[Koha] Koha and 508 Compliant

[Sébastien Hinderer]

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.