Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Now Final 57
beetle496 writes "It has been going on nine years now, but finally there are formal standards for Web accessibility for technologies other than HTML. They ask that you start with the press release (lots of links), but regulars might be more entertained by the last time WCAG made the front page here. Many folks here will point out that web accessibility is old hat, and by implication this is hardly news, but if you do Web development for any government organization, you should expect that accessibility is a base requirement. The Section 508 standards are to be updated (relatively) soon too."
Red heading (Score:1, Offtopic)
Is the red heading an accessibility feature,
or is it just to alert trolls that 1st post is still available?
Nine years? (Score:5, Interesting)
Nine years? Nine YEARS? Are you kidding me?
Is it any wonder that so much software is not standards compliant. I mean seriously, if standards bodies really want to be taken seriously outside of academia, they really need to start working more than a few minutes a month. Have these people thought about adopting this standard: the forty hour work week.
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I did read the article (or rather skimmed it). It's a technical RFC. No explanation why it took nine years.
These standards are supposed to influence actual products that are used by actual people. To most people trying to write software, they are part of the analysis that goes into how to write software. If a business analyst on any of my projects were take nine years to finish his work, I'd fire him.
I know, I know, comittees take a long time, blah, blah blah..... But look at it from the other side: if
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Wow!
Here you go fella: have another go [slashdot.org]
1 word... (Score:2)
Bureaucracy. Everyone has its own ideas on how it should be. :(
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Oh, crap... (Score:5, Funny)
Well, so much for all MY code!
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Yeah. But the real questions is -- what are all the sites with Perl example code on them going to do?
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It's a joke. I know how to program in Perl, I just hate Perl. The reason I hate Perl is the reason so many like Perl -- TIMTOWTDI. Ironically, my love/hate relationship with Python revolves around the concept of TIOOTDI.
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nine years? (Score:5, Funny)
Nine years and this is what they come up with? What else came from 1999... Oh, right: The first delay in the release of Duke Nukem Forever. And I also believe that's the year they came out with "cooler ranch" potato chips, and they've sucked ever since. Ah, and there was that Prince song. Yes, that one. So based on empirical evidence, I conclude that this too shall suck, but we'll party like it's... *bang*
NO CARRIER
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Ah, and there was that Prince song. Yes, that one.
Ahem. That song didn't come out in 1999. It came out in 1982 [wikipedia.org]. Now get off my lawn.
Well, now we know for certain (Score:2)
that half the web is not standards compliant.... good thing they are finally publishing this.
i wonder... (Score:3, Interesting)
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It's not like 508 is something new. They're just revising the guidelines that have been out there for years. I would think by now all Government agencies have gotten clued in as to how to satisfy 508 requirements. (Or they know how to get waivers approved.)
Good luck to the lazy ones (Score:2, Insightful)
Good luck with your non-CSS, table-based layout, javascript and Flash-required things you like to refer to as "websites".
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If you would like to show your support for this initiative, mod this comment down.
My pleasure, you fucking idiot. I have a better idea:
Wouldn't it be easier just to kill all the idiots?
1. No more trolling
2. No more time wasted with them. Idiots are idiots and time is extremely valuable to the civilization in general. Let's save more time by killing all the idiots so we can spend it in a more productive manner than explaining to them that they're fucktards.
3. It would mean an explosion of technologies and knowledge that would ease everyone's life. These shit-for-brains just drag us do
A welcome change (Score:4, Funny)
Solutions in search of a problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
I am hearing impaired. What's the accessibility standard to help me enjoy a podcast? Do we require closed captioning for all podcasts? Require a written transcript to be posted with every podcast?
Sure, there's plenty of podcasts I'd like to "listen" to and can't but for each pound of extra baggage we pile on a publisher, we reduce the incentive to publish. How long before all this well-intentioned madness starts to limit the amount of good material that is published?
The inevitable end result is an artificial reduction in the amount of material available to all.
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long before all this well-intentioned madness starts to limit the amount of good material that is published?
It already does. Some companies that are bound by these standards or regulation (since in certain case, it is enforced by law) have been slapped on the wrists (or more) for publishing things without following all accessibility rules, and the result sometimes has been to simply not publish them at all, because it ended up being too much worse (let say, for a professor who wanted to publish some extra i
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Section 508 isn't the end of the world, yeah (though some sections of it get somewhat ignored...thankfully, else it would quickly get out of hand)... but there is precedents outside of that, like the judgement against Target in 2006. Now granted, for that one it was a fairly stupid thing that Target could have fixed easily, but its still a scary precedent. There are some colleges that have similar policites for accessibility that have caused issues over the internal web sites that stopped some people from p
Re:Solutions in search of a problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess they're not worth your time and trouble as long as you can get to most of what you want. Nearly one in four Americans has some sort of disability, so savvy publishers who don't want to lose out on a big chunk of marketshare find it worthwhile to comply.
In the case of commerical sites, vendors find that disabled users are a loyal lot and will keep frequenting sites and businesses that support their needs. And they won't waste time struggling with a non-compliant site if the competition is compliant.
The argument that this puts undue burden on content providers is BS. The same thing was said about forcing car makers to include seat belts, and on and on. Like the cutouts in sidewalks, not just disabled people benefit from the efforts to accommodate their needs; the general public does, too.
Lastly, while it is well intentioned for general use, 508 applies only to things being provided to the (US) Government. If you didn't factor in the costs of accessibility into your bid, then too bad for you.
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...Nearly one in four Americans has some sort of disability, so savvy publishers who don't want to lose out on a big chunk of marketshare find it worthwhile to comply. ...
That's a bit misleading... how many of those have a disability that actually matters when it comes to web disability.
I think of all the people I know (yes, it's more than 4... good for a nerd), and I can only think of a handful that might be slightly disadvantaged when using a non-standard page.
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Agreed. I like to use a Mount Everest metaphor. Can no one go to Mount Everest until we build a wheelchair ramp up it? Or should we let those who are able to as far as they can?
We can make things accessible as much as possible, but with finite resources, sometimes you can only fund a trip to Everest for an able-bodied person, or you can make a few local buildings wheelchair accessible for the same money.
Where's the money better spent? Both are worthy causes.
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Sorry but wtf are people doing on Mount Everest that's so important?
To use your metaphor, there's been a lot of sending people up Mount Everest while someone in a wheelchair can't get around at work.
WCAG is only for people without disabilities (Score:3, Interesting)
Or at least, the writing of the standards were. From Joe Clark's comments from early 2006 [alistapart.com]:
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I am hearing impaired. What's the accessibility standard to help me enjoy a podcast? Do we require closed captioning for all podcasts? Require a written transcript to be posted with every podcast?
No, we have guidelines which suggest providing a text alternative enclosed in a semantically meaningful, standards-compliant markup so anyone browsing with a user agent which deals with things in those terms can make some amount of use of them. In terms of audio content, this can range from full transcripts to a
Reading Level (Score:4, Interesting)
According to the linked page, "popular software" can determine the reading level of text in multiple languages. A quick Google search revealed a PHP project php-text-statistics [google.com]; it would be interesting to see if there is a correlation between highly moderated comments and some of the reading comprehension metrics.
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I agree completely. If you use a word like "microprocessor" in a sentence, then you've pretty much shot the RGL of that sentence unless you just have one or two other words in it. RGLs are meaningless in technical material, and not all of the web is commercial or entertainment sites.
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> the web content worth reading, slashdot included, are well above that.
You're joking, right?
I would have estimated the reading level on slashdot, on a good day, at about third grade, roughly at the same difficulty level with such childhood favorites as The Wizard in the Tree, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
By ninth grade you're supposed to be able to read Shakespeare.
It's about task management. (Score:2)
Don't be afraid to let them do things you can't do.
Don't let other managers have access to them directly, they are your people, if someone has a problem with one of them, or a task for one of them, they need to talk to you.
Don't play favorites. Spread the work load evenly (let them help you do this.)
When you assign them tasks, give them pre-determined checkpoints for checking progress. This really helps you avoid micro mana