Hi Gail,
speaking from the perspective of a librarian, I must echo Marcia Carlson's
response to the current inaccessibility of your product. As a public
institution, we are under the obligation to comply with Title II of the
American with Disabilities Act. Should this library identify the need for a
product like yours, I will urge my colleagues to look for similar products
that can be accessed by people with disabilities who use screen reading
software with voice output.
Axel Schmetzke, Ph.D.
Library
University of Wisconsin--Stevens Point
-----Original Message-----
From: Marcia Carlson [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2000 11:18 AM
To: Gail Wilson
Cc: [log in to unmask]; Schmetzke, Axel; [log in to unmask];
[log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Response from Questia Customer Support
In other words, your product is not accessible to those who need to use
voice output browsers to access the information. Thus I cannot recommend
your product to my students. I will share your response to my question with
those who develop computer policy on campus. We have policy directing us to
work only with those products that can be accessed by all our students,
including those with disabilities.
Please let me know, whenever in the future, that your product is accessible
to people with visual, hearing and physical disabilities.
Marcia
At 10:02 AM 12/13/2000 -0600, you wrote:
>Dear Marcia,
>
>Thank you for contacting Questia Customer Support.
>
>Currently, Questia is focusing all of our efforts on launching a
>content-rich electronic research service. We are monitoring developments
>in the area of Web accessibility and researching technologies that might
>enable us to provide solutions in the future.
>
>Please contact us if you need additional assistance and we would be happy
>to assist you.
>For more information about Questia, visit www.questia.com.
>
>Sincerely,
>Gail
>Questia Customer Support
>1-877-QUESTIA (1-877-783-7842)
>
>___________________________________________________________________________
____________
>Date: Wed, 06 Dec 2000 11:50:10 -0600
>From: Marcia Carlson <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Cc: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Questia question
>Question: Will Questia meet at least levels A and AA and navigation
>point
>13.5 of the WWW Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative guidelines for
>accessible web pages? http://www.w3.org/WAI/ will give you links to the
>guidelines and to techniques in achieving accessibility.
>I am the facilities accessibility specialist at the University of
>Wisconsin
>- Madison. I also teach in the School of Human Ecology and the School of
>Education. I am a member of the university's ADA (Americans with
>Disabilities Act) Task Force and of the university committee that
>recently
>developed guidelines for web accessibility that all university
>departments
>will have to follow. We are setting a one year deadline from
>promulgation
>of the policy (to come in early January) for getting all university web
>pages accessible or getting the information on a web page into an
>accessible format that can be accessed as easily and in the same
>timeframe
>of accessing the info on the web. We are joining other post-secondary
>institutions in setting up requirements that all services and goods
>provided to the university by a vendor be accessible to persons with
>disabilities, including those with vision, hearing, physical and
>cognitive
>disabilities.
>A colleague of mine has signed up for the trial period. I will trust his
>judgement as to the accessibility of your pages. I cannot, either
>legally
>or in good conscience, recommend your services to my students unless I
>am
>assured that your services are accessible to ALL my students, including
>those with disabilities.
>Additional information about accessible web pages is available at
>http://www.trace.wisc.edu/world/web/
>see also the comments on universal design at
>http://www.trace.wisc.edu/world/
>and
>http://library.uwsp.edu/aschmetz/Accessible/pub_resources.htm
>Marcia
>
>
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