Re: <nettime> New US law requires Web sites to become handicapped accessible

[Tom_Gray@mitel.com]

Before we all get very excited about this, we should remember the boast
from the designers of new network systems that they can deliver
information anytime anywhere. With the understanding of this as the goal,
the government's proposals take on an entirely new light. If a web page
designer wishes his page to read by among others users with LAN connected
workstations with high resolution displays and at the same time be
accessible to users with wireless connected PDAs with small screens, then
these designers will have to be cognisant of the technology required to do
this. After all this is promise of XML, that we can separate content from
presentation. 

It is more than the promise of XML that it can accomplish both the
delivery of ubiquitous information and the objective of disabled access.
The accommodation of users who use Braille terminals will be no more
difficult that the accommodation of users who use small screen monochrome
PDAs. The technology is being developed. It will just take care and
craftsmanship on the part of the content designer to achieve it. All these
guidelines are do is providing a standard which can guide the designer in
the achievement of the desirable social goal of enabling the disabled. A
great collateral benefit to this is that these guidelines will also
provide guidance to content designers in the task of making content
available on the wide number of terminal devices which have widely
differing capabilities. 



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