[Irl-dean] Disability Bill and ICT accessibility

[Barry McMullin]

On Tue, 7 Dec 2004, Henry Poskitt wrote:

> Does anyone else find the language used unnecessarily oblique and
> legalistic. I know it's standard in this type of document but I looked at
> comparable  sections in both Section 508 (which is remarkably
> straightforward) and the UK Disability Discrimination Act and they are both
> considerably more direct and to the point. Didn't the government commit
> itself to "plain English" some time ago?

Hi Henry -

I sympathise with you here.  Legal documents do have special
requirements that make this a little difficult, but the
comparisons with US and UK legislation are probably fair.  We
might acknowledge that providing the "explanatory memorandum" is
an attempt to compensate for this somewhat - though even there,
simpler and more straightforward language could probably have
been used.

That said, I would also re-iterate the original point that Eoin
Campbell made:

> [...] the formatting used within the PDF and RTF versions is
> not accessible either, so if someone manages to get the
> document downloaded and opened, it is still quite difficult to
> navigate around it, looking for the most relevant bits.

This applies to both the bill and the explanatory memorandum.
These are long and complicated in structure (quite separately
from the specific language used).  With no structural "hooks" -
not even properly identified headings, never mind hypertext
cross-references, contents, or index - they are very very
difficult to navigate within...

Best - Barry.