Does anyone know if Koha is section 508 compliant? http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=12#Web Thanks Zack
This depends entirely on the "assistive technology" that you care about. If you mean something ancient, like JAWS 2.0 then it is easy to say that no modern website is compliant. Koha targets and largely succeeds at implementing the principles enumerated in 508. --Joe 2009/5/27 Zachary Spalding <spalding@senylrc.org>
Does anyone know if Koha is section 508 compliant?
http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=12#Web
Thanks Zack
Joe Atzberger wrote:
This depends entirely on the "assistive technology" that you care about. If you mean something ancient, like JAWS 2.0 then it is easy to say that no modern website is compliant.
Koha targets and largely succeeds at implementing the principles enumerated in 508.
I sit corrected, happily! I'm sure there are some gaps, as not everybody pays attention to accessibility, but I'm elated to hear that Joe has. The devil is in the details, as Joe suggests. We may never be able to eliminate the "largely" from "largely succeeds," but I think there's plenty of room to get *closer* to it. J. David Bavousett Open Source Software Engineer P|T|F|S
Bavousett, David (2009/05/27 09:51 -0400):
Joe Atzberger wrote:
This depends entirely on the "assistive technology" that you care about. If you mean something ancient, like JAWS 2.0 then it is easy to say that no modern website is compliant.
As far as I undrstand it, accessibility does _not_ depend on which assistive technology is used. On the web, for instance, there are a set of criteria a site should verify so that it can be said accessible. Accessible then means readable with any assistive technology. Sébastien.
On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 11:13 AM, Sébastien Hinderer < Sebastien.Hinderer@snv.jussieu.fr> wrote:
Joe Atzberger wrote:
This depends entirely on the "assistive technology" that you care about. If you mean something ancient, like JAWS 2.0 then it is easy to say that no modern website is compliant.
As far as I undrstand it, accessibility does _not_ depend on which assistive technology is used.
Abstractly yes, but the question was specifically 508-compliance. As a practical matter that depends on what assistive technology is the benchmark for sections 1194.22 l and n. The spec takes a very broad definition for assistive technology, namely: Any item, piece of equipment, or system, whether acquired commercially,
modified, or customized, that is commonly used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities
So it really isn't possible to test against that level of abstraction and declare one's code compliant. Certainly not with anything like the concreteness found in the HTML or XHTML specs. Having worked with (broadcast) radio reading services back in the 90's, I am familiar with the older generations of screenreaders, but Sébastien perhaps you can tell us what software is "commonly used" today? Regarding javascript, I don't think that is a dealbreaker per se. For example, our use of YUI to make drop-down buttons out of lists or links should be compliant. -- Joe Atzberger LibLime - Open Source Library Solutions
Hi again Joe,
Abstractly yes, but the question was specifically 508-compliance. As a practical matter that depends on what assistive technology is the benchmark for sections 1194.22 l and n.
Oh I didn't know they were using benchmarks.
The spec takes a very broad definition for assistive technology, namely:
Any item, piece of equipment, or system, whether acquired commercially,
modified, or customized, that is commonly used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities
Just out of curiosity: does this cover free software ?
So it really isn't possible to test against that level of abstraction and declare one's code compliant. Certainly not with anything like the concreteness found in the HTML or XHTML specs.
I was thinking to things like WCAG, actually.
Having worked with (broadcast) radio reading services back in the 90's, I am familiar with the older generations of screenreaders, but Sébastien perhaps you can tell us what software is "commonly used" today?
Well... concerning operating systems and other non-dedicated programs, I' say that the usage ratios for the visually impaired are similar to those for sighted persons, that is a lot of Windows users, some using Mac OS, and other, a minority, using LInux, either in text mode or in graphical mode. Those on Windows use programs such as Jaws, Window-Eyes, NVDA etc. On Mac OS X it's VoiceOver which is used. On Linux, there is brltty and a few others that mainly deal with braille in text mode, speakup and a few others which are more speech-oriented, and orca that gives access to the graphical desktop. One other thing is that visually impaired users sometimes like using text-mode browsers such as lynx. Unfortunately, these browsers often have no Javascript support, or a very little, experimental and untested one.
Regarding javascript, I don't think that is a dealbreaker per se. For example, our use of YUI to make drop-down buttons out of lists or links should be compliant.
Well... I experienced some problems when I wanted to add some user categories in Koha's admin interface. I had to modify the templates to be able to use the feature -- I'm using lynx. Best wishes, Sébastien.
Well... I experienced some problems when I wanted to add some user categories in Koha's admin interface. I had to modify the templates to be able to use the feature -- I'm using lynx.
It would be invaluable to our efforts if you could file bug reports for problems like this. Better to fix the official templates than to require users to modify their own. Thanks, Owen -- Web Developer Athens County Public Libraries http://www.myacpl.org
Hi Owen, and thanks for your rreply.
Well... I experienced some problems when I wanted to add some user categories in Koha's admin interface. I had to modify the templates to be able to use the feature -- I'm using lynx.
It would be invaluable to our efforts if you could file bug reports for problems like this.
Actually, we examined the issue on #koha-fr when it appeared, and I think the reason why I didn't file a bug report was that neither I nor others on #koha-fr knew how this kind of issues could be fixed. One of the difficulties was that the javascript does a few verifications and transformations that are not performed at the server-side. For instance, if I remember correctly the category codes are upper-cased in the javascript, and this is not double-checked in Perl. And: I certainly agree that modyfing the official sources is better than doing personal modifications. Sébastien.
Zack Spalding wrote:
Does anyone know if Koha is section 508 compliant?
I haven't done a detailed examination of it, but my quick answer is "not particularly." In a lot of ways, it will be, since it's a pretty-straightforward sort of thing, but that is probably as much good luck as deliberate design. I don't think there would be any *major* restructuring needed to get it there, just lots and *lots* of finicky little details. That is something I have been hoping to spend some attention on soon, accessibility being something of a personal interest to me. No timetable on how soon that'd be though; my world is pretty busy at the moment. J. David Bavousett Open Source Software Engineer P|T|F|S
Hi,
I haven't done a detailed examination of it, but my quick answer is "not particularly." In a lot of ways, it will be, since it's a pretty-straightforward sort of thing, but that is probably as much good luck as deliberate design. I don't think there would be any *major* restructuring needed to get it there, just lots and *lots* of finicky little details.
I am a blind user and I worked with Koha's intranet interface. I don't know precisely what section 508 says about web accessibility, but I can say that KOha's administration interface uses Javascript, (and has no alternative for those browsers that do not support Javascript), which may make Koha non-compliant. Best wishes, Sébastien.
Hi Sébastien. On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 12:09 PM, Sébastien Hinderer < Sebastien.Hinderer@snv.jussieu.fr> wrote:
I am a blind user and I worked with Koha's intranet interface.
Which screen reader did you use to use Koha's Intranet interface? Orca<http://live.gnome.org/Orca>? Fire Vox <http://firevox.clcworld.net/>? Does anybody out there use any of this softwares with Koha? In what language did you use it? English? French? Does anybody use it in Spanish? What version of Koha are you using? I noted Galen Charlton has added a 3.2 RFC on Koha's wiki<http://wiki.koha.org/doku.php?id=en:development:rfcs3.2:rfc32_webstandards>, but I don't know when Koha 3.2 will be released<http://wiki.koha.org/doku.php?id=en:development:roadmap3.2#release>, neither what features will include. Some suggestions I'd made are still poorly/none answered*; Galen, could you please take a look to them? Thanks! Cheers, Pablo * [Koha-devel] Koha Suggest<http://lists.koha.org/pipermail/koha-devel/2009-August/010011.html> [Koha-devel] Geolocalization in Koha<http://lists.koha.org/pipermail/koha-devel/2009-November/010380.html> [Koha] Searching for books with cell phones<http://lists.katipo.co.nz/public/koha/2009-December/021983.html>
Some suggestions I'd made are still poorly/none answered*; Galen, could you please take a look to them? Thanks!
I'm sure Galen is busy with patches that have already been submitted to be incorporated into the 3.2 branch. If you're interested in these features I'd suggest sponsoring a developer to write them. -- Owen -- Web Developer Athens County Public Libraries http://www.myacpl.org
Thanks for your answer Owen! On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 6:29 PM, Owen Leonard <oleonard@myacpl.org> wrote:
Some suggestions I'd made are still poorly/none answered*; Galen, could you please take a look to them? Thanks!
I'm sure Galen is busy with patches that have already been submitted to be incorporated into the 3.2 branch. If you're interested in these features I'd suggest sponsoring a developer to write them.
Sure! But I was not asking Galen to add those features. I was asking him (and everyone) for his opinion as Koha 3.2 release manager, if it is in the plans to add them, when, how difficult it might be, or for example as MJ Ray says <http://lists.koha.org/pipermail/koha-devel/2009-November/010390.html>, if it is possible to add a pair of fields to the database. How much time do you think is necessary to write a little bit about this things? :) Also I wish to know when Koha 3.2 will be released, since it was planned to the last November<http://wiki.koha.org/doku.php?id=en:development:roadmap3.2#release>, or what features will include, because 3.2 RFC is so big... I work with Koha, so I need to know what main developers like LibLime and BibLibre plans, so I can plan ahead. For example, I'll not plan to add a feature that it's going to be added in the near future by someone else, or moreover, has been already added but still not present community version, only in *LibLime Enterprise Koha*<http://www.liblime.com/products/koha/koha-solution-comparison> . -- Pablo PS: Sorry for my awful English :(
participants (6)
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Bavousett, David -
Joe Atzberger -
Owen Leonard -
Pablo A. Bianchi -
Sébastien Hinderer -
Zachary Spalding