Web Accessibility = Web Shop Salvation?

June 15, 2001 5:55 PM

Web Accessibility = Web Shop Salvation? With Federal guidelines for accessibility set to go into law on June 21, you've got a whole hoarde of companies which will need to redesign. Razorfish must be all, "Mmm, I smell money! Time to buy back the Aerons!"
posted by gsh (12 comments total)

omg. look at me. i'm drooling!

(thank god i know css. i'm so ahead of the game.)
posted by jcterminal at 6:09 PM on June 15, 2001

daaaammmnnn.

this could be good.

(for jakob)
posted by o2b at 6:34 PM on June 15, 2001

I can remember when Mac users would send me hatemail cuz my old Facing the Mask online diary would give them errors. This development may cause me to have nightmares where I'm being chased by a mob of disabled people with torches calling me a monster for using tables and never properly cleaning up my experiments with frames.

"I'm not an animal! I am a hypertext markup slave!"
posted by ZachsMind at 6:39 PM on June 15, 2001

Tables and frames are not inherently inaccessible, and you are not prohibited from using tables for layout. Also, screen readers (save for Outspoken for Macintosh, a cœlecanth of a program) can all navigate tables and frames. If your site is half-arsed accessible without graphics in a conventional browser and in Lynx, you're 9/10 of the way there.

A goldmine for A-list big-name Web consultancies? Hardly. Considering how hard it was to coax a usable site out of them, asking them all to eat crow and code accessibly is unrealistic. Also, there isn't that much money in the field.

I am presently recovering from writer's block in writing a book for New Riders on the whole topic. Keeners can hunt around for a link if they want.
posted by joeclark at 6:54 PM on June 15, 2001

cœlecanth

hehe
posted by o2b at 7:36 PM on June 15, 2001

hahaha. Now the IT/computer world gets to feel the frustration and pain that Architects and other industries have felt for years since the big American Disabliblities Act went into affect.

...but wait, this web stuff is only the start of the new and revamped 'accesibility issue'. Wait until all your movies in theaters have subtitles running accros the bottom of the screen. Would that be so bad?

Its really sad, on both hands. What a tricky situation. Its just hard.
posted by tomplus2 at 11:04 PM on June 15, 2001

this Web stuff is only the start of the new and revamped “accesibility issue.” Wait until all your movies in theaters have subtitles captions running across the bottom of the screen. Would that be so bad? It’s really sad, on both hands. What a tricky situation. It’s just hard.

Pffft. A typical ignoramus misapprehension of accessibility, viewing it as taking away rather than adding. As for the example cited, well... [ominous violin chords] it’s already happening! Except nobody else in the cinema is bothered.

To paraphrase Madonna, why’s it so “hard”?
posted by joeclark at 5:20 AM on June 16, 2001

Hey, am I reading the story correctly? Are the people who are scrambling for compliance just the federal government, and the sites that serve them? Or is every website supposed to be compliant by the 28th?
posted by crunchland at 6:17 AM on June 16, 2001

Tables and frames are not inherently inaccessible, and you are not prohibited from using tables for layout.

joeclark, as a fed-worker bee web designer, I'd like more info on this. If I'm not mistaken, many present generation readers do have a difficult time reading across frames and tables. If this isn't the case, I'd like more specific information on it. Thx.

posted by Taken Outtacontext at 6:43 AM on June 16, 2001

crunchland -- no, not every website. Just the feds and their vendors, or anyone who hopes to sell to the feds. Still a pretty large group, but not the entire Web.

BTW, this extends beyond just websites:

"Section 508 applies to all IT systems purchased by the federal government, including PCs, software and office equipment such as copiers and fax machines."
posted by briank at 6:52 AM on June 16, 2001

That's good. Because if I was gonna have to build a wheelchair ramp for my website, I was gonna be pissed.
posted by crunchland at 7:15 AM on June 16, 2001

Section 508 applies to the broad U.S. federal government, with rare exemptions, like national security. The private sector (and, for that matter, any sector other than the U.S. feds) are not affected, except by implication if they are selling something that fed employees or the public will use. There is no requirement that company X's site be 508-compliant, but X's products have to be if federal employees or the public will use those products.

Nothing will change for anything posted before 2001.06.21. Only items used or maintained or added on or after that date are covered. So, unlike what you might have heard, there is no requirement to take down our old Website or we're gonna get sued! Now, if you update your old site, you have to make it accessible, so only truly dead pages, where the tumbleweeds blow, will end up untouched. But in many cases there will be no access problems in those pages, assuming they used things like alt texts in the first place.

Remember, this isn't some incomprehensible new technology. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines on which 508 is based have existed for years.

If I'm not mistaken, many present generation readers do have a difficult time reading across frames and tables. If this isn't the case, I'd like more specific information on it. Thx.

As I already wrote, only OutSpoken for Macintosh among current screen readers cannot handle tables and frames. Jaws, IBM Home Page Reader, Window-Eyes, and (IIRC) even OutSpoken for Windows has no such problem.
posted by joeclark at 9:56 AM on June 16, 2001