[Irl-dean] AAA Claim?

[Piero Tintori]

Hi,

Can I give a different point of view on this, one that I'm seeing 
throughout some public sector organisations involving medium to large 
web / intranet projects?

In practice, when middle management are applying for funding to upgrade 
the website and they are making the business case, accessibility is a 
key point used. The person makes the case, for say €50,000, to upgrade 
the website and when presenting it they are asked, "how accessible will 
it be, cause if we're spending €50k on a new website I want it to be the 
most accessible it can be". Rather that trying to explain the reasoning 
behind WAI and the different levels, as the chief exec isn't that 
patient, the person says "oh, it will be the highest, level -AAA-". So 
that's how “AAA” reference turns up in the tender document (and is 
perhaps part of the acceptance criteria and auditor might ask them about 
later on).

Ultimately, if you win the business, there are two things that can 
happen. Throughout the process you can educate the client and then they 
can then really decide which level is required, or they can stick their 
heels in, in a closed minded way and insist on the website being AAA. 
These people won't really understand the pros and cons discussed below, 
and just want to see "the badge", ultimately because of the promises 
made to the chief exec to raise the funding...... And probably the chief 
exec isn't really interested in knowing the difference between standards 
etc., and just wants to have the best darn accessible leading edge 
website in Ireland....

Luckily this is rarer these days because of the work many of you have 
undertaken educating people, but it still happens.

Anyway, just my two cents!

Regards,

Piero



Barry McMullin wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Feb 2007, brendan spillane wrote:
> [...]
>   
>> I believe (possibly in error) that it is acceptable to claim AA
>> compliance when a website has information on it in .doc .pdf which are
>> not replicated in xhtml
>>
>> when reading the check point 11.1 you reference above I have always
>> taken this into account when using technologies available on the web
>> such as flash which are part or all of a website but not for .doc or
>> .pdf which a website links to.
>>     
>
> Hi Brendan -
>
> I don't think I understand quite what distinction you see
> between, say, a resource in flash and a resource in .doc in
> relation to conformance to 11.1 - can you clarify or elaborate
> that at all?
>
> Thanks,
>
> - Barry.
>
>
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