My Final Word on Accessibility
It looks like you guys have little interest in accessibility and think it crazy to even contemplate turning of JavaScript, so I'll leave the subject alone after today's entry.
If you Google for "Domino accessibility" there's a bit of information out there. Including my own rantings. The top result though is a presentation from LotusSphere 2003 called Designing Accessible Notes/Domino 6 Applications [.PPT] by Shannon Rapuano - Accessibility Consultant and CLP Notes Developer at the IBM Accessibility Center.
The presentation itself makes no mention of JavaScript, but, if there's anybody can answer my questions, its author sound like the person. So, I mailed Shannon to invite her to comment on my Domino Can't Do Accessibility entry. Her reply simply stated that JavaScript is no longer an issue with WCAG 2.0. However, this is a draft recommendation and doesn't help me meet my current client's needs in the slightest.
So I stand by my original statement - Domino Can't Do Accessibility. It relies too heavily on JavaScript for basic form-based functionality. The only way to get round this with Domino is to use a hack or save a document and use it as a fake session with the server.
For those interested, here's some further reading:
- Lotus Notes accessibility references
- Web Accessibility Workshop Online Resources: Commercial products & information: Lotus
- Lee McSkiver raises the issue at Accessify's forum
- Lotus Domino 5.02a ATAG Evaluation
By the way: Shannon's presentation refers to a Notes.ini variable called "SaveFieldTitleGuesses". Anybody know what this is? I can find no other reference to it using Google.
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Just to say I have really appreciated the stuff on accessibility. Keep up the good work! :)
It can't - "out of the box" (assessibility) - but it can with a bit of messing around (software development wise).
I dont believe there is "little interest" out there on the subject - I'm guessing that currently the majority of domino work occurs internally where there is a set platform/client requirements and the budget holders will only pay to deliver to that.
Obviously in the future I would guess laws will get even stricter so all content systems must provide information to "all" in an equal fashion - just as we must not discriminate in other ways.
I've done a lot of accessibility/standards work recently using {Link} software as the content management tool - so it can be done - without changing server configuration (you cannot rely on another client having the same setup).
Its a huge area of interest/demand in the general web world and will only increase in the future (mainly because of what I mentioned above) so it is sensible that people do understand what it means and what they can do to achieve it. Your recent postings will obviously help this.
Hi Jake,
I agree with Steve, that Domino can't do "out of the box" accessibility and that a bit of messing around will get you there.
At present, this is a situation that we all have to live with!
How about creating an acticle entitled, "How to make Domino Accessible". No need for code. Just an outline of known issues and work-arounds!
Regards
Patrick
I'll de-lurk to add my name to the list of people who *are* interested. Your posts are much appreciated!
Agreed. Accessibility is hugely important, and will only become more-so. I've been told recently that our company intranet will soon have to comply with accessibility standards (for staff with disabilities rather than for PDA's etc) - so I am very interested!
It's always the quiet ones ain't it ;o)
Well, when I said this would be my last post I half knew it wouldn't be. It is a big issue and I don't doubt I'll have more to say on it in the future.
Thanks for the support guys.
Like the Powerpoint presentation you found Jake - am I missing something or is this a complete work of fiction IBM made up to upset us Notes Developers? Is Shannon even a real person?! Having recently been present at a Domino 7 pitch they mentioned which direction they are going in Next (not one mention of accessibility and general web server/designer improvements - even when prompted). It seems IBM are far more concerned with integrating Sametime into absolutely everything! Still trying to keep the faith but it's wearing thin.
Jim. I don't think it's a case of Domino can't do it. Domino does do sessions. Just not when you turn off JS.
@Sma:
Wearing thin here too.
WARNING: RANT AHEAD
Well, then, maybe it's time to get off your arses and start doing some work yourselves. Real accessibility has nothing whatever to do with expecting a single page (or application aspect) to be all things to all people. There is no magic markup that makes accessibility happen. There is no change that can be built into Domino that will absolve you of your responsibility. If you think an application path that is optimal for a person with visual impairment is even vaguely related to the optimal application for a person with good vision and a motor impairment, you're sadly mistaken -- unless the application is so trivially simple it is hardly worth the effort to write.
Don't base your decisions on anybody's guidelines -- get down in the trenches with actual, honest-to-goodness disabled people, and find out what the hell THEY want and need to make the application (or any other technology meant to be accessible) work for them. A "AAA" rating by WCAD 1.0 means nothing if it means that everybody has the same bad experience, that everybody has an equally crippled UI, that everybody has to wade through a compromised data presentation. If every one of your users is given the best possible means to access, create and manipulate data according to their abilities, then you have done your job. That doesn't mean dumbing the application down, that means building in more intelligence than you've ever thought might have been necessary, and thinking about data presentation in a way you have never considered before. And making sure that every single user gets access to that data in the way most suited to their condition.
If you have to meet WCAD 1.0, then you have to meet it -- but nowhere in 1.0 does it say that everybody has to see the same content in the same way. It is utterly inappropriate to provide the same data to all users in the same way. Building an application to a 20-page guideline without actually considering how real people will use it, then patting yourself on the back for hitting level 3 compliance, is at best delusional behaviour.
Now, I have no problem with people who are honestly doing their best to meet accessibility goals -- but I do have a bit of a problem with people who expect IBM/Lotus to magically make it happen. It can't. They can make it easier for you to do the work yourself, but ultimately you are responsible for doing the work.
Jake, I applaud what you are trying to do, and I'm sorry that you're stuck doing it under 1.0. That recommendation was severely out of date before it was made a Rec. It tries to achieve equality by handicapping everybody to a lowest common denominator, which actually works at cross purposes because it prevents optimising presentation and functionality for the very people it aims to enable. It does make it easy, thoiugh, for people to read a single short document and call themselves "accessibility consultants", which is good for the economy. I guess.
The domino HTTP server was not changed for about 10 years now, and i don't think it will. Session control is just one of the missing features, what about in-line code? (like asp/php), what about new web controls ?
The fact is that IBM already decide to abandon domino as a front-end web server and it's now just a RAD environment for workfkow and content management,
It is us the developers that just can't get it.
I have to agree with Stan, though perhaps not so vehemently. For many of us, it isn't so simply to round up a group of disabled people to test our stuff, but there are increasingly ways to get closer. Try taking a screen reader and reading your site. Try some of the color blind tests available on-line (I tried this and couldn't see any difference. Then I remembered that I am color blind. Duh! I guess it doesn't show much in that case)
There are definitely things IBM could do to facilitate accessibility, and I am frankly surprised they don't do more. I work with some clients who need accessibility, and many more who are told they have to have it, and we do a lot to facilitate the process, but that is all we can do. Actually making things accessible is less about guidelines, though they are very helpful, and more about understanding why the guidelines are there and trying to follow the spirit more than the letter of the rules.
But the most important thing to say is, please, Jake, keep writing about this stuff. Many of us are interested, but many have a different focus than you. Most of my efforts have been in creating accessible HTML pages and making CoexEdit work with accessible editors and that sort of thing. The JavaScript requirement has never been a focus, and I don't even see how to avoid it, but many other real accessibility issues such as proper use of CSS and tables with headers and alt tags and such are attainable, but may require a collabortative learning experience where we all share what we can learn and put together Best Practices for those with even less time to learn.
Jake
Do I gather that you client *** requires *** that you develop a Domino app without using Javascript ? Or perhaps I'm reading too much into what you say ??
If not, then with my now almost worn out Business Consulting Hat on, it would seem appropriate to advise you thus :
a/ Either negotiate a different development technology / environment explaining why it is somewhat infeasible to use Domino without JS or
b/ negotiate a time and materials based contract without any penalties for failure to solve the technical challenges resulting from the rejection of the above
I am now retired but have been self employed / run my own company (mostly in technology) since 1971 and just about the hardest lesson to learn for any small business, especially a one man band, is when to say no to business. So there is another option.
c/ decline the opportunity !
Like many other commentators here I *** am *** interested in accessibility and discussions such as this. I do go to quite considerable lengths to ensure that my target audience does not have problems using my sites and accept without reservation that the spirit of the guidelines (to misquote Ben) is a *** good thing ***
At the end of the day though, as other have said, you simply cannot give equivalent accessibility to everyone regardless of disability (with or without JS) and anyone suggesting that you do needs to get out more.
A photo album for the blind ??
A music collection for the deaf ??
I don't think so. And no obedience to Accessibility Guidelines is going to make the slightest difference to that.
Cheers
PS That's really really my final final FINAL word ---
When the success of a good product,like Domino, leads your organization down a path that then comes to a dead end, users/developers/owners have a right to question why.
Of course people can do it themselves, but they can either change skill sets and do it the way IBM wants them to, or they can change skill sets and go down another path with another vendor. IBM had made their bet here and only time will tell if it works.
There's nothing in (or NOT in) DOmino that prevents designing for accessibility, Jeff. It's all attitude -- you're either willing to work at it, or you're not. You can do the work in Domino, or you can do twice as much in WSAD. It's up to you. Stop whining.
Nobody is whining Stan. Stop making excuses for IBM. I am going around IBM/Lotus but unfortunately it involves another vendor on another platform. Is that what IBM wants?
For once, I am agreeing with Stan, if only with regards to his work ethic. Surely, none of us has forgotten that our job is to "just make it work"?
Vendor loyalty is nice, but misplaced in the world of IT. To use a worn out metaphore, if all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Jeff is probably doing what we all need to do. In his case, he has presumably discovered that cost/benefit of working with an IBM product isn't there for a particular project and is choosing what looks like it will work for the requirements he has.
Jake, your efforts are seldom without benefit to all of us. Accessibility is something that was completely off my radar, so any discussion in that regard is a big help.
I think what so many of your readers are gently (or ungently) saying is, consider the alternatives when you run into grief with Domino. I understand and appreciate the "going with what I know" approach, but surely a mind as keen as yours is capable of picking up another technology.
Absolutely Jerry. It is an unfortunate byproduct of a strategy shift on IBM's part that users and developers on Domino can not continue to expect the shortcomings of Domino to be addressed. One can still hope, but we all have to make decisions based upon product capabilities here and now.
The advice to "suck it up" works both ways, some may follow the new path, yet some may look elsewhere. Not a complaint, but a sad fact of the IT business. For Domino developers (especially browser app developers), it is time for a big choice.
I like to draw the following conclusion from the very good discussion (especially parts above):
I - as s.o. who lives from software - could very easily fall into the trap to follow a spec and then say that my project honours a business goal mentioned in the spec (like accesability for disabled). But in the end its only the disabled who can say if app is usefull for them or not.
This doesn't say that specs are useless.
It only says that we not only have to distrust Lotus, microsoft, rubyOnRails.com and interface21.com but also w3c, OASIS, JCP and this spec stuff :-)
Jake, in case you don't see it, I've added a suggestion to the blog entry a few days ago that led you down this path. I hope it gets you a step closer to server-side validation that requires no javascript.
If one was using another development environment/application platform (e.g. Java servlets) one could completely remove any need for javascript, but at the cost that the server-side coding is more difficult than doing it 'the domino way'. If we're content to work in Java servlets, then we can also use them in Domino. Hopefully, someone can show us how the ?SaveDocument command could be integrated into this to post a form back to a server without using javascript.
But I think accessibility is a far bigger issue than reliance upon javascript. I do find it rather strange that websites might be required to be available in all different manner of representations to be accessible to people with various disabilities (myself, I'm only partially sighted, and have quite severe RSI - I hate it when I am compelled to use a mouse for almost every kind of interaction). Don't you think it is kind of weird that these kinds of accessibility expectations are made of web sites and web apps when publishers aren't required to produce a spoken version of each book, radio stations aren't required to produce transcripts of each show, and even other kinds of application aren't required to be available in different formats to make them more accessible?