[Blindtlk] Inaccessible conference website

[David Andrews]

I am not aware of any laws or regulations that specifically identify 
"Conferences."  If the sponsor falls under 508, then anything they do 
would be covered -- but I saw from another message from you that this 
is apprently not the case.  Ultimately it will probably officially 
fall under the ADA, but not yet, that I know of.

I am not familiar with the slider for security.  It is possible that 
a different screen reader might handle the control, but maybe 
not.  There is no way to know in advance.

There are different approaches to security, I would think that their 
chosen one is not the only one.

Dave

At 02:12 PM 1/10/2014, you wrote:
>Dear all,
>
>I'm attending an academic conference next month and as I was about to
>submit my online registration, discovered an inaccessible slider that
>had to be slid to the right before the website would let me submit my
>payment info. I complained to the registrar that as a blind person I
>couldn't access the online conference registration, and was told to
>try a different Web browser. When I explained that the problem wasn't
>with the browser's interface but with the use of  a slider, which to
>my knowledge cannot interact with JAWS, the registrar offered me to
>fill out a PDF registration form and said that they cannot remove the
>slider because it offers enhanced security. She did seem attentive to
>my concerns but I am not terribly confident that the problem will be
>remedied on the website. I eventually decided to have my husband help
>me with the slider because the PDF registration form could not be
>filled out by computer and so I would have needed sighted help
>regardless, and doing the slider required less sighted help.
>
>I have a few questions for you guys. First, have any of you had
>success handling these sliders with JAWS? I've never seen such an
>element before on a Web page. Second, do you know if conference
>websites are legally required to be accessible under Section 508? If
>so, I would like to push the matter further. The website for this
>conference had multiple accessibility issues although the slider one
>was the most blatant. I complained to them back in 2009 and they fixed
>some of the problems but not all of them. Third, is it really true
>that a slider offers maximum security and if so, what accessible
>remedy should I suggest to them that doesn't compromise security?
>
>Thanks,
>Arielle