[nfbwatlk] City of Everett Website Accessibility

[AWBarton]

Good question about the XP magnification tool.  When creating a website, the
designer has the ability to not allow viewers to use the magnification tools
in XP to function on the website.  The magnification tool is part of XP's
"style sheets".  According to the Department of Justice, disallowing use of
any of XP's accessability tools is called "turning off style sheets" and is
illegal.

This is the quote from the Department of Justice website:

“For instance, a user with low vision may use a style sheet so that
regardless of what web pages he visits, all text is displayed in an extra
large font with white characters on a black background. If designers set up
their pages to override user-defined style sheets, people with disabilities
may not be able to use those pages. For accessibility reasons, therefore, it
is critical that designers ensure that their web pages do not interfere with
user-defined style sheets.”

The City of Everett's website designer setup their website to override
user-defined style sheets then specifically refused to remove their
override.

Regards,

Kelvin Barton



Mike Freeman k7uij at panix.com
Sun Nov 16 08:33:22 CST 2008
[nfbwatlk] City of Everett Website Accessibility

Thanks for explaining a bit. When I used the site earlier this fall with
my screen-reader, I had absolutely no trouble with the site. However, I
wasn't using screen-magnification.

Question: did not the standard magnification tools in XP allow you to
handle the site adequately? I make no assumption in asking the question;
for obvious reasons, I've never played with accessibility tools in XP
except when setting it up.

Thanks.

Mike Freeman

----- Original Message -----
From: "AWBarton" <awbarton at wiredweb.com>
To: <nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2008 10:18 PM
Subject: [nfbwatlk] City of Everett Website Accessibility


For nearly three years I've been asking the City of Everett to make its
website accessible.  After a string of e-mails, they finally flat out
told
me they would not make it accessible and that I should buy my own
accessibility equipment.  I wrote the US Department of Justice in
September
2008.   Department of Justice sent a letter two weeks ago they were
opening
an investigation.  I can't say for certain it was pressure from the
Justice
Department but suddenly, the City of Everett's website has become
accessible.  Please check it out and see if it works for you - I'm
visually
impaired so I use the style sheets.  The tags don't magnify so I'll also
be
noting that to DOJ.  The City of Everett's website is www.everettwa.org
.

Patti and Kelvin Barton