Mick McQuaid and Madison Russell
2022-03-25
terminology
Thirty years ago, I was asked as a designer to make a logo for a group of lesbians who wanted to be called “Differently Pleasured” in response to some disabled activist women who called themselves “Differently Abled”. Was it a joke? Were they trying to offend the others? I’ll never know the point for certain but it raises an issue about speech and who gets to name themselves what.
The role of WWII
Americans may have first awakened to their responsibilities for disabled people with the return of disabled veterans from WWII. Pictured here is one such veteran, Harold Russell, who starred in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946).
By 1947, President Truman established a committee to promote employment of the disabled
Here is a 1951 poster from their annual campaign
An early wheelchair basketball game typifies activities once denied to persons with disabilities
During the civil rights movement of the 1960s, disabled people began to organize
In 1973, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act was passed
Sit-ins were one civil disobedience strategy used to secure Section 504 rights.
(The Americans with Disabilities Act) History and Basic Rules
WCAG
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2 is developed through the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) process in cooperation with individuals and organizations around the world, with a goal of providing a single shared standard for web content accessibility that meets the needs of individuals, organizations, and governments internationally.
The WCAG documents explain how to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities. Web “content” generally refers to the information in a web page or web application, including:
Who WCAG is for
WCAG is primarily intended for:
What is in WCAG
The WCAG standards have 12–13 guidelines. The guidelines are organized under 4 principles:
For each guideline, there are testable success criteria. The success criteria are at three levels: A, AA, and AAA.
The success criteria are what determine “conformance” to WCAG. That is, in order to meet WCAG, the content needs to meet the success criteria. Details are in the Conformance section of WCAG.
Who is in charge of WCAG
The WCAG technical documents are developed by the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AG WG) (formerly the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group), which is part of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).
WAI updates Techniques for WCAG 2 and Understanding WCAG 2 periodically. We welcome comments and submission of new techniques.
Opportunities for contributing to WCAG and other WAI work are introduced in Participating in WAI.
Can you give an example?
Success Criterion 1.2.4 Captions (Live)
(Level AA)
Captions are provided for all live audio content in synchronized media.
CVAA Titles
The Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 (CVAA) updates federal communications law to increase the access of persons with disabilities to modern communications.
It has two Titles:
It is framed as a technical law, as opposed to earlier acts that were framed as civil rights law. Hence, it tries to future-proof itself against new technologies.
Can you give an example?
From Section 102.(b):
Section 710(c) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 610(c)) is amended by adding at the end the following: ‘‘A telephone or other customer premises equipment that is compliant with relevant technical standards developed through a public participation process and in consultation with interested consumer stakeholders (designated by the Commission for the purposes of this section) will be considered hearing aid compatible for purposes of this section, until such time as the Commission may determine otherwise. The Commission shall consult with the public, including people with hearing loss, in establishing or approving such technical standards. The Commission may delegate this authority to an employee pursuant to section 5(c). The Commission shall remain the final arbiter as to whether the standards meet the requirements of this section.’’.
What is UNCRPD?
The UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD) is an international human rights treaty that reaffirms that all persons with disabilities must enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Its articles clarify that all disabled persons have the right to participate in civil, political, economic, social and cultural life of the community just as anyone else.
The Convention clearly stipulates what public and private authorities must do to ensure and promote the full enjoyment of these rights by all disabled people.
Not all frameworks are in law. For example, Dogucu, Johnson, and Ott (2021) is a voluntary framework for accessibility in data science.
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