[blindlaw] Format Question

[T. Joseph Carter]

James,

I think you're confusing the issue here by trying to mix websites with 
paper documents.

The issue being discussed is that SSA does not believe it is required to 
provide paper documents, notices, and other mailings in a format that a 
blind person can read without assistance.

Jim's assessment is that if the SSA can successfully argue that it is not 
required under the law to provide things such as award letters or notices 
of changes in an accessible format, then we're hard pressed to argue that 
banks, utility companies, and others who currently already do should be 
expected to continue the practice.

 From my own experience, the dot-matrix printed bill I receive from my 
electric company usually does not scan very well.  If the SSA can't be 
bothered to send out accessible notices, why should my city be expected to 
send out a bill I can read, with or without technology?

Jim is right, this is an important issue.  More important because the usual 
target population for SSA are seniors who tend to lose eyesight and not 
have access to all of the wonderful scanners and other toys you and I get 
to play with.

Their website is a whole 'nother issue.  It basically works, most of the 
time, for some version of "works" that involves it being as difficult to 
deal with as anything related to the SSA.  At least they're consistent.

Joseph

On Mon, Dec 08, 2008 at 12:06:35PM -0600, James Pepper 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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