[NLedu] Researching accessibility of Silverlight-based websites

[Matthias Kirschner]

Hi Jan,

(taking off coordinators@)

* Jan Stedehouder <jan at stedehouder.org> [2011-11-24 07:27:47 +0100]:

> I hope you don't mind sending out various messages now about
> 'things-to-do' for the 'Unlocking education'-campaign. It will make it
> easier for me to track what stills needs to be done and who is working
> on what ;-)

Absolutely not.

> We would like to ask a few people to test Silverlight-based websites
> with various accessibility tools that are available for users with
> visual impairments: screen readers, braille readers, read aloud tools,
> et cetera. Yes, I am aware that this might necessitate working with
> Windows, Internet Explorer en Silverlight as well ;-).

I have some doubts about this: if we start with the usability argument,
it is very easy to counter it by showing us websites which are not
working for this group which else are Free Software friendly. They can
also say "yeah we have to improve this, but you just have to give us XY
EUR, and the sivlerlight solution will take care of that".

Yes, it is a way to attack the current system. But in our experience it
was not good to get people to use Free Software or to buy Free Software
with arguments like cost, usability, etc. So I would like to focus on
the arguments which are specific to Free Software / Open Standard.

What do you think?
Matthias

-- 
Matthias Kirschner - FSFE - Fellowship Coordinator, German Coordinator
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