability. This is why
public buildings are wheelchair accessible
and why braille versions of documents are
made available. As required by the ADA, if you
are going to make something available to sighted
people, you also need to make it available to
people who can't see, for example.
Now, the good thing is that the proper use of
HTML (and other web technologies) actually makes
it trivially EASY to provide disabled people with
the same access to information that non-disabled
folks enjoy. The web is a very egalitarian,
platform-independent medium, better than any
we've ever had before on the planet, and if you
make your web page well, nobody should have any
problem with accessing it.
Of course, there's the rub -- the vast majority
of web pages aren't made "well", and I mean that
from a technical, HTML-pedant standpoint. The
biggest "sin" is a lack of alternative text
(ALT attributes) on image-heavy sites, and that
alone makes it very hard for people with
disabilities to use many web sites.
Now, the solution here is NOT to throw away
graphics-heavy, table-laden, multimedia
extravaganza websites. The specifications that
make the web work were designed specifically to
allow for new advances of technology while still
maintaining usability in older browsers. Adding
ALT text and other features that benefit various
users (such as disabled folks, people with older
browers, and people with the newest tech such as
web-enabled phones, pagers, or PDAs) is simple
and painless, and does not mean you have to give
up your lovely design!
So why don't people do it? Why aren't they using
HTML to its fullest and creating pages that aren't
exclusionary? It's primarily a case of awareness.
Most web designers aren't aware of the problems
nor are they aware of how easily those can be
solved. It's because of that lack of awareness
that the HTML Writers Guild created the AWARE
Center.
The AWARE Center is a special project of the
non-profit HTML Writers Guild, and the letters
stand for Accessible Web Authoring Resources and
Education. The goal of the AWARE Center is to
promote a better understanding among web authors
of the need for accessible web design and the ways
in which this can be accomplished.
You can find out more about accessible web
authoring at the AWARE Center homepage:
http://aware.hwg.org/
The site is a resource for the community and is
open to anyone, HWG member or not. If you have
any questions, you can send me email at
aware@hwg.org.
--Kynn Bartlett
Director, AWARE Center
HTML Writers Guild
Kynn's page: http://kynn.com/
I did just that - http://www.operasoftware.com/features.html says that Opera has "Full HTML 2.0 support" and "Most of HTML 3.2 implemented." I don't know how well Opera sticks to those standards - I assume pretty well, but I don't know because I use IE.. I actually like it (Oh my God, stone me to death).
Anyway, the latest HTML version is 4.. I know a lot of it is CSS and stuff that they maybe don't want to "bloat" Opera with, and that's not a bad thing, but that's not compliant with the latest standards.
My reading of the article tells me that advocates are justifying this mandate by invoking the government-led origins of the internet.
Aren't personal pages also on the government's creature, the internet? Suppose a vision-impared student at a public library researching a
report on say, butterflies, comes across an individual's butterfly web page that is Shocked, Flashed, and Java-slide-showed within an
inch of its life. The information cannot be handled by a text reader or text-based browser.
Should these pages be made to conform to the government standard as well?
-- It Came from C. L. Smith's Unclaimed Mysteries.
Well, if (s)he can't, she's rather limited. But that's beside the point. First, HTML is designed to be easily accessable for all; if you misuse HTML and produce limited access documents, you don't know the medium you are working with. And how serious should we take an artist that doesn't know the materials (s)he's working with?
Secondly, if you think that standard HTML means gray backgrounds and an ugly defined font, you don't know HTML, and you don't know browsers either. Most, if not all, browsers that have a gray background by default allow you, as a user of the browser, to pick a different background. Heck, even lynx can do that, if run on a terminal that can do colours. Furthermore, HTML as had support for stylesheets from the moment it got formalized. HTML 2.0, the first HTML standard, describing the situation of early 1994 had support for stylesheets. Just because browsers with a large marketing budget (Netscape, Microsoft) suffer from the NIH (not invented here) syndrome and were late to catch on (with Microsoft leading the way for Netscape) doesn't mean stylesheets weren't there. A stylesheet gives the "artist"/"marketing droid" the fluff (s)he wants, and the reader the option to override or ignore the things (s)he can't or won't want to deal with.
--- Abigail
Like what for instance? You'd think a blind person would have a parent, spouse, child, friend that isn't blind and they want to buy something for? Also, companies do employ blind people. What makes you think such a person doesn't investigate what to buy where?
shri also wrote: How does this affect companies like Real? Macromedia? Adobe? The companies that have invested a fair amount in
producing good tools for graphics savvy sites?
I doubt it will effect them a lot. Just for the record, years ago, when the development of HTML was still open (in the HTML-WG), there was someone working on CSS for speech browsers. He worked for Adobe, and was blind.
--- Abigail