[nabs-l] confused - regarding - NFB Google Apps complaint

[Trevor Saunders]

On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 05:21:44PM -0500, David Andrews wrote:
> People are doing a lot of uninformed speculation here.  Freedom
> Scientific has no legal obligation to make inaccessible applications
> accessible.  It may make good business sense, but the don't have to.
> And ...  depending on the technologies used, they may not be able to
> make GoogleApps accessible with what is there now.

yes, however from what I've seen I'm very unconvinced its google's
fault, or that some of the google apps are even unaccessible in the
first place.  afaict gmail chat, calendar and (docs to some degree) seem
to work fine with firefox 4 on linux, there is some slowness, but that's
an issue related to firefox and orca and orthagonal to this issue.  Its
been a while but iirc the stock gmail interface worked pretty well with
nvda.  However I haven't had much reason to look at any of these pages
with dom inspector or a similar tool to see what the page makes
available, however since my experience is that these pages work my gues
would be that it isn't too unreasonable.  So considering the complaints
I've heard here I'm inclined to believe that the issue here is more a
jaws or IE problem, but I don't have any real evidence for that its just
a gues.  If someone has used dom inspector or the like and says that
some of the google apps should use ARIA or something in a way they don't
to make things more accessible I would be willing to believe that.

Trev

> And, the NFB doesn't sue Google because there are no direct grounds.
> Google, like FS, has no legal obligation to make its applications
> accessible.  It might make sense, but there is no law that says they
> have too.
> 
> On the other hand colleges and universities are obligated to provide
> accessible services and programs, and if they don't, they can be
> sued.  Thus Google can be pressured to do the right thing, by its
> customers, universities, who can be sued.
> Dave
> 
> 
> At 04:13 PM 3/16/2011, you wrote:
> >Precisely my thoughts.
> >
> >Where's the NFB suing Freedom Scientific?
> >
> >Or Google?
> >
> >Gosh knows Google could do way more then any school to fix that problem.
> >
> >Just my thoughts.
> >
> >Jorge
> >
> >
> >
> >On Mar 16, 2011, at 4:31 PM, Nimer Jaber wrote:
> >
> >> Hello,
> >>
> >> Google Aps are accessible with screen readers that have innovated and
> >> are able to use google apps such as NVDA for example. JFW works, but
> >> very limitedly. What happened to the screen reader companies doing
> >> their jobs and making things accessible instead of the NFB getting
> >> sue-happy *gain* and complaining because screen reader companies are
> >> falling behind? I don't think that Google has _ever refused to work on
> >> accessibility for anyone. Just saying ...
> >>
> >> Thanks.
> >>
> >> On 16/03/2011, Jorge Paez <jorgeapaez at mac.com> wrote:
> >>> Hello fellow NABS members.
> >>>
> >>> I'm sure most of you have heard about the complaint National
> >filed regarding
> >>> universities using Google Apps.
> >>>
> >>>> From what I understand, GMail is completely accessible but the
> >rest isn't.
> >>> (I've never used anything more then Gmail in the apps as of yet),
> >>>
> >>> but so far, I haven't seen many people use this.
> >>>
> >>> Are we complaining because the University is mandating that everything be
> >>> done threw Google Apps (part of which is unaccessible) or are
> >we complaining
> >>> for simply using inaccessible web applications that could potentially pose
> >>> problems?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Thanks,
> >>>
> >>> Jorge
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
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> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Nimer M. Jaber
> >>
> 
> 
> 
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