Joy sent me an email asking why I don’t often comment on universal accessibility in compliance with US Section 508 law and the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) when I cover web conferencing products.
There are a few reasons. The first is that I don’t consider myself adequately knowledgeable about that aspect of the law and would probably make mistakes about what programming constructs satisfy it from a legal perspective and from a practicality perspective.
Secondly, it is very hard for me to determine what is reasonable in terms of access accommodations for a person with limitations in sight, hearing, or dexterity. Some things that I might find annoying and inconvenient from my privileged position as someone without constraints on those accessibility issues might be perfectly acceptable as tradeoffs for someone in that position who is willing to put up with the additional effort required just to be able to fully participate in a web seminar.
Thirdly, it can be frustratingly difficult to pin down vendors on whether their webinar products are fully government-approved for compliance, whether they can be thought of as compliant if the customer is willing to do some extra work or purchase additional options, or whether they have some nods to compliance in certain areas for certain disabilities but not others.
The only web conferencing product I ever saw that was built from the ground up to be a practical solution for people with varying types of access limitations was IDEAL Conference. I blogged about it way back in September 2009.
So let’s open this post to comment from web conference/webcast/webinar software vendors. If your product is Section 508 compliant and is approved for governmental use, please add a comment so people can include you in their supplier searches. I’m going to be much more lenient in my editorial policy on this one. You are allowed to be self-promotional and include contact or website links for people to find more information about your product. Just please include something specific and relevant to this compliance issue… Not just a generic advertisement saying your product is great.
