On Oct 7, 2007, at 2:40 PM, Joseph Selbie wrote: > "That's true enough. Which points to the larger problem: Real > accessibility > will only come from Apple and Microsoft... " > > Why? Why does it point to OS?
Because if you want true accessibility, you don't slap software readers on what is basically a core hardware and operating system problem. You can, but you'll get what you have today, which is basically a kludge. And I said it points to the hardware and operating system. They go hand in hand. It's not one or the other, but both. > I am admittedly focused on how readers are used on web pages. You > probably > have other experience of assistive technologies for desk top > software which > I don't have -- and which may well rest on OS issues. But since > this thread > started with the Target suit, I have been staying with that kind of > problem > of accessibility, and from my experience the reader is the key. Reader's are not the key. They are just a kludge to solve a larger problem, and one that won't go away and will get more and more complicated. Why? Because web browsers and the whole internet experience was *always* going to cycle back to the kind of richer interaction that existed long before the web browser existed. (Basically the entire 80s and early 90s of the software world.) The whole "web" thing was nothing but a pit stop on the evolution of the computer and digital technology. Things are going back to drag and drop, multi-windowing systems, etc. Given this, the problem is not a reader problem of reading "web" pages. It's a computer problem and how its core interactions pertain to people who are disabled. It's basically hardware and operating system, where the core technologies must find a way to give disabled people a means to reproduce what it is that people who are not disabled can do with a mouse+keyboard, plus the ability to see the screen. Asking software developers that have no control over the core technology to be forced to solve the problem, or worse, getting sued if they don't, is about as bass ackwards as it gets. > You have to learn them and live with them. They keep improving and > going > through version upgrades just like the rest of the browsers, but > they never > quite do what you want them to, and so far at least, they lag well > behind > the rest of the regular browsers as far as what level of complexity > of user > experience is possible. And they will lag even further as long as people keep treating this as a software problem that sits over the OS instead of as a core computer hardware and operating system problem. Fix the computer. Make the people who make the computer itself be forced to solve the problem. The folks behind this lawsuit are attacking the wrong people. Further, if they happen to win, all that will happen is that everyone will lose. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] List Guidelines ............ http://beta.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://beta.ixda.org/help Unsubscribe ................ http://beta.ixda.org/unsubscribe Questions .................. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home ....................... http://beta.ixda.org
