The fact is that in our field, this concept is largely well-defined and if some chose to ignore it for whatever reason, they are wrong, period.

I agree that the concept, defined broadly, is well established. It’s the details I’m more concerned about - which, in my opinion, are much more difficult to specify.

You won’t hear any argument from me that some legal mandate for accessibility is very appealing: but only if it’s well written. The reasons for that requirement are exactly what you’ve stated: most businesses won’t do “the right thing” without that requirement.

My concern is where a law ends up requiring developers to support just one concept of accessibility.

I would heartily endorse any well-thought-out law concerning website accessibility: but I won’t endorse just any bill which comes forward.

Web accessibility laws and standards documents may not be created solely for the benefit of web developers, but web developers are unquestionably very powerfully impacted by these laws (not always by standards, unfortunately…).

Thanks!

A couple of things here I would like to bring to this discussion (and I apologise in advance for the length of this comment).

Whether developers agree or not on what accessibility is, while quite unfortunate, remains secondary to policy as far as I am concerned. The fact is that in our field, this concept is largely well-defined and if some chose to ignore it for whatever reason, they are wrong, period. In places where there is no legal or political framework, this is where this confusion can do the most damage. So whether accessibility is adequately defined on a legal or political level is far more important imho as this would be the point of reference for decision-makers, managers, advocates, developers, etc.

I think we also need to make a distinction between legislation, policy and standards. Generally, a law should state the general principles and afforded rights, a policy should state the objectives and the means to attain those objectives and a standard should technically act as one of those means and therefore support the objectives in a very concrete way.

I am obviously of the camp that feels that there should be a legal obligation towards Web accessibility, at the very least with regards to government resources. And by experience, I can say without reserve that this is necessary because you generally can not count on people, and especially governments and corporations, to be simply motivated to do the right thing. There will always be something people will want to put above the needs of persons with disabilities, for various reasons (often financial) because unfortunately, that is the kind of world we live in, for now anyway, and I do not see that changing any time soon.

Finally, I think developers need to remember that all of this is not done solely for their benefit. A well-written standard is indeed a tool for them to adequately do their job but it is also a tool for all the other stake-holders to either know what they are obligated to ensure and what they need to require from their resources as well as a means for persons with disabilities (often through their advocacy agencies) to call governments, organisations, corporations, etc., on whether they did their job correctly and ultimately, on whether their rights are being upheld.

And a well-written standard is not WCAG (which are guidelines concerning basic requirements to ensure accessibility). A well-written standard is a technical document inspired in large part by requirements set out in WCAG and perhaps in other relevant sources and ideally elaborated with all stake-holders at the table (policy and decision-makers, managers, advocates, developers, etc.).

Oh, and accesskey will be part of the guidelines only over my dead body.

All right! How many bodyguards would you like me to hire for you?

Thanks for your comments - I’m glad to hear from somebody who’s specifically involved in the legislative aspects of web accessibility. Sounds like we’re in agreement about the principles needed!

It is a very difficult task to generate guideliness that are specific and measureable (meaning legally sound), yet also flexible enough to accomodate various and new technologies. For the most part, the existing Section 508 guidelines developed in 1998 have done a pretty good job of this and I imagine that any changes to the guidelines will be similar - they will address real accessibility issues that are well understood and not likely to change in the next several years, yet will hopefully be more comprehensive (a lot more than just alt text and form labels).

Oh, and accesskey will be part of the guidelines only over my dead body.