[NIFL-TECHNOLOGY:2674] Re: Ruling: ADA doesn't apply to Web

From: Steve Linberg (steve@silicongoblin.com)
Date: Tue Nov 26 2002 - 16:54:56 EST


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Subject: [NIFL-TECHNOLOGY:2674] Re: Ruling: ADA doesn't apply to Web
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On Tue, 26 Nov 2002, Jeff Carter wrote:

> Returning, briefly, to the issue of media accessibility: those of you  
> who use or have followed the development of the Bobby Web site  
> accessibility tool may find this press release of interest. As some of  
> you know, CAST sold Bobby to a company called Watchfire, which has now  
> incorporated accessibility checks into it's Web QA software.
> 
> I believe Watchfire intends to continue making the stand-alone Bobby  
> tool available at no charge.

Sort of.  It seems they're changing their policies rapidly.  Last week I
found that they had instituted a daily limit that was extremely small -
one or two pages per day, not useful for checking sites.  As of today they
seem to have changed to a one-page-per-minute policy, which is much more
reasonable, and say you can purchase a personal version for $99.  Still, 
you aren't going to rapid-fire through your site like this, so be prepared 
to spend some time with it if you're going to use it.  (Or to buy it, if 
you have a budget for it.)

Since I haven't been able to find any alternate tools that do this, I hope 
they do choose to keep their access policies reasonable; very few people 
check their sites for Bobby-compliance to begin with, and very very very 
few people will be willing to pay to do so.  I'm keenly aware of the costs 
involved in providing free services, especially popular ones, so I'm glad 
they're not pulling the plug altogether, but this seems like the kind of 
product it would be nice to have corporate/government sponsorship for 
rather than hitting up the users trying to make their sites accessible.

- Steve


-- 
Steve Linberg, Chief Goblin 
Silicon Goblin Technologies 
http://silicongoblin.com 
Be kind.  Remember, everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. 



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