Designing for Section 508
I think I've been reading Chris Byrne too long. When people talk about Section 508 compliance for accessibility, I immediately wonder whether it's like Sarbox compliance, and just the excuse used for a bunch of decisions that aren't necessarily related to the law. (Truthfully, my attitude about this dates back to the "FAA regulations prohibit the use of electronic devises" crap, but Chris is still my idol when it comes to looking at this stuff, so he gets the nod.) So when Mary Beth uses Section 508 compliance as a justification for huge context menus (well, she sort of does... you could read it differently, I suppose,) I find myself wondering "is that really required for 508? Does Section 508 say anything about, for instance, drag and drop controls?" So looked it up.
I'm not a lawyer. But I can't find anything in there about context menus. In fact, I can only find the word "context" in there once. There is no instance of "right" or "click" or "drag" in that document. In fact, the only thing I can discern from Section 508 that in any way relates to menu items in software is:
"When software is designed to run on a system that has a keyboard, product functions shall be executable from a keyboard where the function itself or the result of performing a function can be discerned textually."
Okay, so there has to be a keyboard vector for software functions. Generally that means pull-down menus. But that doesn't mean CONTEXT pull down menus. Nor does it say that such menus must be available at all times. In fact, a very famous piece of software has specific features that have to be installed separately and turned on and off for full accessibility compliance.
So why can't Notes? I'm not blind to the need for broad accessibility (forgive the pun). I have a long time friend & colleague for whom the matter is paramount. But that doesn't mean that those without additional accessibility requirements should have to work with cumbersome environments. IBM doesn't have to be a lawyer for the Maples and make every one of us wade through extra options for the sake of accessibility compliance. To reverse Neil Peart's metaphor, I wish they WOULD take hatchet, axe and saw to those menus!
There's no reason why Notes (or any other software for that matter) can't switch between accessibility modes. In fact, Notes 7 ALREADY DOES THIS. After all, what is the user preference: "Use Accessibility Keyboard navigation?"
Comments
I have been meaning to comment on this topic and will do so shortly. I just wanted to drop this comment placeholder here for now
Posted by Bruce Elgort At 11:32:39 AM On 06/25/2006 |