July 21, 2005 4:00 AM PDT
Perspective: Accessibility could take a step backward
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At a time when travel and currency barriers continue to fall in Europe, several countries want to create new boundaries related to the Web. These nations want to establish a label or mark that would specify Web pages or products that are "accessible" to people with disabilities. However, such standards could differ from existing U.S. standards.
The reality is that if you are blind and use a "screen reader" to read Internet content out loud as you surf the Web, the product should be able to read sites from the U.S. government as easily as it reads ones posted by the government of Sweden. Agreement among governments on their policies for accessibility would accomplish this goal.
Accessibility is in everyone's interest.
The World Health Organization estimates that between 750 million and 1 billion of the world's 6 billion people have a speech, vision, mobility, hearing or cognitive impairment.
In the U.S. alone, more than 54 million people have disabilities. The numbers are increasing as 76 million baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964 get older. In other developed countries, including Italy, Spain and Japan, 45 percent of the population will be over the age of 60 by the year 2040, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
People are living longer, and although health care is continually improving, it's almost impossible to eliminate the incidence of disabilities acquired as part of the normal aging process.
Powerful demographic and social trends are fueling the need for information technology accessibility worldwide, but we are at a point where individual governments may fragment their efforts.
The U.S. marked a milestone in IT accessibility in 1998, when it amended Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. Section 508 requires all information technology purchased by the federal government to be accessible. Federal government Web sites and Web-based activity must be accessible as well. The law, coupled with its amendment and its technical specifications, has had global reach as many countries around the world look to Section 508 as a blueprint for their own Web accessibility guidelines.
Since Section 508 took effect, the entire tech industry has invested significant technical and human resources in bringing products and services into compliance, in many cases, by incorporating accessibility requirements in the concept phase of product development.
Now the technology industry is concerned that the positive impact of Section 508 may be disrupted or side-tracked: Several governments in Europe are in the process of exploring or establishing their own accessibility policies. Some are similar to the U.S. standard, but others offer new, divergent or conflicting accessibility guidelines for public procurement.
The technology sector wants the U.S. government to convey to the European Commission the importance of creating policy that removes existing barriers--and does not create new barriers to accessibility. In addition, we have major concerns about the European Commission's consideration of enforcement based upon labeling and certification of products as "accessible."
Even when people have similar disabilities, every individual is different. Given the enormous range of functional limitations that exist, even within a single disability or impairment type, it would be nearly impossible to create a label or mark that could provide sufficient information to buyers regarding a product's conformance with evolving accessibility standards. In fact, labeling products as "accessible" could set false expectations for consumers.
Making technology accessible to all is best met by technologies and solutions that are committed to interoperability based upon open standards and have been developed via collaborative processes.
Without a harmonized approach to procuring information technology, each government could adopt a different technical standard. If various governments mandate different regional or country technical requirements, industry will be forced to focus on multiple compliance efforts, rather than pushing beyond compliance and investing in new technology and solutions. Most likely, some companies would choose not to invest in some markets, and the people who need the technology most will lose out on its benefits.
However, if European technical specifications for accessibility are in harmony with global standards, it would enlarge the market of conforming IT products and would create an even greater incentive for manufacturers to compete globally on the basis of accessibility.
Industry has made much progress, but there is more to do. Given the broad implications that accessibility has on society in general, industry wants to move beyond mere compliance and bring innovative solutions to the marketplace. Agreeing on global standards will enable society to derive benefits from more involved citizens, more contributing workers and more enabled workers.
Biography
Frances W. West directs IBM's Worldwide Accessibility Center.
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there would be standards. Take html.. has to be the simplest
thing out there. Then you have a single company (Micor$oft),
that tears even that simple standard to shreads. Nothing is fair
game.. css, xml, etc.
I design websites. I bill by the hour. Each time there is a breech
of standards, you need to design longer to ensure compatability
between browsers. Now the compatability will be between
countries. No problem man... more hours....
We sit here in the US, and consider that our standards are always
the right ones, then enforce them. Did the US GOV consult other
contries about their ideas on accessiblity? If you need a
standard, you need complete agreements on these starndards,
not just a Forced move like the US GOV and Micro$oft.
If you look back at history, Netscape did it first. Netscape came up with their own extensions and modifications to the HTML standard. Remember the <blink> tag?
This really is the beauty of the internet. It is the ultimate example complete and total anarchy. Current "standards" have no oversight and compliance is completely voluntary. I wrote a mail server that "violated" several RFCs. Why? Because I didn't like the way other mail servers worked. But I never claimed that it was RFC 821 compliant. Merely that it was 821 compatible.
The same message could have been put across a much better way. Including phrases such as: "working to harmonise", "updating Section 508 in light of experience to date including the experience worldwide", etc.
I don?t know anyone who would argue that Section 508 is perfect (for industry or users) just so much better than the situation before.
I also think the procurement argument should be separated from the kite mark one. Of course one could point to the other but I want to see the procurement legislation succeed and the kite mark just crawl away into a corner and die (it is founded of a fallacy).
Martyn Cooper
Head: Accessible Educational Media
Open University
UK
Does the author even understand that outside of the United States, every other territory in the world strives for and embraces the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (http://www.w3c.org/WAI)? Since when should US law be the driver for international standards? Why not have the US tech sector she allegedly speaks for march to the beat of the international consortium's guidance - after all, these very same large tech organizations are generally members of the W3C anyway (IBM certainly is a member).
Section 508 web accessibility standards are but a bare minimum, and to criticize foreign governments for striving for more than the minimum is ridiculous. If IBM does not want to acknowledge the very real guidance of an existing international body, then that is/should be nothing more than a business decision, just like deciding to not produce a particular software in Swahili or pig-latin (for all I care).
As a non-American, this type of "you're with us or against us" mentality is frankly appalling. Ms. West is entitled to her US-centric opinion, but to suggest that the international community should accept US law blindly is, to me as equally ludicrous as insisting that the international community accept Chinese law with equally blind acceptance.
Give me a break...
As an advocate for, and an expert on, web accessibility I am troubled that the US generally seems to still not get it. While glimmers of hope exist in legal precedents such as New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer's "investigation" of Ramada.com and Priceline.com and the subsequent agreement of these two companies to "do better" (sic) (http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2004/aug/aug19a_04.html) it is sadly offset by the Florida district courts narrow and flawed view as opinion'd in it's ruling on the Southwest Airlines web site's real accessibility issues.(http://news.com.com/2100-1023-962761.html) Contrast that with the Australian case of Bruce Lindsay Maguire v. Sydney Organising Committee, where it was judged that the 2000 Sydney Olympics website failed to accommodate users with disabilities (and it should be noted judged against the W3C's WCAG referenced above).
No wonder US companies are scared. When judged against real international "standards" the Section 508 guidance falls very short. Perhaps instead of attempting to lower the bar for all, Ms. West and the tech sector she claims to speak for should look inward and ask how they can do better.\
John Foliot
Web Accessibility Specialist
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
"Web authors should become knowledgeable of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Skilled Web designers can follow these guidelines and still develop aesthetically appealing and highly functional Web sites."
The next part is taken from a document, Colorado Information Technology, Accessibility Standards FACTS and GUIDELINES For the Blind and Visually Impaired at http://www.oit.state.co.us/resources/docs/imc_ADAStandardsFACTS-Guidelines-handout_03-06-01.doc
"The Work Committee met again on January 8, 2001 and compared the W3C guidelines with the applicable portions of the Department of Justice Section 508 Standards. Because the W3C standards were substantially integrated into the Department of Justice Section 508 Standards, the Work Committee's recommended standards comport with both the applicable Department of Justice Section 508 Standards and the W3C private sector guidelines."
Kansas has something similar, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines for the State of Kansas, http://da.state.ks.us/itec/WASPriorities112001.htm
"The State of Kansas guidelines are based in part on the work of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and their Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG 1.0). This revision also encompasses the rules for Web-based intranet and Internet information and applications required of Federal departments and agencies (and others as applicable) by section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended (29 U.S.C. 794d). Where relevant, the number of the corresponding W3C guideline and Section 508 standard is listed."
In most cases, states are requiring Web designers and developers to follow "at least" Section 508 requirements. Many are advocating following current Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
Why reinvent the wheel? There are already global guidelines in place. There are already organizations like the Web Standards Project (WaSP) http://www.webstandards.org/ that are working toward this a goal of global standards to ensure everyone who needs to access information on the Web will be able to access it regardless of what device is used or the physical abilities of the person using the device.
- Is Section 508 good for all? I donīt think so.
- by July 27, 2005 4:02 PM PDT
- I am writing from the Czech Republic (middle Europe) and we belong to the countries that Ms. West mentioned. Few month ago we introduced our accessibility rules for government sector. I (as an accessibility consultant) was a member of a commission that summarized the guidelines for a specialized law.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(7 Comments)The one and only reason why we did not adopt any existing guidelines (Section 508, WCAG 1 etc.) was the experience that these guidelines are not as good as we wanted. Many important accessibility rules are missing and on the opposite side there are many rules that we found useless.
Thatīs why we took the good ones and got rid of those bad ones. And thatīs how the Czech Accessibility Guidelines came to life.