Captivate Debate
Mike Moore
considered to be compliant with the section 508 standards.
The debate is centered around the application of 1194.21 (g).
Applications shall not override user-selected contrast and color
selections and other individual display attributes.
Per Adobe’s VPAT for Captivate “The Player does not inherit user
display settings.”
On the other hand the Adobe VPAT claims compliance with 1194.22 (m).
When a web page requires that an applet, plug-in, or other application
be present on the client system to interpret page content, the page
must provide a link to a plug-in or applet that complies with
§1194.21(a) through (l). Our interpretation of this standard is that
there needs to be a link to the player and that the player must meet
the requirements of 1194.21.
Are we correct in assuming that Captivate output should be tested
against 1194.21? And if 1194.21 does apply would any Flash output meet
that requirement?
We have confirmed that user settings in Windows for color and font
size are not inherited in by the player.
Mike Moore
Bill.W...@tfc.state.tx.us
accessibility compliance, the product should definitely be tested, just as
any web site. Just because the VPAT says it's compliant, doesn't
guarantee it. In my opinion, it's always up to the end user to make sure
that it is, and any non-compliant items should be reported to the vendor
so they can correct the problem.
Bill Woodland, Web Administrator IV
Texas Facilities Commission (Agency 303)
Phone: 512-936-2901 Fax: 512-236-6166
Karl Groves
Flash, by its nature is really more "software" than it is "web", which
makes it appropriate to apply most provisions of 1194.21 to Flash
rather than 1194.22. That being said, this is one of the big reasons
why Section 508's Subpart B provisions are really just plain out of
date and irrelevant. There was no such thing as AJAX when Section
508 was released. There was no such thing as the i-Phone or Android
when Section 508 was released. For these and many other reasons, the
compartmentalization of Subpart B into distinct product types just
doesn't work anymore and thankfully this will be addressed in the
Refresh.
That being said, if you need a practical solution that works right
now, I'd apply 1194.21 to anything Flash. Adobe agrees with this
which is why they've filled out those portions of the VPAT. I
believe the quality of Adobe's VPATs is highly accurate. I assisted in
writing two of them when I was with SSB BART Group and the Adobe guys
are highly knowledgeable and honest folks. While I'm typically
suspicious of most VPATs, I wouldn't be suspicious of one from Adobe.
Your final question was: "And if 1194.21 does apply would any Flash
output meet that requirement?" As we've been discussing, Captivate's
issues relating to 1194.21(g) are, pretty obviously, related to the
fact that the output of the product doesn't have any means to inherit
the user's display settings. It is commonly assumed that this would
be the case for all Flash content - that what gets designed is what
gets displayed. This is not entirely accurate. I once had a
discussion with someone which seemed to indicate that with some
serious JavaScript & Actionscript wizardry it was possible to get the
relevant information regarding the users display settings and use them
in modifying the display settings of the Flash object. This clearly
isn't happening with Captivate's output and frankly I haven't actually
seen it happen myself, but I think it is possible.
Karl
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Karl Groves