Re: [office-accessibility] Minutes: February 10 Accessibility SubteamMeeting

[Peter Korn <Peter.Korn@Sun.COM>]

Hi Nathaniel,

>
> Peter Korn <Peter.Korn@Sun.COM> wrote on 02/14/2006 07:18:52 PM:
>
> > I'm not surprised (or disappointed) that this is out of scope for a 
> file
> > format standardization effort, even if it is all about accessibility.  
> > But many of the folks in this subcommittee are in fact the right folks
> > to be working on this.  And if our goal is to make ODF a standard that
> > meets accessibility needs, then this is very much an issue that must be
> > addressed somewhere...
> >
> > So... any thoughts as to where this is best addressed?
>
> Well, first of all I should say that I am really new to this area, so 
> I don't know where there are minefields or bodies buried.  However, a 
> naive web search led me to:
>
>
>         http://www.ataccess.org/
>
>
> This kind of education seems right up their alley -- their FAQS are 
> particularly wonderful.  Perhaps we should be considering jointly 
> pursuing some ODF-related work at one or more non-profits like this 
> one?  I guess I could use a tutorial in the politics of accessibility.
>
You are a distinguished engineer at IBM.  You have presumably been 
developing software for a long time.  How many of the ODF documents that 
you have created, which include images, have those images labeled? 


More documentation about such things at places like 
http://www.ataccess.org/ is certainly a good and welcome thing.  But 
also largely ineffective at reaching the masses of thoughtful, senior 
technical folks like yourself, let alone the unwashed masses.

The minefield/body that is buried is actually a very large elephant, and 
he is in the middle of our room.  That elephant is that folks don't 
create accessible content - and a larger and larger fraction of the 
world population is now creating content that other folks want to read 
(Gutenberg's printing press was nothing compared to the web).

>
> In the short term, we ought to make sure this is on the agenda for the 
> proposed ODF Promotion TC, though that doesn't really seem adequate 
> for the long term.  -- Nathaniel
>
Yes, on both counts.


Peter Korn
Accessibility Architect,
Sun Microsystems, Inc.