View this page "An Appeal for Accessibility Guidelines and Policies"
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G!
Mar 26, 2008, 10:58:46 PM3/26/08
to OpenSocial and Gadgets Specification Discussion
Click on http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-and-gadgets-spec/web/an-appeal-for-accessibility-guidelines-and-policies?hl=en
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G!
Mar 26, 2008, 11:16:42 PM3/26/08
to OpenSocial and Gadgets Specification Discussion
G!
Apr 6, 2008, 4:40:37 PM4/6/08
to OpenSocial and Gadgets Specification Discussion
Wow! What an underwhelming response from the opensocial developer
community thus far!
I suppose this is what I expected but, if no one takes up this appeal
I will likely take it mean that no one is interested in making changes
that would allow disabled people to be able to use opensocial
applications.
To be clear, that would mean any and all Federal agencies, employees
and any organizations receiving Federal dollars will be prohibited
from purchasing any solutions that do not conform to Sections 504 and
508 of the REabilitation Act (i.e., healthcare, schools/universities,
state and local governments -- to name but a few.)
I realize that everyone is hynkered down working really hard to get
viable product out the door -- perhaps thinking that this
'accessibility-thing' for 'those people' can come later on -- maybe
when the company hits paydirt.
It's understandable that you all may feel this way as none of you have
such disabilities or, if you do they are not holding back your work
and others may do as you have -- without any such assistance. But,
that is supposed to be a social networking technology!
The other thing you should all be aware of is, like Rosa Parks did in
starting the Bus Boycott that sparked the Civil Rights Movement --
this is where we are going to make our stand. The specs I provided to
the opensocial community are dated from 1996! How would any of you
like to be excluded from participating in technological progress and
yet be a lone voice in the wilderness 12 years after the facts were
first revealed!
If you could see what I and millions of others go through to access
even this group and post a message -- you might have your eyes opened.
But with your cooperation or not, these changes will be made -- I
assure you. A new day has come and the peoples of the world know your
names -- we'll let history be your judges.
The other-other thing is -- the future belongs to those who can
conftont challenge to seize opportunity. Think of how this technology
will and its' users will evolve -- by 2009 in handheld devices
incorporating location and context-aware and hands-free mobile devices/
vehicles, eventually implants as well as embedded in clothing, signs,
mass market products and packaging. In all such cases you might want
to consider a user interface would have the same requirements as a
person who is blind, deaf or physically impaired.
You should all be aware that the old UI paradigm of a 'genie-in-a-
bottle' (display), with its' attendant 'soap-on-a-rope' (mouse), is
archaic, get with the program!
Thanks for listening...
Peace,
G!
community thus far!
I suppose this is what I expected but, if no one takes up this appeal
I will likely take it mean that no one is interested in making changes
that would allow disabled people to be able to use opensocial
applications.
To be clear, that would mean any and all Federal agencies, employees
and any organizations receiving Federal dollars will be prohibited
from purchasing any solutions that do not conform to Sections 504 and
508 of the REabilitation Act (i.e., healthcare, schools/universities,
state and local governments -- to name but a few.)
I realize that everyone is hynkered down working really hard to get
viable product out the door -- perhaps thinking that this
'accessibility-thing' for 'those people' can come later on -- maybe
when the company hits paydirt.
It's understandable that you all may feel this way as none of you have
such disabilities or, if you do they are not holding back your work
and others may do as you have -- without any such assistance. But,
that is supposed to be a social networking technology!
The other thing you should all be aware of is, like Rosa Parks did in
starting the Bus Boycott that sparked the Civil Rights Movement --
this is where we are going to make our stand. The specs I provided to
the opensocial community are dated from 1996! How would any of you
like to be excluded from participating in technological progress and
yet be a lone voice in the wilderness 12 years after the facts were
first revealed!
If you could see what I and millions of others go through to access
even this group and post a message -- you might have your eyes opened.
But with your cooperation or not, these changes will be made -- I
assure you. A new day has come and the peoples of the world know your
names -- we'll let history be your judges.
The other-other thing is -- the future belongs to those who can
conftont challenge to seize opportunity. Think of how this technology
will and its' users will evolve -- by 2009 in handheld devices
incorporating location and context-aware and hands-free mobile devices/
vehicles, eventually implants as well as embedded in clothing, signs,
mass market products and packaging. In all such cases you might want
to consider a user interface would have the same requirements as a
person who is blind, deaf or physically impaired.
You should all be aware that the old UI paradigm of a 'genie-in-a-
bottle' (display), with its' attendant 'soap-on-a-rope' (mouse), is
archaic, get with the program!
Thanks for listening...
Peace,
G!
Kevin Brown
Apr 6, 2008, 5:33:44 PM4/6/08
to opensocial-an...@googlegroups.com
Hi,
I had to look back at the opensocial archives to find your original message. It looks like it was attached as a page rather than sent to the mailing list. Perhaps this is why there weren't any responses? Did you cross post to the list as well?
OpenSocial is an open standard, and as such we can't actually prevent deployments that don't take accessibility into account. We could provide guidelines, but these would be the same guidelines that would apply to all web development (as published by many standards bodies and government agencies, as you mentioned). As I'm sure you're keenly aware, few people are following those guidelines anyway, unless they're trying to satisfy a government contract.
It's important to bear in mind that OpenSocial is just a set of APIs, themselves built on top of existing open standards that I believe all have relevant, published accessibility guidelines. If you have specific concerns about the OpenSocial spec that aren't already addressed by the specs that we ourselves depend on (such as HTML, ECMAScript, and CSS), by all means, please bring them to our attention. The specs are very much still in a state of evolution (hence the "0.8"), so there's no time like the present to incorporate your feedback.--
~Kevin
I had to look back at the opensocial archives to find your original message. It looks like it was attached as a page rather than sent to the mailing list. Perhaps this is why there weren't any responses? Did you cross post to the list as well?
OpenSocial is an open standard, and as such we can't actually prevent deployments that don't take accessibility into account. We could provide guidelines, but these would be the same guidelines that would apply to all web development (as published by many standards bodies and government agencies, as you mentioned). As I'm sure you're keenly aware, few people are following those guidelines anyway, unless they're trying to satisfy a government contract.
It's important to bear in mind that OpenSocial is just a set of APIs, themselves built on top of existing open standards that I believe all have relevant, published accessibility guidelines. If you have specific concerns about the OpenSocial spec that aren't already addressed by the specs that we ourselves depend on (such as HTML, ECMAScript, and CSS), by all means, please bring them to our attention. The specs are very much still in a state of evolution (hence the "0.8"), so there's no time like the present to incorporate your feedback.
~Kevin
danbri
Apr 6, 2008, 7:54:43 PM4/6/08
to OpenSocial and Gadgets Specification Discussion
related: I tried to get a thread started on the WAI xtech list,
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/wai-xtech/2008Feb/0004.html ...
but nothing moving yet... I'll keep pinging folks about this...
btw yep, i didn't see this on the lists, stumbled on this page via
google search
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/wai-xtech/2008Feb/0004.html ...
but nothing moving yet... I'll keep pinging folks about this...
btw yep, i didn't see this on the lists, stumbled on this page via
google search
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