Kelly and other interested listers,
It's pretty clear from poking around the NFB website
<http://www.nfb.org/seal/intro.htm> that achieving certification requires a
fee. From my reading of the website, it also appears that certification
relies heavily on compliance with at least that subset of the W3C's Web
Accessibility Guidelines that's related to accessibility for screen reader
users. Not only does this certification process appear to ignore the
accessibility needs of people who are otherwise disabled, but it appears to
ignore the accessibility needs of non-Windows screen reader users.
If the NFB casts itself as a web accessibility certfiying agent for
nonvisual users, will the organizations representing people with other types
of disabilities try to sell web accessibility certification for their
constituents? If successful, that would be a nightmare for website
developers.
Other than NFB, who's really served by this certfication process for an
individual segment of the population when accessibility standards for all
users already exists? That the Social Security Administration and a few
other businesses believe its to their advantage to buy their annual
certfication from NFB only goes to show that NFB has learned to leverage its
political clout and/or its ability to litigate into a fund-raising
technique.
Jon
-----Original Message-----
From: Kelly Pierce [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2003 9:53 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: eNews: Social Security eNews June 2003
What isn't said in the article is whether this is an award or an extra
tacked onto a web access consulting contract that the Federation had with
these entities. I am suspicious because no objective and measurable
criteria were listed nor was it stated how the decision was made.
Kelly
----- Original Message -----
From: "Harvey Boots" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2003 12:45 AM
Subject: eNews: Social Security eNews June 2003
> Following is from the Social Security ENews.
>
> Social Security eNews
> Published June 2003
> Issue 42
>
> To read our illustrated online version, go to
> http://www.socialsecurity.gov/enews/last.htm
>
> NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND RECOGNIZE OUR WEBSITE
>
> Our redesigned website has been lauded by the National Federation of
the
> Blind (NFB), the nation's largest and most influential membership
> organization of blind people. NFB announced Social Security,
> Hewlett-Packard and Wells Fargo as the first recipients of its
"Nonvisual
> Accessibility Web Application Certification."
>
> "We created the certification process so that Internet accessibility
> leaders, such as these, could be publicly recognized by the NFB for
their
> efforts," said Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the NFB. "We hope that
more
> companies and organizations will follow the example that these
innovators
> have set and make web accessibility a priority in their organizations."
>
>
> VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
> To join or leave the list, send a message to
> [log in to unmask] In the body of the message, simply
type
> "subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
> VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
> http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html
>
VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask] In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html
VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask] In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html
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