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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.
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.
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).
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.
http://www.cast.org/bobby
/mill
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL has lots of information on accessibility in general.
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
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.'
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"
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
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
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.
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.
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/