accessibility definition could include situational dissabiities

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SteveLee's picture

Just a thought that occurred while browsing around; the accessibility definition could be extended to include situational disability - e.g bright light, noisy, small screen etc. http://ow.ly/29Om5

Comments

This is right, there are also

jjsarton's picture

This is right, there are also people with high or low dpi screens. This can be put to the class visual defficiensies (poor eyesight). bright light, mean that the contrast decrease, this is covered by the point poor eyesight, noisy environment mean that audio can't be listened (deafness), Small screen may also apply to people with a poor eyesight which must "zoom" the pages.

Interesting...

mgifford's picture

Hi hadn't even seen this glossary before. http://drupal.org/node/302232

So, should we revise the term? Great to see you onboard Steve!

hadn't even seen this

SteveLee's picture

hadn't even seen this glossary before. http://drupal.org/node/302232

There's quite a bit of content ;-)

So, should we revise the term?

Now I'm not so sure. It was the way it was written that prompted the thought. My view is to take the widest possible view of accessibility, so inclusive design using the standards and good technique ensure widest access, as it says. Situational disability is an important part of that, as is age related disability. This of course means the widest possible use of a site, with possible market gains. However, this is not probably the place to evangelise, even if it's an angle that is not as prominent as it could be.

how about adding this at the end;

"In addition these user agents may be used in environments that limit a user's senses, for example bright light."

Great to see you on-board Steve!

Thanks Mike. It's great to find the action here. I think I'll be sticking around :-) Drupal certain seems to meet the requirements I have in mind and the open development is great. I have a learning curve but what I've seen of the abstractions is good. FYI we have funding for a community site to explore open innovation in accessibility - http://access.ecs.soton.ac.uk/projects/realise . I'll keep in mind ideas for including Drupal, though of course anyone will be welcome.

Steve Lee

nice words for a broader definition of accessibility

aenw's picture

Just to toss this out as more fodder:
This is a sentence I really like that's from the Web Usability company, on their Services page:

Site accessibility is a measure of how effectively visitors, including those with disabilities, are able to access and use web pages.

I like that it broadens the definition out beyond "disabilities" to all visitors in a simple and clear way. It might be good to start with words like this, and then go in to some specifics (e.g. the disabilities that most people think of, age-related and situational disabilities, etc.).

(And I'd never seen that glossary page before, either.)

Lots of opportunities

mgifford's picture

Unfortunately I don't have access to edit the glossary, however the individuals behind it are listed at the bottom of the document.

Thanks for the link to the REALISE Project. Seems like a great initiative. Are there similar initiatives that you know of outside the UK?

Drupal accesibility and links

jjsarton's picture

It is not surprizing that http://drupal.org/node/302232 what not known by a lot of people.
Numbers tell nothing and can't, normally, be remembered. This a luck of this site in regard of accessibility. Drupal offer to replace the node number by an "URL-Alias", this shall be the default for creation of new pages (editor must unless this is disabled).

@mgifford - Not quite the

SteveLee's picture

@mgifford - Not quite the same as REALISE has a USP of health/education/employment and researchers/developers/business. While the call asked for regional innovation as a web initiative it's obviously global in reach. It would be great to have your input. I've put the call and bid up on the Google group so you can get a better idea

http://groups.google.com/group/project-realise/files

Other similar initiatives I'm aware of are Raising the Floor (US) and Aegis (EU) and another large EU project bid that went in recently led by Technosite.

http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/openaccessibility.xml

@jjsarton - I only found this page while stepping sequentially through the documentation pages. I agree it is rather hidden but perhaps will be more prominent in the new drupal.org design?

Steve Lee

thanks.

mgifford's picture

Good to have this other context.

Our own page is more important than this glossary entry

cliff's picture

By that I mean that yes, we should eventually get the glossary entry corrected — and I especially appreciate the definition @aenw found at the Web Services Company. But first we should get our own accessibility page fleshed out (ragging on myself here as much as on anyone else), and I think it's the place to discuss situational disability.

Once our page is fleshed out, then we should increase the pressure to update the glossary and make sure the definition links to our page.

Great to see all these new names here. Drupal is a challenge (at least it has been for me), but I think it's worth sticking with. I never cease to be amazed by the sites and widgets folks have built with Drupal — really cool stuff!

Accessibility

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