Rosemary Ernst writes:
>At the risk of blasphemy ...
>
>I often see accessibility and economics lumped together and I'm not sure it
>does much but muddy the water. Martin's last post suggested the old addage:
>you get what you pay for.

        I agree that you get somewhat more if you pay a lot more
and that's what bothers me tremendously.  I am a member of our
campus committee for accessibility and I think the public is not
getting its mony's worth when they buy a Windows-based
accessible work station.  It is not because anybody is out to
steal, but it is because the technology is poorly designed and
the methods needed to try to work around javascript navigation
and other needless complexities smack more of military measures
and countermeasures.

        If one has a web server that uses the tried and tested
html navigation as opposed to javascript, the scripting browsers
work just fine and so do lynx and other no-scripting browsers.

        Why not sit down and spell out what does work and try to
include that in accessibility specs rather than keep raising the
bar every few months and make it necessary to keep shoveling good
money after bad to try to keep up with the moving target.

        If I am going to pay for it, I want it to not break or
give me strange results and to not require continuous payments to
keep it going and that's what is wrong with the high-maintenance
software that exists today.

Martin McCormick