[blindlaw] Format Question

Michael Fry mikefry79 at gmail.com
Mon Dec 8 19:56:57 UTC 2008


Sounds like Mr. Pepper knows what he's talking about.  I forwarded this
email thread to Disability Rights Advocates (DRA).  I think DRA is the
powerhouse Berekly botuiqe law firm that prosecuted the Target accessibility
case.  They may find this information useful.

Mike

On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 10:06 AM, James Pepper <b75205 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Charles and Jim:
> SSA is under Section 508, they have to comply. They are required to be
> accessible to the blind and there is no excuse and it has nothing to do
> with
> their charter, they are required to be accessible.
>
> Charles I contacted the folks at ACB and told them what I can do with the
> forms and they refused to even listen to me.  I can make the Social
> Security
> Forms accessible and there would be no difference between the forms for the
> blind and the forms for everyone else.  But I think the ACB is more
> concerned with older technologies and not any interaction.  This confuses
> the issue.
>
> What we need is accessibility, real substantial accessibility where you can
> walk into a court room and show that a blind person can access the content
> with their computer or device and show that it can be done, right there in
> front of a judge.  That demonstration blows away any argument made by the
> IT
> people of a government agency because quite frankly they never test their
> pages.  They simply do not test their work using the products used by the
> blind.
>
> It is astounding how simple this work can be demonstrated. And when you go
> through all of their code on webpages and explain each point and why it is
> not accessible, the courts listen to this, and it either is accessible or
> it
> isn't there is no in between.
>
> IT people only test for SEction 508 compliance using testing programs like
> Bobby or the Section 508 test in Adobe Acrobat.  Both of these tests only
> test for specific items and they both say in their literature that they are
> not conclusing testing, that you have to manually test your pages for
> compliance.  But the IT people do not know this, they just test  with the
> programs and claim compliance and show this to their bosses and they take
> them at their word. And since the IT professionals are self regulating,
> this
> means that nothing is done when they do it wrong.
>
> This is what is happening in the Texas Case with the NFB versus the Texas
> Workforce Commission which was over the idea that Oracle, while claiming
> its
> products are section 508 compliant, it was found that they actually were
> not
> accessible to the blind workers who used their software.  The demonstrated
> the lack of accessibility in the court room.  So the State of Texas is now
> in a mad rush to become accessible to the blind, real tangible
> accessibility.
>
> The recent case against Target opens this up even greater.  And it shows
> that there is no tolerance for this type of nonsense anymore.  The question
> is what formats are we going to use.  Why not all of them?   Why does ACM
> insist on converting everything to text when we can have interactive forms
> and documents.
>
> The problem here is IT officials who think that what they are doing is
> accessible to the blind because they say it is accessible.  I run into this
> all the time, the pride of an IT official and how dare anyone challenge
> their work, they have been in the IT industry for at last 20 years.  But
> that doesn't mean they know how to do it.
>
> You see this in the training tutorials for software.  When you come upon an
> accessibility issue the training tells you how to do it as simply and as
> fast as possible because accessibility is considered a nuisance and you
> must
> do the bare minimum and that is all.  Adobe teaches in their online
> seminars
> how to get around the Internet Explorer safety feature that prevents videos
> from turning on automatically.  This feature prevents Flash Videos from
> showing automatically so people who are photo sensitive can get a blast of
> flashing screen and thus have seizures and migraines.  There is no regard
> for the consequences, they really do not care to find out why the rule was
> in place.  They just think it is cool to have the video come on
> automatically.
>
> So I recommend that failure standards be imposed upon all IT officials.
>  The
> first thing that needs to be done is to have every webpage be audited for
> W3C compliance.  There are some legitimate reasons for non compliance in
> minor cases (blogs for instance) but that is not the norm. All websites
> should be W3C compliant.  W3C compliance (World Wide Web Consortium)
> compliance is a test to determine if your website's code
> is written properly; it is a test to determine if you know how to write
> code.  So this is an easy failure standard that management can use to
> determine if their IT people know what they are doing.
>
> Web pages can be audited to determine who is working on them and if they
> actually know how to write code.  If they don't; fire them and replace them
> with someone who can write code properly.  And this will speed up webpages,
> make them work properly and save organizations and government agencies and
> states a fortune in down time because their IT people will no longer be
> fixing bad code with other bad code.
>
> IT people are the problem here, they are the face of the agency, they
> control how the content is delivered and if they refuse to do their
> jobs, when the agencies are told it cannot be done because they cannot do
> it, it is time to fire them and hire people who will do the work.   The
> problem here is who is actually running the agency?  IT runs everything,
> the
> Social Security Adminstrator works for their IT people, not the other way
> around.
>
> Also SSA has forms in about 16 languages. SSA recognizes that for equal
> protection you must present the forms in multiple languages, so why not
> braille.
>
> I can make the forms accessible in all the languages supported by JAWS and
> Window Eyes, I have not tested for HAL. I noted that government agencies
> who
> think their forms are accessible, never do it for Spanish.  They are
> English
> only accessible.  So they are discriminating against people of Spanish
> descent. You are all lawyers, isn't that against the Civil Rights Act?
>
> There is no excuse for SSA for not having accessible forms.  I can do
> it.  Does anyone here have any connections to the case because I can fix
> this situation.  Or how do I get a grant to demonstrate this so we can make
> SSA accessible to the blind, in all the languages supported by JAWS and
> Window Eyes?  How would I go about showing the judge that ACB does not have
> all the answers, that it can be done in other formats?  And since most of
> SSA's forms are already in PDF format, that can in many cases save a lot of
> time and effort including the fact that they are set up to handle PDF
> format.  But most of the forms would have to be reworked.  I would think
> SSA
> could understant accessibility in an accessible PDF form more easily and
> integrate the idea quicker than any other format.  they are already
> familiar
> with the technology and what is happening here is trying to teach IT people
> that things are possible because after all, they run the agency.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> James G. Pepper
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