Legislation To Make Web Devices Accessible To Disabled Users 274
pgmrdlm writes "In an effort to make web devices accessible to the disabled, the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (H.R. 3101), submitted by Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-MA) passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 348 to 23. The related Senate bill has been introduced by Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR). Quoting Representative Markey's website: 'We've moved from Braille to Broadcast, from Broadband to the Blackberry. We've moved from spelling letters in someone's palm to the Palm Pilot. And we must make all of these devices accessible.' The Washington Post coverage notes, 'Some broadcasters put videos on the Internet with captions, but not all. That can make inaccessible everything from the political videos that are now common on the Web to pop culture clips that turn viral.' As someone who has 20/200 vision with my glasses on, I completely agree that the web has not been kind to individuals with various disabilities. But due to the size of the web, and the large number of different devices that access it, is it even possible to legislate something of this nature? Or should we rely on education and peer pressure on the various manufacturers?"
Re:Lameness filter (Score:4, Informative)
I've heard that most browsers come with a zoom feature so you can get print as large as you want.
Of course it's possible (Score:3, Informative)
The Disability Discrimination Act has been in effect here in the UK for years. Whenever I do work for a big company, there's usually an accessibility requirement in the brief somewhere. They started appearing not long after the DDA came into effect, and from talking to the clients, it's usually specifically due to this law.
Re:Eat your own dogfood, jerks (Score:3, Informative)
What makes you believe he believes that? It's pretty obvious that "productive class" doesn't mean "as opposed to people with vision deficiency" but "as opposed to politicians".
Re:How accessible is sufficient? (Score:3, Informative)
The Communications Act of 1934 [fcc.gov] (pdf) includes a section on catering to the disabled, which in turn specifically includes (Sec 713 on page 329)
So it's probably a similar standard here - companies will have to make reasonable attempts to cater to as broad a population as possible. They can look to prior precedent to determine how far exactly that is.
Re:Eat your own dogfood, jerks (Score:4, Informative)
If all media were required to be presented in all manner of forms so that anybody with any disability or who speaks any language could make use of it, everything would be extremely costly to create. that would be economic destruction, plain and simple.
even if it would employ thousands of otherwise unemployed translators, it would be a huge expense for little benefit.
should government websites be disabled-accessable? sure. public services? obviously.
news websites? questionable.
viral videos? christ, sometimes i wish i was disables so I COULDN'T be exposed to them...
Re:Lameness filter (Score:3, Informative)
browsers zoom feature
Try control with the mouse wheel.
Re:Eat your own dogfood, jerks (Score:4, Informative)
Many people in this country still access the internet using a dial-up 56K modem - many of _them_ are achieving only half that speed, due to physical distances and line quality. They cannot access many of the web's features in any kind of timely manner. However, I don't see a requirement in the bill for broadband access to be made available in gratis to all people regardless of creed, color, marital status or disability. In fact, providing any form of internet or multimedia access is not a requirement laid out anywhere in our laws. People of all disabilities still have to pay for their computers, pay for their internet access, and pay for everyday items to maintain their quality of life. So yes, money is a very important factor.
Innovations in multimedia have been made by consumers spending money in that segment (aka Capitalism), not by the government requiring technology companies to make devices to service a minority. If there is a gaping hole in the way information and multimedia is distributed, you would think there would be companies trying to capitalize on providing services to that minority. Because that's [miracle-ear.com] the way [thescooterstore.com] it has worked [lenscrafters.com] in the past. The future [emotiv.com] is going that way too, on it's own. It does not need help from soon-to-be-outdated government bills.
As a volunteer helping visually impaired people.. (Score:3, Informative)
..I have put myself in their "shoes" many times, to understand the difficulties they have in using various household electronics and gadgets, and of course, software and websites. My experience has been that all those devices that are usable by blind/visually impaired people, are also more pleasant and easier to use for able-bodied people. I have never met an exception to this rule. Hideous flash-encumbered websites are the direct opposite of accessible, and we all hate them.
A website does not have to be specifically made for a blind person - it just has to be text-readable instead of being a big blob of graphics, un-parsable by the various reader softwares available to blind people, be it voice or Braille.
Re:Eat your own dogfood, jerks (Score:3, Informative)
"Out of interest, has anyone ever done a study on whether the effort and money put into firstly creating the laws, secondly enforcing the laws, and thirdly coming into compliance with the laws has ever come anywhere near break even with regard to increased ability of the disabled back into the community? "
That was never the objective. The objective is to make everyone else pay to support disabled access no matter what the cost or actual situational necessity.
The classic example I've seen was the Handicapped parking spaces next to a fighter squadron Ops building. There are no handicapped F-16 fighter pilots.
Re:Oh, providers are going to "love" this one (Score:3, Informative)
Go to the link where the esteemed Senator is pontificating at length about the lack of subtitles (4th link in the summary, I believe).
First, you'll note that he did not upload subtitles to the videos on his site. Interesting, no? In a long pontification about the lack of accessibility on his own web site, he puts up video without subtitles. He did, at least, put up a transcript of the video on the site itself, but if you go to YouTube to find that video, it won't have the transcript. So he's seemingly in violation of his own principles (actually not at all unusual for a Congresscritter, but it's important to point these things out).
Second, you'll note that subtitles are available for that video. Since it was uploaded to YouTube, Google makes "audio transcription" available. While imperfect ("your personal courage" gets translated to "your personal carl", for example), it does get the gist of the video across.
So, if Markey is proposing that Closed Captions be available on all YouTube videos, then YouTube has already met the law to the standards Markey himself has demonstrated he wants.
Captioning vs. Subtitling (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is why egalitarianism is the enemy of free (Score:3, Informative)
Kurt Vonnegut wrote an excellent short story, "Harrison Bergeron", where this sort of legislation has been taken to an extreme. It can be found in his short story collection "Welcome to the Monkey House". Well worth the read, like most of Vonnegut's work.
Re:As a volunteer helping visually impaired people (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Lameness filter (Score:3, Informative)
Zoom doesn't reflow text, so you end up having to scroll both horizontally and vertically. This can make the experience much less satisfying than if the text adjusted the size and reflowed.
The problem is web "designers" who "design" pages for a certain resolution, DPI and eyesight.
(And who seem to believe that everybody else are single-taskers who blow up their windows full screen too.)
Re:Lameness filter (Score:2, Informative)
Other similar legislation (Score:4, Informative)