Sure, I think Flash can even be OK, too, if there's also an alternative means of accessing the information. Macromedia has a Flash Accessibility Extension Kit that will help Flash creators to produce an accessible version, too. I don't think Flash should be used just to produce something flashy. It's not the tool itself but how it's used, in my humble opinion.
Regarding the two levels of WCAG, I agree. It seems that the Olympics sites ought to be required by law to conform to those standards, actually. FYI, not only does the U.S. have the Section 508 Guidelines for government sites, increasingly more countries are also working on or have already established guidelines to help ensure that anyone can access their sites.
I don't feel it's sufficient that most but not all people can access the Olympics site. That could be said about sidewalks without ramps for wheelchairs, too -- most people can step up the step fine, so why bother with ramps. Some people just don't get it until they're the ones in the wheelchairs. Yet others are donating their Saturdays to pouring the cement and paying for the supplies, too. Seems to be the way the world goes around.
The point in my initial review that Andy King then picked up for WebReference.com is not at all that they're using frames, Flash, JavaScript, and PDF -- those are all fine. The developers didn't also follow the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines to include the NOSCRIPT tags, the NOFRAMES tags and other recommendations that would provide the alternate means of accessing the site.
The reason I wrote about this site in particular is because of the Olympics being such a major worldwide event and its even greater importance for anyone in the world to be able to access. If the developers had included the elements I mentioned above and in my review (and Andy's too), people who've turned off JavaScript (and there are plenty of them out there), using screen readers, Lynx, or other devices wouldn't be completely locked out as they are now.
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Sure, I think Flash can even be OK, too, if there's also an alternative means of accessing the information. Macromedia has a Flash Accessibility Extension Kit that will help Flash creators to produce an accessible version, too. I don't think Flash should be used just to produce something flashy. It's not the tool itself but how it's used, in my humble opinion.
Regarding the two levels of WCAG, I agree. It seems that the Olympics sites ought to be required by law to conform to those standards, actually. FYI, not only does the U.S. have the Section 508 Guidelines for government sites, increasingly more countries are also working on or have already established guidelines to help ensure that anyone can access their sites.
I don't feel it's sufficient that most but not all people can access the Olympics site. That could be said about sidewalks without ramps for wheelchairs, too -- most people can step up the step fine, so why bother with ramps. Some people just don't get it until they're the ones in the wheelchairs. Yet others are donating their Saturdays to pouring the cement and paying for the supplies, too. Seems to be the way the world goes around.
The point in my initial review that Andy King then picked up for WebReference.com is not at all that they're using frames, Flash, JavaScript, and PDF -- those are all fine. The developers didn't also follow the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines to include the NOSCRIPT tags, the NOFRAMES tags and other recommendations that would provide the alternate means of accessing the site.
The reason I wrote about this site in particular is because of the Olympics being such a major worldwide event and its even greater importance for anyone in the world to be able to access. If the developers had included the elements I mentioned above and in my review (and Andy's too), people who've turned off JavaScript (and there are plenty of them out there), using screen readers, Lynx, or other devices wouldn't be completely locked out as they are now.