Page **1** of **61** Public Hearing held by the UNITED STATES ACCESS BOARD

On the 2011 ICT ADVANCE NOTICE OF PROPOSED RULEMAKING (ANPRM). March 1, 2012 CSUN Conference San Diego, CA

M ICHAEL PACIELLO : Ready to get started? My name is Mike Paciello, Chair of the 2012 CSUN Conference. We're very proud to be hosting the final hearing on the ANPRM, the draft ICT we'll hear at the CSUN Conference on Technology for Persons with D isabilities. As many of you know, the U

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. Access Board conducted a public hearing back on January 11th on a revised draft of the updated requirements for Information and Communication s Technology covered by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act . Now what we would like to do is introduce our host and Chairman today, presidential appointee and Access Board Member, Mr. Neil Melick

. NEIL MELICK : Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is N eil M elick . I am a presidential appointee, public member of the US Access Board and the Chair of the Information and Communication Technology ad hoc committee

-- whew! APage **2** of **61**

mouthful, isn't it? So we're here today and I want to welcome everybody to our second hearing on the Board's 2011 advanced notice of proposed rule making for the information and communications technology standards and guidelines. We're delighted to be here at the 21st

-- is it 21st? 27th CSUN Conference as we know that the technology and persons with disabilities is important to this conference. So we're excited to be here to present this ICT ANPRM. Also, I want to welcome my fellow board members and we have a staff member up here and I'll ask him at this time to introduce themselves. KAREN BRAITMAYER : My name is Karen Braitmayer. I'm also a publi c member of the Access Board from Seattle , Washington. JOHN BOX : Yes, my name is John Box. I'm from Corona, California, and I'm also a public member. TIM CREAGAN : My name is Tim Creagan . I'm a U

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. Access Board staff member. NEIL MELICK : Also, Ga ry Talbot is supposed to be here, and he's not here yet so we'll introduce him when he comes in. I just want to set sort of the ground rules of our hearing process today. Those that have preregistered will be speaking, and if you haven't preregistered, you still have an opportunity to register today. We have two staff members at the back corner by the door with a table that you can register to be able to speak today.Page **3** of **61**

So we ask if you have not registered to please do so. Each of those that are registered to speak today will be given five minutes. As you get close to the end of the five minutes and it doesn't look like you're about to wrap up, I will remind you to summarize your thoughts so we'll give everybody an opportunity it they want to speak today. After everybody that's registered speaks and if we have any time left to go over, we will invite those that want to add additional information come on up to do so. We want to let everybody know that this is scheduled for two hours. However, if you still have opportunity to make comments even if you don't speak today or you're not submitting comments today, you still have till March 7th to submit under Regulations.gov so please do so if you want to do that. We will have a transcript of everything wil l be kept today and be entered into the Docket. Also, if you have any written comments or PowerPoints or anything that you want to present, please give that to the staff at the table, and they will also be entered into the record. We'd also ask everybody at this time please to refrain from reacting publicly to comments from those that will be testifying today and presenting, as well as any comments or questions from the Board. My colleagues and I are here to listen and learn from you today to taking inform ation that we need to move forward with our notice of public rulemaking which is the next step. We're not here to debate the issues today. Again, this is just an opportunity for us to listen and learn andPage **4** of **61**

gather information as part of the public hearing process to be able to further our work. Before we get started, I want to remind everybody to please put your phones on silent or vi brate so we will not distract from those that will be speaking today. I thank you for your cooperation. At this time

-- TIM CREAGAN : We've just had one more request. If you go all could refrain from using Flash because there are some members of the audience for whom Flash is a triggering event. So we'd ask you to refrain from using Flash and from using cell phones. Thank you. NEIL MELICK : Thanks, Tim. So at this time we'll go ahead and we'll start with our first witness and I'll let Tim introduce the people. TIM CREAGAN : Thank you. Good afternoon. We have a full slate of speakers today. So what I will do is I will just ca ll the names in the order in which people signed up, and if whoever I call is not there, then I will move on to the next person and I will continue to call the names throughout the afternoon. I would like to call Mr. Rich Schwerdtfeger. RICH S CHWERDTFEGER : Members of the Board, it's a pleasure to be here today. I am the Software Accessibility Chief Technology Officer for IBM. I am responsible for providing technical accessibility direction to all IBM software products. I personally help develop the original graphic user interface screen reader for OS/2 on the IBM personal computer back in the 1990s.Page **5** of **61**

IBM has a long history of supporting people with disabilities, and we support government procurement regulations like Section 508 to drive the market towards more accessible products. IBM itself, similar to federal agencies, employs many persons with disabilities and has a legacy of innovation in meeting their needs. Since Section 508 became effective in 2001, IBM has d esigned its products to the standard and has consulted with government agencies at all levels to help build conforming IT systems. Key to the steps of Section 508 is having requirements that can be objectively tested and IBM has broad experience with testing standards for conformance. We have been a leader in setting W3C Web Accessibility standards starting with the first version published in 1999. In particular, we personally have led the W3C project to make rich internet web applications accessible, also known as W3C's WAI

-ARIA. IBM has held leadership roles in both the Access Board Section 508 Advisory Committees. IBM will be submitting written comments on the questions posed by the Access Board, a few broad issues and some i ndividual technical standards. Time does not permit me to cover the details or comments here today, but I would like to discuss functional performance criteria as one of our areas with greatest
concern. The 2010 ANPRM stated that the technical standards are sufficient for conformance and the functional performance criteria or FPC. They should only be consulted in order to evaluatePage **6** of **61**

equivalent facilitation in cases where any of the technical standards are not met or the technical standards don't adequately cover the function of the product. We were quite surprised by the new requirement stated in the 2011 ANPRM that all products shall conform to the FPC. This change elevates the FPC to a normative requirement and has a serious impact to suppliers of ICT products and to federal agencies. Even though this 2011 ANPRM does not always state it explicitly, our understanding is that the FPC may be met through interoperability with assistive technology or AT. In context where
users have multipurpose devices such as personal computer, smartphone or tablet, AT inte roperability is the desired and expected approach. In this environment multiple components contribute to the complete end

-to

- end solution that results in a user with a disability being able to access electronic information within their work, collaborate wi th peers or communicate with their government. But these components are the device hardware, operating system, additional platform software such as web browser, application software and AT. Even the skill level the user has in operating their AT contribu tes their ability to access the ICT. A supplier cannot guarantee that the FPC have been met unless the supplier controls all components of the end

-to

- end solution. In most cases, the supplier is dependent on the capabilities of the hardware and software p latform, web browserPage **7** of **61**

and AT support which often lags behind in implementing standards or support for newer technologies. It used to be that people with disabilities had a choice of only one operating system and a personal computer and maybe one or two very expensive AT products for their particular type of disability. In that former world, the supplier and agency could be relatively certain of the tools and end

- user that would be using. But this is the not the case anymore. The good news is that the users with disabilities in most federal agencies now have more devices, more operating systems, and more ATs from which to choose, and the cost of AT is coming down, some smartphones that actually include AT providing people with disabilities the ability to use the product for the same price as everyone else. But this new world complicates things for a supplier who wants to declare to a federal agency under contract that their product meets a broad requirement such as the FPC requiring operation without vision. Take the case of a web application which can be accessed from any platform that has a web browser. The supplier is left to wonder if it is sufficient that the web application be used on one desktop platform with one web browser and one screener for that platform. This certainly demonstrates that the related technical standards have been met and that the product is capable of being used without vision. But more and more users access websites and applications from theirPage **8** of **61**

mobile devices where accessibi lity support is less evolved but improving all the time. Unlike the desktop environment where keyboard operation is the common denominator for accessible navigation, on mobile platforms web browsers don't support keyboard navigation, and platforms support different methods of navigation, such as gestures, speech recognition, or even assistive technology. Despite these accessibility gaps, we see government agencies follow the trend of increased use of mobile devices so we suppliers and even agencies really don't know what device, operating system, web browser or AT users will actually use to access our example web application. While the web application may be operable without vision just fine on some configurations, that same web application might not be operable without vision on other configurations. NEIL MELICK : You need to be closing. We're running out of time. RICH S CHWERDTFEGER : Certainly, we don't believe that the Access Board expects suppliers and agencies to test all known configurations as that would lead to a virtually infinite test bucket and increased cost. In ICT products, Section 508 conformance simply cannot be dependent on third

- party products which the supplier does not control. The best approach to facilitate interoperability with AT is a standard

- based approach where the FPC or accessibility principles supported when the technical standards are met rather than normative standards whichPage **9** of **61**

suppliers must declare to conformance. The Access Board should provide a mapping from each FPC to the technical standards that support it. This exercise would also uncover any remaining gaps in the standard. IBM has done this exercise, by the way, and found a few gaps which we will submit in our comments. Although we support the accessibility principl es of the FPC, IBM urges the Access Board to revert back to the language in the 2010 ANPRM around the capability of the FPC. Our product that conforms with all the technical standards should be considered to be in conformance with Section 508. The FPC sho uld only be needed in cases where product fails to meet any of the technical standards or introduces new user interface models that are not covered by the technical standards. NEIL MELICK : Please summarize. Your time is up. RICH SCHWERDTFEGER : Okay. Do you want me to finish or...?NEIL MELICK : I just want you to summarize. RICH SCHWERDTFEGER : Okay. I'm almost done, okay. In these cases, the FPC that the failing technical standards support should be consulted as fallback to evaluate for equivalent facilitation. We at IBM look forward to the ANPRM and urge the Access Board to make it a priority to publish it as soon as possible. The current standard has become quite out of date, and work on European accessibility standards under Mandate 376 is movi ng forward. Our mutual desire to harmonize accessibilityPage **10** of **61**

requirements in the US, Europe and around the world is at risk with further delays in completing the refresh of the Section 508 standards. Thank you very much.

NEIL MELICK : Thank you. TIM CREAGAN : Alex Li, Microsoft. NEIL MELICK : If we could, we have a request that you speak clearly into the microphone so we can hear. Probably, we're having one that's having trouble with hearing. ALEX LI : I'll do what I can. My name is Alex Li

. I re present Microsoft in this particular public hearing. Can you...? No? Louder? Okay, I'll speak from my

-- I'll project my voice. Is that better? TIM CREAGAN : Yes. ALEX LI : Okay. All right, I'll do what I can to speak clearly and deliberate ly with my speech. Section 508 is a very unique standard. I know the Access Board worked on multiple regulations and standards within the federal environment. But I want to note three different things that I want the Board to keep in mind of in creating good standards that would be applicable to this environment. First, Section 508 is mostly an instrument to encourage government procurement of most accessible product. So what you want to do is create an environment where it's predictable, that's high efficiency, an d also an opportunity for vendors to compete based on accessibility. So to that degree,Page **11** of **61**

certain degree of objectivity is very much needed. That's one of the principles that we really look forward to , to see in the rulemaking process is to have objective, testable criteria. I'll comment on that further. The second thing that we look at in terms of principle, in terms of writing the standard is that the rate of change for information technology is fa ster than pretty much any other industry field out there. There' re more gadgets and more new services tha n previously conceived that are being provided every day. They're been dream ed up , up here in California , mostly, and maybe in some parts in the Seattl e area from Microsoft. But we're introducing them at a very rapid pace. So things change. So the rules that you put forward cannot be rigid. If it is rigid, it will be outdated, it will be obsolete and we have nothing to work with both for the agencies and for the vendors who are creating these technologies. And the third principle that we look for is that we need to put the context because the range of ICT products is very wide. It includes little devices that you have in your pocket to very, very l arge device that are implemented, very large rooms, things that only professional s use. ICT is an extremely wide scope. As you buy more products today you can go i nto any store, you see more and more information technology embedded in there. So what you previously conceived a s information technologies will not necessarily be in the same form or shape as the world movesPage **12** of **61**

on. So the range of products and services is very wide that is covered by this rule. So that's something you need to keep in mind

-- those three principles. Now, based on those three principles, we are going to call on some of the concerns that we see from the 2011 ANPRM. So first is about subjectivity. We see a lot of subjectivity in this ANPRM, and that is a concern for us. Why is that? Because if any government agencies, they are procuring thousands of procurement everyday if not more, if everybody would have to deal with

-- imagine a government procurement officer would have to deal with subjectivities and have to make judgment calls, things would not be executed in any reliable way. What we want to do is encourage more procurement, more deployment of accessible product. So if you have to rely on judgment calls and oftentimes with no conclusive result, what would happen? A procurement officer burdened with thousands of procurement they have to handle, what would they likely do? Throw up their hands or spend endless hours trying to debate and figure out whether they meet 508 or not, and end up with no conclusive result. Maybe that's not that way we want to proceed. What we want to have is more productivity and more results. So what we see here in what, for example, my colleague Rich, talked about in functional performance criteria, functional performance criteria are inherently incredibl y subjective. This is basically asking if you have a certain type of disability, you can use the product. If IPage **13** of **61**

have a thousand people, would they have multiple answers? I would say yes. It's very, very difficult to determine if you have met the functional performance criteria with no reference point to the technical provisions. So the technical provisions have to be written objectively, testable manner, and we have to rely on the functional performance criteria as infrequently as possible. You want to use the functional performance criteria when you know the technical provisions are outdated and then you use it. And that's when Rich talked about equal facilitation, that's where we stop. We're talking about where there's a paradigm shift in technologies, we want to use that to gauge, to make sure that we are providing proper facilitation for people with disabilities, but not every time, every day, and every procurement cycle. And that, in this ANPRM, is what the board is proposing; that a procurement office h as to deal with that day in, day out, thousands of times, and that will lead to a failure in implementation of Section 508. Next, I want to talk about keeping things in context. NEIL MELICK : You have about 45 seconds. ALEX LI : Forty

-five seconds. Well, in that case, I wouldn't talk about any of that stuff. (Laughter). And you just have to wait for me to comment on the 7th and we'll submit that before midnight on the 7th, but I want to note the number of things that we filled ANPRM in 2011 have gone backward as compared to what we proposed on that TEITAC report that has achievedPage **14** of **61**

industry consensus. We think we proposed a very workable solution and we worry that what we have here in 2011 might have put us backwards in terms of advancing accessibil ity and predictability and putting things in context and make sure that what we'd put out in the rulemaking processes is something that will live a long time. Thank you very much. NEIL MELICK : Thank you. TIM CREAGAN : Helena Mitchell, Rehabilitation En gineering Research Center for Wireless Technologies. HELENA MITCHELL : Good afternoon. I am the principal investigator for the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center for Wireless Technologies, which is funded by the National Institute on Disability an d Rehabilitation Research of the US Department of Education. Our mission is to research, evaluate, and develop innovative wireless technologies and products that meet the needs, enhance independence, and improve the quality of life of People with Disabilities. Last week, we submitted our testimony on seven sections of the ANPRM. In the time allotted, I will comment on four. E102, Reference Standards: The wireless RERC commends the board for proposed guidelines and the incorporation by reference of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 and open standards. We believe that this will encourage the industry to comply by harmonizing regulations across federal agencies. However, we do urge the board to include the World Wide WebPage **15** of **61**

consortium's mobile web

- based Best Practices Guide. With the federal government developing a federal mobility strategy, it is critical that the needs of people with disabilities be addressed before the mobile strategy is implemented. E205.1, Electronic Content, Official Agency Communications: The wireless RERC understands and includes in these documents that it's burdensome. However, we recommend that federal agencies going forward have to be highly sensitive to the needs for modifications in policies, practices, and procedures to ensure that all electronic content contributes to an inclusive environment for all federal employees. C101.2, Equivalence Facilitation: Every effort should be made by manufacturers of Information Communications Technology to build accessibility features into mainstream devices. The incorporation of universal design elements can make this process more seamless. One of the findings of the 2011 report produced by the Center for Advanced Communications Policy, which is the home of the Wireless RERC, that was produced for the National Council on Disabilities centered on inclusive universal design and found that many technology companies are still not adopting universal design principles. AT&T in consultation with the Wireless RERC and other groups have developed a universal design methodology for developers, which can be found on our website. In addition, the Wireless RERC strongly encourages the board to include by reference the sevenPage **16** of **61**

principles of universal design as a guidance tool for developers
an d manufacturers. C207.2, Inclusion of People with Disabilities: The inclusion of People with Disabilities in the research and development of products and services would h elp to ensure accessibility is built into the result and product and/or service at the front end, precluding the need for expensive retrofitting of devices by manufacturers and aftermarket add

- ons by the consumer. Built

- in accessibility could be a cost savings to both government agencies and the private sector as would result in a decrea se in reasonable accommodations request for specialized equipment. The Wireless RERC we test all of our prototype devices with end

- users with disability, and we utilize these findings to refine our prototypes and products. This has resulted in technology that is usable by a wide variety of people with variant abilities. We recommend that language within the section be strengthened by replacing the words "shall consider including" with the words "shall include" individuals with disabilities in all phases of product development, testing, and marketing. In closing, the guidelines can have a significant role in ensuring accessible ICT equipment and services. The final sections represent important language to support ICT standards and guidelines. Platforms and software applications are constantly evolving and entering or leaving the marketplace at a rate far surpasses ICT research and development. The Wireless RERCPage **17** of **61**

proposes it would be valuable for forthcoming standards and regulations to include a caveat for o pen architecture language to support the creation of technology yet to be developed that would be accessible and usable by all individuals with disabilities. Thank you. NEIL MELICK : Thank you. We'll just take a quick break. Gary will introduce himself as he came in here just now. GARY TALBOT : Sorry, I was late. Gary Talbot with the Access Board from now Wilmington, Delaware. TIM CREAGAN : I would like to call up the next witness. Ed Summers, SAS Institute. Ed Summers. All right, we'll move on. Ken Salaets, ITIC. Ken Salaets, ITIC. KEN SALAETS : Good afternoon. My name is Ken Salaets, Global Policy for the Information Technology Industry Council or ITI, no C. We're based in Washington, D.C. We have had the privilege of working very closely with the Access Board staff from the very beginning of this process with Section 508. We
a ppreciate the openness and the opportunity that we have to deal directly. It's been a real pleasure. I represent companies many of whom already represented in this room and have already spoken that essentially develop and market the products and actually make accessibility possible. Section 508 would be essentially a piece of paper if it weren't for the companies that step forward and create the technology and innovate to make the tools for people with accessibility. So it's always important to keep in mindPage **18** of **61**

that there's a transaction that occurs in that process and we applaud considerable and significant investment of the Access Board in addressing these issues. A couple of things I want to address here. We will submit comments next Tuesday, and we appreciate that opportunity as well. One is timing. This has been a long iterative process and delivery process. We appreciate it takes a lot of time, but it affects

-- the amount of time this is taking is holding a lot of technology in abeyance in the sense the industry is really ready to move forward on this to take the new revised 508 and implement it and put it in the marketplace. So to the extent that there are additional resources that the Board could commit to this, we would strongly encourage it. We realize again that it's a significant task and this is not serving up the only area that the Board addresses and the staff address in their responsibilities. But nevertheless, accessible ICT is such a critical tool for people with disabilities and enables a lot of the other opportunities that are out there. So we would e ncourage, if there's a possibility of speeding up the process, to find a way to do so. To that extent,
we are talking about the possibility

-- very preliminary the possibility of putting together a roadmap of what manufacturers have to go through in terms of looking at the changes in 508 and marry that up to our design cycles which are continuous and never really hesitate as has been mentioned.Page **19** of **61**

Technology essentially moves at the speed of light, and there are a number of products that are al ready on the drawing board in the development process and being built right now that will be on the marketplace tomorrow, th e next day, and the date thereafter. So to the extent that we can put something together that would be useful not only for the board to look at but also for the FAR council that will have to implement this by regulation. That's something that we're willin g to take a look at. We're possibly partnering with some government agencies to put their process together as well. In terms of issues, a couple already have been covered. We will address an array in our document that we s ubmitted, but one is the functional performance criteria as it's been mentioned. We view them as somewhat subjective and therefore not easily testable and particularly not in a consistent basis. When you're selling a product to the government across the array of agencies, it's critical that you be able to have a consistent experience in terms of marketing that product and the government have the consistent experience in terms of buying it. To the extent that from the functional performance criteria are made normative, that creates a sig nificant challenge for us and, as has been mentioned, we believe that the language in the 2010 ANPRM

-- I'd like to say ANPRM 1

--was probably more constructive in that regard and we will offer some recommendations addressing that issue.Page **20** of **61**

Th e second is the WCAG conformance. We strongly support and highly endorse the adoption of WCAG 2.0 or by reference within 508. We think that's an excellent move that will harmonize
across a number of borders, a number of regions and governments. I mean the Internet has no borders. So to the
extent that we can have a single approach, we think that's extremely helpful, and we applaud the board and the staff for moving in that direction. On the other hand, within the current WCAG, there's reference to applying 2.0 to applications outside the web realm, so to speak. 2.0 is designed for web pages, web content, and web

- based applications, and that it works extremely well in that regard. Ri ght now, we think it's premature to start to look at other areas like non

-web

- based applications and applying it there as well. But having said that, we understand there some processes under way to address that issue. We're not foreclosing it by any means. We just want to make sure that there's the experts that can really make that process evo lve and pursue that to the extent possible or engage and you'll hear more about that from a speaker later on today. I'm really going fast. So rather than read all of these, we have enough number of better issues that we will outline. We will address in addition to the functional performance criteria, the WCAG 2.0 implementation, some concerns of chapters 4 and 5, AT and equipment facilitation, real

time text and others.Page **21** of **61**

We, as always, welcome an opportunity to respond in questions and clarify comments to the extent that we maybe aren't clear. But again, we think this is a highly constructive process and harmonization, not only within the basic standards that are already widely adopted in marketplace, but also cross geographies with the European Union's M 376 effort that's critical, not only for manufacturers, but particularly for consumers as they continue to travel around the world and need to have those devices work everywhere. So thank you so much for your time and your commitment on being here, and we look forward to further interaction. Thank you. TIM CREAGAN : Thank you. Ed Summers? Is Ed Summers present? No? Johnson

-- Duff Johnson, NetCentric US. DUFF JOHNSON : Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Duff Johnson. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you again. It's an honor to testify before you today at CSUN 2012, the world's premiere conference for Persons with Disabilities and developers of the assistive technologies. I've been working to make the electronic documents accessible since 1999. I've chaired the U

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. Committee for ISO 14289, the forthcoming international standard for accessible PDF since 2004. By way of disclosure, my day job is as President of NetCentric Technologies, makers of the Common Look suite of applications and software for accessible PDF documents. I'd like to use this occasion toPage **22** of **61**

present the Access Board with a concrete proposal detailing how the U

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. Committee for PDF/UA feels that PDF should be addressed in the refreshed Section 508. Previously, I've stated that WCAG 2.0 level AA conformance finds expression in PDF technology when the PDF file and the software used to read it both conform to PDF/UA. As such I recommended that the Access Board adopt the PDF/UA as the applicable technical standard whenever th e ICT standards and guidelines with regard to WCAG 2.0 level AA, is applicable to a given PDF page document form or software application , and to otherwise regard PDF/UA as appropriate technical standard for electronic documents and software using the PDF format. Today, I'd like to tell you why. A PDF is not a web page. I want to remind the Board of the unique functionality of PDFs. Capabilities set PDFs apart from other electronic content, notably web pages, the subject of WCAG 2.0. Entirely unlike HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and the other technologies forming the primary focus for WCAG 2.0, PDF is a self

- contained format. This is a quality that the marketplace understands very well and regards as entirely vital because it enables the following principles: 1 ) any application that can print can make a PDF; 2) PDF is reliable delivering the same results, regardless of platform or context; and 3) like paper, PDF pages are interchangeable with other PDF pages. When compared to any other format, PDF files may contain an enormous variety ofPage **23** of **61**

types of content, many of which contain irreducible complexities from construction blueprints to sheet music, from annotations to archives, from a highly designed single page brochure to a million page clinical record submission to the FDA. PDF provides real world features that often are non

- amenable with the same considerations as web pages or simply go unrecognized in WCAG 2.0. I'd like to illustrate the point with several examples that demonstrate how PDF/UA differs in concept and emphasis from WCAG 2.0, and therefore how a PDF's specific standard is appropriate for PDF content. The point, as I hope will be made clear by this way of these examples, is that applying WCAG 2.0 is
non - straightforward at all except insofar as parties can agree on the terms by which the standard is understood by implementers. Example 1: Headings. A single PDF document may contain hundreds, thousands, or even millions of pages or many individual documents may exist within a single PDF, sometimes even on the same PDF page. To ensure accessibility in PDFs taking advantage of this capability, the PDF/UA standard includes
a detailed discussion of headings that goes beyond WCAG 2.0 to require a specific numerical sequence for heading levels h1, h2, h3, and so on. This requirement ensures reliable navigation even in the largest and most structurally complex documents. Example 2: Annotations. Annotations are very popular and commonplace feature of PDF. This feature allows for a wide variety of objects to be added to an existing page including notes,Page **24** of **61**

lines, boxes, highlighting, and more. WCAG 2.0 offers no consideration specific to the concept of annotating a web page. And thus, little guidance for developers of technologies and that includes such features. PDF/UA, by contrast, details operational requirements for annotations in the PDF context, including annotations used for visual formatting purposes. Example 3: Artifacts. PDF files routinely include decorative graphics such as rule lines and background images. In success criteria in 1.1.1, WCAG 2.0 anticipates this content type and specifies that such objects are implemented in a way that it can be ignored by assistive technology. In PDF, this goal is accomplished by use of the artifacts designation . Unlike web pages, however, PDF page content routinely includes page numbers and page headers and footers. Page numbers are not decorative graphics, and they are not used only for visual formatting, but they are clearly not part of the document's text. WCAG 2.0 provides no guidance on the treatment of page numbers. PDF/UA, however, specifies that artifacts, including page numbers via the pagination artifacts subtype, should not be tagged in the structure tree. While initially counterintuitive, it's easy to understand this choice by considering the appropriateness of interrupting a word or sentence by announcing the page number. Instead, PDF/UA requires that the conforming reader provide the means of navigation, provide navigation using logical structure. To support successful pagination, the standard requiresPage **25** of **61**

that the reader be able to report the current page number as defined in the PDF page's page label value to the AT user on request. Example 4: Media clips. PDF allows for the inclusion of media clips, movies and audio via the annotations model. Unlike WCAG 2.0, PDF/UA does not make requirements of such content beyond this requirement specific to the PDF format itself. It essentially protects the description of the clip. The reason is simple: PDF technology is not movie technology, and accessibility standards for PDF files would be inappropriate in the context of a movie, that a PDF may service a container for a movie is or should be no barrier to the application of the appropriate standard to the movie content in question. For this reason, to focus PDF/UA, when it comes to media clips is simply that a PDF/UA conforming PDF reader shall not interfere with the accessibility features of media players and shall make any playback controls provided available to AT

... NEIL MELICK : You have 30 seconds left. DUFF JOHNSON : I'm sorry? NEIL MELICK : You got about 30 seconds left. DUFF JOHNSON : Okay. I'm skipping ahead. I'll summarize. WCAG addresses web content. The sta ndard was never intended to cover all formats in all contexts. The Web Accessibility I nitiative implicitly recognizes this fact because in addition to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, they are authoring toolPage **26** of **61**

accessibility guidelines in User Agent Accessibility Guidelines. WCAG 2.0 is not a one

- size

-fi ts

- all standard for all electronic content and the tools for creating and consuming such content. In my written remarks, I'll offer specific textual suggestions for the ANPRM and answers to the Section 6 questions in your previous rulemaking. Thank you. NEIL MELICK : Thank you. TIM CREAGAN : Summers? All right. Synge Tyson, Department of Veterans Affairs. Synge Tyson, Veterans Affairs. SYNGE TYSON : Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to share my comments with the board. My name is Synge Tyson, and I am legally blind and I also work for a federal government agency. The need for access is extremely important. We live in a world that relies on vision and hearing for our everyday communication. Th ose who have disability may take them for granted merely because they do have the ability similarly to being right

- handed or similarly to those who are right

- handed and the many environmental designs that are based on this premise. For those of us who expe rience a disability, we understand how important it is to have access to information and sometimes access is interpreted in many different ways. The ability to have rules, procedures and regulations in place to limit that interpretation is extremely important. As a person with a visual impairment, I know and understand the limitations of not being able to visually seePage **27** of **61**

information as those who have good vision. As a person who works for a federal agency, part of the difficulty is that people in general cannot conceive of our abilities in the workforce. For example, I am a clinician and for the agency that I work with, in general, the mindset is that I would not be in my position. I am one of a few hundred who work in my profession. So because the mindset is not there that I have that ability, therefore, the access is not there. If we had general access in everything with accessible, it wouldn't be an issue. I wouldn't need additional screen readers. I wouldn't need additional products to have additional software. Everything from right out of the box would have accessibility features. I'll have access to the information. In my position as a clinician, I don't have the access to go to any computer, within the agency, within sister agencies to do my job. I am tied to one particular computer which has accessibility. So the standards, the Regulations are important to address the issues of uniformity across the board having standards in place across the board, and the standards are not enough. We have Section 508. Government agencies are supposed to follow those standards. However, it's still left up to interpretation. If you have someone in place who somewhat understand disabilities or someone who wants to follow the regulations, great. If that does not exist, it becomes a huge problem for those of us who are in the workforce with disabilities and for those who may not be in the workforce but want to enter the workforce for our futurePage **28** of **61**

generations of people who have disabilities to enter. We should set a stan dard that says accessibility is not an option, that it's needed for us to participate at the same level as our colleagues. Also, with standards and procedures in place, we also need enforcement. So without enforcement from agencies like the Equal Employmen t Opportunity Agency, the rules and regulations mean very little. We have to have something in place that says, "If you don't do it, this is going to be the

-- if you don't follow the procedures, there's going to be some kind of..." There's going to be som ething in place

-- a fine, a rule

-- something that's going to set a guideline, set a standard that says, "If you don't follow, there will be

-- I can't think of the word I need

... NEIL MELICK : Consequences. SYNGE TYSON : Consequences, thank you. Thank you. There's going to be consequences, and based on those consequences, you have to follow. Just simply you have to follow. You have to follow the guidelines that are in place. And again, I know that we cannot change how people think, but we can put proced ures in place so that they won't have to think about it. It will just be the norm. It will be the standard. Thank you. NEIL MELICK : Thank you. TIM CREAGAN : Eugene Borodin

. EUGENE BORODIN : My name is Eugene Borodin . I'm a research assistant professor at the Department of Computer Science at Stony Brook University, and I'm also the President ofPage **29** of **61**

CharmTech Labs, a company that I formed to develop innovative web browser technology. The mission of my company is to significantly improve the effectiveness and equity of access to the web's vast and growing resources for people with disabilities, mobile users and anyone who wants to have a better web browsing experience. My personal goal, however, is to eliminate the needs for assistive technology. I specialize in web accessibility for screen reader users, and during the last five years, I have worked with and observed the behavior, the browsing behavior of over 100 screen reader users. I want to make a few points about web accessibility that I think Access Board should consider. There is no doubt that web has come to play a very important role in our society, and the web is even more important to people with vision impairments who have regained some of their freedoms that are enjoyed by sighted people. People with severe vision loss access computers in the web with screen readers, but screen readers work only as good as the accessibility metadata that is embedded in web pages. This is why standards such as WCAG, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are very important. But there are several problems with the standards. First of all, they're getting progressively more complex with new technologies and they're getting more difficult on the standard implement by an average web developer. A web developer is n ot motivated to improve accessibility of their websites because theyPage **30** of **61**

think that the target audience is too small. But they may not be aware of the standards or they don't have the time to learn about them. But if you'd attempt to force the standards on these people, they will do the minimum to comply with them, sometimes just without understanding the standards. So the standards are not really enforceable in part because there are too many ad hoc developers, and there's too much user generated content. P retty much any of us can create a website. So I think if there's any chance to enforce accessibility standards, I think we should target the providers of the technology that is used by web developers, the actual tools that are used to build websites. An other point that I want to make is the current screen readers are pretty good at making web accessible, accessible websites. They make websites accessible to people who use these tools, but accessibility does not imply usability. Screen reader user spent s ignificantly more time in the order of 10 sometimes 100 times. It takes them 100 times longer to do the simple tasks that sighted people can do in mere seconds and minutes. So this affects their productivity and in turn impedes their employability in jobs that require online access. So I think the new technology needs to be developed to address this problem, and the biggest opportunity that I see is in development of the universal accessible technology that is usable by people with and without vision impai rments.Page **31** of **61**

So with the proliferation of mobile devices there's a growing need to access information, web information via voice. For this new technology to work efficiently, it actually requires that websites follow accessibility standards, and with the growing population of people who use this technology, the ones who use this technology, there's a chance to motivate website developers to follow the standards because there will be bigger target audience. With such technology, there actually will be no need for assistive technology because people with and without vision impairments will access it the same way. So to summarize, the guidelines are very important but they don't really solve the problem on their own and the universal accessibility is what shoul d be the solution. If anyone wants to talk to me about this, I'm at booth 919. Thank you. NEIL MELICK : Thank you. TIM CREAGAN : Ed Summers? Gregg Vanderheiden? Okay. Ken Nakata ? KEN NAKATA : Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for the opportunity to share my comments. I'll try to keep my comments brief, and I'll defer any of my remaining time to the Board's discretion. My name is Ken Nakata, and I am the Director of Accessibility Consulting Practices at HiSoftware. For 12 years from 199 2 to 2004, I was a senior trial attorney with the Disability Rights Section at the Department of Justice. In that role I investigated and litigated accessibility cases under the ADA andPage **32** of **61**

the Rehabilitation Act, and I also represented the department in the l ast Access Board Section 508 rulemaking. My comments today are from my personal perspective, however, as an attorney who spent his career advocating for accessibility for people with disabilities. I would like to target my comments to one recent change that I believe has been covered a lot today, but I wanted to address it from a different perspective because I believe it has serious unintended consequences and will dramatically reduce the effectiveness of Section 508. This is a requirement in Section C 202 of the Scoping Requirements that all EIT needs to conform to the functional performance criteria. This is a significant departure that I believe will ultimately harm accessibility. I believe this needs to be changed back to the approach taken into 2010 ANPRM in which media in the technical provisions provide that a safe harbor for conforming to Section 508. The older approach I believe is better for government, better for people with disabilities, and better for innovation and technology. I have four major concerns with Section C202. First, I'm concerned about the effect on the government. Unlike other guidelines like WCAG, a lawsuit literally hangs in the balance for federal agencies if they do not meet Section 508. The Section 508 guidelines thus need to be as clear and as objective as possible. Federal agencies need a black and white answer about whether their products actually meet Section 508, and I believe thatPage **33** of **61**

Section C202, as is currently written, makes this difficult or impossible. Second, I'm concerned about the availability of technology for people with disabilities. Referred over and again at conferences like this one, like CSUN, the developers and manufacturers need to create more accessible products. If accessibility is seen as vague or imprecise as it is in Section C2O2, developers will be frustrated and accessibility will stagnate. I believe that the structure in the current Section 508 is clear and is brilliant in this regard and the structure is. Technical standards should offer clarity for known technologies while the functional performance criteria offers flexibility for innovation and newer technologies. Th ird, I'm concerned about effective enforcement. I believe that accessibility standards are most effective if they are cl ear and precise. Lawsuits and administrative complaints have a very damaging effect on companies, and they should not be perceived as being random or haphazard events. Section C202 makes
e nforcement more of a crapshoot making Section 508 liability
seem ran dom truly helps no one. Fourth, I'm concerned about effective implementation. Over the last 10 years the government has faced significant challenges implementing Section 508 and encountered much criticism. Because functional performance is less precise tha n prescriptive standards, Section C202 will make implementation more difficult.Page **34** of **61**

Change is always hard. The new rules will be complex and will be difficult enough to implement. Adding the vagueness in Section C202 will make effective implementation impossible. In closing, I'd like to commend the Board for doing an amazing job at setting clear standards and architecture and technology. C202 is a significant departure from the board's other standards and opens door to making accessibility subjective. And w hile I understand that the IT should be functional for people with disabilities and that the current Section 508 standards often fall short of this goal, we need to be careful of these unintended consequences but going as far as Section C202. Thank you very much for your time and attention. NEIL MELICK : Thank you. TIM CREAGAN: Mitch Turbin. MITCH TURBIN : Welcome to the West Coast, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for the opportunity to speak. I have no prepared comments so I will try very hard to be succinct. I work as a principal investigator at the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center at the National VA Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research. H owever, the stuff of my research is not the stuff of my comments today. I am here as an em ployee who's experienced a severe progressive loss of vision and hearing. And in my work at the Department of Veterans Affairs, I've been blessed with a very good assortment of specialized technology to help me do my job.Page **35** of **61**

Some of these technologies has co me in money from the National Center I worked at itself, some has come specifically from the VA Central Office who wanted to react proactively to hire some scientists with disabilities, and there's also been some money from the medical center, and there's been a wealth of support from the Department of Defense's Computer and Electronics Access Program. I just did say one of the two keywords of my comments

–

“ proactive ”. The other word is “ reactive ”, and what I really want to speak of today is not the excellent specialized equipment that I've received , but the generic high

-technology equipment that I also must make use of daily. One is called the telephone. It's this archaic phone that this somehow connected to the strange landline system although it's con nected in increasingly esoteric ways. The medical center, when purchasing these phones and moving us increasingly into digitized and internet protocol telephones, signed a contract to buy these telephones apparently had very little proactive attention to questions as to how accessible this technology was. Consequently, this technology was not very accessible. So then we come to that other word

– “ reactive ”. So it becomes the burden on the employees, at least in my little corner of the federal governmen t, to react to what the monolith provides us in the way of mainstream technology and say, "Gee, this thing is supposed to have a caller ID while all I can see is, like , blue onPage **36** of **61**

blue, and it's a blur. And I feel I'm not getting the same access which is avai lable to my colleagues and coworkers." The medical center reacts and the medical center sends technicians down to my office. There's a little trough in the floor outside my office for all the technicians that have come plodding on down there. These techn icians, man and a woman are dedicated, gracious, hardworking, bright people who have done their best to cover up for the reactive policies of the administration. Sometimes it works. Usually, it involves some kind of work around and sometimes to work aroun d takes so much work to get around that the heck with caller ID. I just accept all calls and ask them who they are when they call. But nevertheless, it's a little bit of a jarring inconvenience. A much more serious inconvenience represents the operating systems in our computer, our basic computer workstations. The department pushes through updates to our computer systems every single night it seems. Some of them are undoubtedly are very critical security updates. Some of them maybe not so critical, but they come plodding on through every single morning. To tell you the truth, it's an experience, it's an adventure to see, "Oh, what's my computer going to look like this morning when I log on?" I spend a good deal of time setting up personal settin gs to make my computer accessible to be, and whether those personal settings are going to remain or not is i ndeed a flip of a coin. If I was to spend time adding up the hoursPage **37** of **61**

and sometimes days that have been lost in reconfiguring my system to my specialized settings, I would be very disheartened and discouraged, and I wouldn't have come down here to CSUN no doubt. Proactivity would make this medical center, would make this Department of Veterans Affairs or would even make this federal government take a m ore proactive approach to implementing and enforcing these high

-tech Section 508 guidelines

. I would love to see that. I haven't seen that in this corner of the federal g overnment in which I work

-- no paid staff exists at either my medical center level o r even at our Veterans Integrated Service Network level, basically our regional level. No paid staff are in place to proactively survey needs of employees with disabilities. Instead, the medical center uses essentially volunteers

-- what are they called? Collaborative something or others. I served in that position for two years so it's something or other, also called a S pecial E mphasis P rogram manager, and money was expended to provide me retraining, to send me to a four

- day training at a very lovely site and teach me some things about how the department aspired to provide accessibility to employees. But one of the things we learned was how far the aspirations are from the reality. We were told about some of the guidelines, some of the decisions that have been made by entities and boards such as yours, but the suggestions have not been put into place, and specifically they were not paid full

-time staff who are going to be able to proactively establish the accessibility. It'sPage **38** of **61**

not just provided in occasional burst of wonderful energy but is actually sustained. NEIL MELICK : You have about 30 seconds. MITCH TURBIN : So my last comments

-- this is unusual for me to be on time

-- are that in your guidelines, some language be inserted to mandate that federal agencies and all covered by Section 508 need to take on proactive actions so that employees with disabilities are able to retain access to the standard technology that is available to us to do our work. So thank you very much. Do I have five seconds? I gu ess not. Thank you. NEIL MELICK : We only have a few more that signed up, but we need to take a break. We've had a request to take a five

minute break so we'll take a quick five

- minute break please. Stay close and we'll start right after, and we have two hours to go through this. Okay, we're going to get started. TIM CREAGAN : We're resuming the hearing at this point. I'd like to call the next witness, Judy Brewer. JUDY BREWER : Thank you. Members of the staff of the Access Board, thank you for this opportunity to comment with regard to the 2011 Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Section 508

- 255 in the Americans with Disabilities Act guidelines. My name is Judy Brewer. I direct the Web Accessibility Initiative ( WAI) at the World Wide Web Consortium which is the standards organization for the web. My comments today mostly reiterate my testimony from the January hearing of the Access Board withPage **39** of **61**

a few added thoughts. I expect to provide more detailed comments in wri ting before the comment period closes. First, I would like to express my appreciation to the Access Board for its careful attention to the many comments received on the Access Boards 2010 ANPRM regarding the need for more direct referencing of the W3C WAI Web Content Accessibility guidelines, WCAG 2.0. The Board's 2010 proposed approach to web accessibility changed wording and thereby also changed meanings of some provisions from WCAG 2, and then some places mixed the conformance level. The 2010 approach would have fragmented International Web Accessibility Standards and would have created conflicting requirements for industry implementers. In contrast, the 2011 ANPRM proposes incorporation of WCAG 2 by reference. We commend the Access Board on their updated approach which we believe will benefit all stakeholders incorporation of web accessibility provisions by direct reference to WCAG 2 at a double A level, provides significant accessibility for people with disabilities and older people, provides a more feasible conformant scenario for industry, and increases opportunities for efficiencies among government organizations that can more readily share training and technical assistance resources. Noting for a moment different uses of terminology, many people in the field consider the 2011 ANPRM approach of incorporation by reference to be an optimal approach to accessibility standards harmonization rather thanPage **40** of **61**

being something other than harmonization. We urge other organizations to replicate this approach of d irect reference. Noting with interest the Board's questions regarding applicability of WCAG 2 to non

- web things, if there are ways that W3C WAI could help in exploring further applicability of the WCAG 2.0 standard in coordination with other interested parties, we would welcome the opportunity to help with such a discussion particularly given that it relates directly to interpretation of a W3C standard. I would also like to mention again the potential relevance of guidance and accessibility solutions in W3C's User Agent Accessibility Guidelines as well as in the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines, ARIA, which is Accessible Rich Internet Applications, Mobile Web Best Practices and more in case any of these may be helpful for your consideration. Again, I would like to sincerely thank the US Access Board for this opportunity to make preliminary comments on the 2011 ANPRM. Thank you. NEIL MELICK : Thank you. TIM CREAGAN : Joshua Brickman, California Technologies. Joshua Brickman. Joshua Brickman: Thank you. My name is Joshua Brickman. I work for CA Technologies, formerly known as Computer Associates. Computer Associates is the fifth largest independent software manufacturer in the world and as such has done a lot ofPage **41** of **61**

business with the US government, in particular, over the years. Over the last four or five years, CA Technologies has been working with Paciello Group on improving our products accessibility. CA has hundreds of products, many of them mainframe, UNIX products, and as well as web and des ktop products. It has been extremely challenging to try and convert existing legacy products into meeting Section 508 1.0 and meeting the standards of WCAG 2 and what will be 508 2.0 is also seem daunting for us. Nevertheless, we have been striving to become a company that is proud of its accessibility program, and I feel that every year, we have been making significant progress. It's therefore sometimes frustrating to us as we have been working to
ensure that our voluntary product accessibility templates are as accurate as possible and share information that is not always positive about our products. As we present them to procurement officers and compare them with our competitors and can see that often the quality of the other VPAT's are inconsistent in compared to our VPAT's. We know this because we have used the other products, and we talked to our customers and prospects. So my first comment is regarding enforcement of Section 508 as it is coming out for version 2.0. I would highly recommend that there be some way of validating that VPAT's content is correct and that we no longer take vendors at their word. We are prepared for this and prepared to provide test results ifPage **42** of **61**

necessary, and I would highly encourage that as 508 is rolled out that there i s a way at least have the ability to dig further on product claims because it's not a level playing field right now. My second comment is related to adoption of accessibility standards outside of the US government. We have seen as we present our products to our potential customers, for example, in Canada, that they are very interested in the accessibility of our products, and they often refer to WCAG 2.0. We present them our VPAT's which include WCAG 2.0 test results which we voluntarily include even tho ugh we are not required to. We do not see this requirement at all with US commercial companies. It's not something that they are interested in. And as such, it's difficult for me as the Director of the Accessibility Program at CA to encourage product team s to improve their accessibility because at the end of the day accessibility to them is considered just another non

-functional requirement. Our products do not sell because they're accessible; their products sell because they provide functions that custome rs want. So it's competing against localization; it's competing against internationalizations; it's competing against install ability . All this what they call abilities, accessibility just one of them. So in order to improve the ability to have our products step up, I would highly encourage that 508 harmonize with

-- and I'm not sure whether it's ADA or something else

-- to ensure commercial entities to adopt the same standards that US government requires of any companiesPage **43** of **61**

that wish to sell technology to th ose agencies. This would encourage companies to make it a priority, and it certainly would encourage my own product managers to do so. My final comment is actually a specific comment regarding the ANPRM. Many folks have said some things that I agree with so I'm not going to repeat items that have already been said, but one little bone for me personally

-- and Mike knows this for a long time

-- has been around documentation section of the standard. The current version of Section 508 refers to documentatio n and they mention that alternative format shall be provided upon request at no charge. You now have changed it to say alternate formats shall be provided upon request which we do commend. However, I work with lawyers and they still are going to make this difficult on me. In the old standard, alternative formats shall be provided upon request at no charge, they basically said, "We'll never be compliant to that," because they get

-- as my lawyer like to say

-- they get asked for you to put it on the side of an elephant. So alternate formats, I would highly recommend that simply state exactly what you're looking for. Accessible formats shall be provided upon request will be a much better and appropriate approach, and examples as you provide in other sections of the standard would be I think quite useful for the reader. I yield the rest of my time. Thank you very much. NEIL MELICK : Thank you.Page **44** of **61**

TIM CREAGAN : Cynthia Waddell. CYNTHIA WADDELL : My name is Cynthia Waddell and I'm the President of the Silicon Valley Independent Li ving Center in San Jose, California, but I'm also the Executive Director of the International Center for Disability Resources on the Internet. We want to thank you so much for having this public hearing in our state. My comments tod ay are not being submitted in written form, but I will try to be brief. What I would like to draw to your attention, the International Center for Disability Resources on the Internet is a member of the International Telecommunications Union where we're involved in standard setting activity, and of course in our work we're very interested in accessibility. We would like to draw the Access Board's attention to the Food and Drug, FDA guidance that came out last year on mobile medical applications, and the gui dance was related to the extent that a mobile medical application might convert a cell phone or a smartphone into a medical device. Because of the Food and Drug Administration's regulatory authority in medical devices and their comment on mobile medical apps for our work in accessibility at the International Telecommunications Union, there were questions being asked by the telecom industry, to what extent should mobile medical apps and cell phones and smartphones that become medical devices be accessible ? At this point, I just wanted to bring to you to thePage **45** of **61**

question that the developer industry is asking whether the Food and Drug Administration guidance involving mobile medical apps shouldn't it involve accessibility? And especially if the medical apps are concerned by the Food and Drug Administration, I know you're not the Food and Drug Administration, they're concerned about the usability and the safety of cell phones being converted into medical devices. I will submit to you that the disability community is very interested in accessibility. So to the extent that there is anything in the Food and Drug Administration guidance that you can provide reference to or regarding the scope of telecom accessibility needs for mobile apps. I guess I'm bringing you to this comment, a combination of comments from

-

- we've heard people talk about cell phones and web. As technology has quickly moved forward, here we are at this place where we're using the mobile medical apps to convert cell phones into medical devices. And I would submit to you that accessibility also needs to be part of this dialogue and the telecom developing industry would like to have clarity that mobile medical apps and smartphones need to have the accessibility to be addressed. Section 508 has had made a significant impact internationally I must say. I just wanted to bring to your attention that the FDA was involving guidance in this area, so the question on accessibility in mobile medical apps. So clarity on the web accessibility standards and the need for harmonization is very important. IPage **46** of **61**

wanted to be sure that that was before you, that the FDA was already doing rulemaking and the international telecom industry is wondering about the extent of accessibility for the design of the telecommunication and the mobile web. Thank you very much. NEIL MELICK : Thank you. TIM CREAGAN : Peter Korn. Peter Korn: Thank you, Tim. Thank you, Access Board members. Oracle appreciates this opportunity to provide input to the Access Board regarding the pro posed provisions so as to promote improved accessibility in ICT products. The 2011 ANPRM contains significant improvements compared with the 2010 version. These include incorporating by reference numerous industry consortium accessibility standards particularly WCAG 2.0 AA; significantly shortening and simplifying the provisions making it easier to digest and apply the standard, restoring an exception for the important situation in which service personnel need to physically interact with ICT for mainten ance, repair and occasional monitoring; removing the reference to 2200 in the low vision functional performance criteria which is more closely associated with blindness; and modifying most of the individual FPC so that they start with the phrase where a bl ank mode of operation is provided as this helps scope the criteria and making it easier to understand when they should be used.Page **47** of **61**

We do, however, have some specific concerns with the 2011 ANPRM. We described these in more detail in the comments that we wi ll be filing. But ahead of that I will summarize the key concerns here. WCAG 2.0 defines what a conformance claim is and when it can be made. WCAG conformance applies to "full web pages only," and requires 100% conformance with all of the WCAG A, AA, and AAA criteria as appropriate. Complex enterprise software is never 100% perfect from any vendor and requiring a binary yes/no compliance statement is impractical. An application might receive 3,000 hours of attention to accessibility and be otherwise an excellent application yet fail because of one missing label in an obscure part of the UI. Furthermore, if agencies are told to compress 33 provisions of WCAG 2.0 AA into a single pass/fail, they will be unable to execute their responsibility under E202 6 Best Meets in order to procure the ICT that is most accessible among a choice of several imperfect options. There is significant challenge in utilizing WCAG 2.0 AA outside of the web domain as has been mentioned by a number of people earlier today. We do n ot believe it is a straightforward task for many of the provisions, for example, checkpoint 241 bypass blocks which requires a mechanism for bypassing blocks of content repeated on multiple web pages or checkpoint 245 multiple ways which require more than one way be provided for locating a web page with an a set of web pages. We recognize the attraction of leveraging WCAG 2.0 beyond the domain in webPage **48** of **61**

pages, and we appreciate that desire. However, it is imperative that if WCAG 2.0 AA is to be so used, detail ed technical guidance on how to do this is first developed by a body of technical experts including developers who have created accessibility frameworks, accessible platforms, accessible user interface components and accessible applications for a broad variety of computing environments. Oracle stands ready to participate in such an effort. W ith the 2011 ANPRM, the Access Board has changed the role of the functional performance criteria making them normative in all cases. It is very important that normative requirements be objectively testable. The phrase minimizes the potential from 3029 minimized photosensitive seizure triggers is highly subjective in contrast with the clarity of 4051 general where ICT emits late in flashes. There shall be no more than three flashes in any one second period. When a phrase such as limited reach and limited strength isn't defined from 3028 with limited reach and strength or the phrase fine motor control isn't defined from 3027 with limited manipulation. It is subjective a s to whether or not someone with such a limitation can operate a device. Contrast this with the provisions from the 2010 ANPRM, 3074 operation, 30741 activating force which specify the maximum measurable activating force and describe the prohibited control motions. It is similarly important the conformance with normative requirements be measurable withoutPage **49** of **61**

relying on third

- party assistive technologies and further relying on the skill that someone may have with that AT. On platforms with multiple AT of th e same type, e.g. window screen readers, functionality varies significantly from one AT to another. One AT may support a particular documented ICT accessibility technique such as WAI ARIA while another does not. In the web domain, one browser may convey a particular documented ICT accessibility technique to the underlying OS such as conveying ARIA information via IAccessible2 while another does not. Finally, we have repeatedly seen a lack of AT expertise on the part of users resulting in claims of inaccessibility where more experienced users are very successful with the same ICT. Subjectivity and dependency on factors and products external to the ICT itself make measuring ICT compliance with such criteria nearly impossible. We don't believe that these concerns with subjectivity and vagueness of the FPCs can be fixed in the language of the FPCs themselves without essentially duplicating the provisions that are in the technical section. We therefore urge the Access Board to restore the role of the FPC to what it has historically been for the last decade as
non - normative performance criteria that are used as needed as part of equivalent facilitation claims. Finally, while we very much appreciate the restoration of an exception related to maintenance, monitor, repair of ICT, we arePage **50** of **61**

concerned the language of the exception is focused on the physical space of the ICT and where it is located rather than the function of the ICT. A copier is typically located in common spaces utilized by all employees, but fixing a paper jam in that copier is a repair function that is likely inaccessible based on the design of the copier and the paper path through the copier. Larger ICT servers are designed to meet the cooling requirements of data centers and the chimney effect of cooling, tall racks of equipment and will therefore have physical control surfaces that are above the height requirements of 36 CFR Part 1191 Appendix D Section 308. But since ICT procurements don't specify that a give ICT is located in a maintenance space in the RFP, we cannot usually claim the exception for such products. Therefore, we ask that this provision be reworded as follows: “ Maintenance or monitoring functions where the design of ICT functions limits physical access and are only for maintenance, repair or occasional monitoring, such functions shall not be required to conform to the provisions of this document. This part does not apply to controls or interfaces of such products where the controls or interfaces could be executed remotely or externally. ” Thank you again for this opportunity to provide comments and feedback on the 2011 ANPRM. For nearly 20 years, Oracle has been at the forefront of the ICT accessibility field developing and implementing accessibility frameworks in our platfo rms and products and through our work in the W3C and ISO accessibilityPage **51** of **61**

standardization efforts. We have invested literally hundreds of thousands of hours in engineering accessible applications. And as an active participant in TEITAC and as a major supplie r of ICT to federal agencies and state governments that use these regulations, we are pleased by the opportunities you have provided us to be part of the process of developing this update to the Section 508 standard. Thank you. NEIL MELICK : Thank you. TIM CREAGAN : Okay, we're coming to the last 15 minutes allotted for the hearing. I'm just going to go through the list. There were two persons who previously signed up which were called a couple of times, I think at least one of them is back in the room. So after these people have spoken, if anyone else wishes to speak, please advise us, or if anyone who has previously spoken wishes to get up again, you may do so. Let me call the two names. Ed Summers. Okay, Gregg Vanderheiden. GREGG VANDERHEIDEN : Thank you again for the opportunity to come and speak to you. There are a number of areas that I want to speak to just very briefly, many of them echoing the comments that you just heard and I have a lot of agreement with many of the different kinds of things that Peter just spoke about including the one about the maintenance areas, et cetera that he just read. One area where we differ in our opinion s is the functional performance criteria , so I'll just touch on that, and we al so differPage **52** of **61**

on the history. The functional performance criteria were in fact normative in the last version and if you look in the preamble to the 508, it says that software shall conform to the functional performance criteria in chapter x whichever the software chapter was, and that's stated right in the preamble in explaining how you should apply them. I know that other agencies in the government have interpreted it separately but in fact the 508 did have them, and it had them for a good reason. As we did in our previous comments, we can gi ve you examples of designs that meet all the functional performance criteria, and in fact are completely unusable because the technical performance criteria, just pick on this and that and the other thing, but they never actually talk about the product as a whole actually being usable by anyone. And that's the role of the functional. If you do the technical and you do them well, you run by the functional. Some people have suggested that the functional performance criteria would only be used when the techni cal were not sufficient. I have asked companies and other representatives and the only answer that anyone has ever been able to give me as to how one would determine that the technical were not sufficient is to use the functional performance criteria. There is no other way to tell if the technical. So even the interpretation that you do the technical and you only need to do it functional if their technical don't cover still asks you to go use the functional to figure out if the technical were sufficien t. However, I agree with him that if there arePage **53** of **61**

functional performance criteria, they have to be objective and testable or you cannot require somebody to do something when you can't tell and they can't tell either one of you if they've actually done them or not. And the current functional performance criteria may be half or so are worded in a fashion that are testable and the other half, as Peter correctly pointed out, are not testable. So if they are to be required, they have to be made testable. Other b riefly things, last time I spoke with you with talked about WCAG and its application. This was a surprise to see it applied to both electronic documents and to software and spent a lot of time and had many meetings with industry and people in other countri es, et cetera, examining this topic. My conclusion at this point is that it was a rather brilliant stroke especially as we look at the trajectory having different rules for software, and for web apps, and for electronic content, and for web content; they are merging so quickly that if you had different rules than within five years, people would be sitting there having no idea which set of rules to follow. They will be indistinguishable from each other soon. So bringing them together we think is a really g reat idea. I was worried that the WCAG because it says web pages and stuff. You said it was straightforward and so we decided to go try and dig in. And it came to, again, the same conclusion that Peter did in that it's only straightforward if there is a set of guidelines or something that would explain it. It is straightforward to peoplePage **54** of **61**

who are really well

-versed in all of these and I'm sure that you spent a lot of time staring at it and figuring it out. But to the amateur, it says web page and they're doi ng an application. So when we did the WCAG, we actually wrote

-- it's 14, 15 pages or something

-- we wrote like 800 pages of support documents before we finished writing the 14

- page spec because the only way to determine that we did WCAG right was to crea te all of the techniques and all of the understanding documents and all of the "how to meet" documents, and they are literally large tomes. And we did them all first because then we knew that in fact the WCAG would work with us because we actually had gone through. So we likewise believe that a group should get to come together and you shouldn't be doing the application notes after it is done, but we should be working on them now. So a group from different countries and industry and academia, et cetera, are now talking about trying to actually write a manual of how you would interpret the WCAG in the application in these other two places as quickly as possible to make sure that there isn't something that should be reflected in the 508. So that is an acti vity that will be occurring and that will help you to inform your work going forward. We have found that there are terms that can be used to just substitute for web page and for documents and for software that really do seem to work, but we'll wait until we are finished with the process, but it does look very, very promising.Page **55** of **61**

The closed product section, which really should be closed functionality section, is quite broken, and it was broken when the TEITAC gave it to you. It was in trouble on the last day of ANPRM and it continues to have problems, and so we will be turning in some comments to try to do that. The essence of it is if the product is closed, then you have to say that it doesn't have to follow all the AT compatibility provisions and that's not really well done. It won't work with AT and yet you still are requiring it to do things for AT compatibility. So that needs to be fixed. But the flip of that is even more important and that is all of the functionality that AT is supposed to provide if it's closed and it doesn't have to be compatibility, you have to require that yet provide the basic AT functionality. Otherwise, basically, close your product and you don't have worry about AT and you also don't have to worry about accessibility. So we wi ll figure that part out. The two

- way voice has some just unfortunate wording errors that make some of the provisions not make sense, like a display has to be compatible with real time text rather than the product with a display. It has to be compatibl e. Displays can't do it by themselves. And there were a couple of provisions that were dropped that left some parts of industry having to follow it and other parts of the industry not having to follow it just because of the choice, but we'll provide com ments on that.Page **56** of **61**

And then finally, just in closing, there is one other bit that we think should be in there and covered and that is behavior doing failure and during startup and shutdown when there is no interaction. So there are times when you are starting the computer and shutting it down when you're actually not asking the user to interact but when it can't comply and also once it fails like it crashes or something like this, if it's in an uncontrolled failure rate. So this is just open scoping. We ju st need to have something that

-- there are places where it is impossible to conform, and you might as well just put a tight border around them so it doesn't get abused. But we do need to make sure that that's covered. And then finally the last comment is in organization. You have it; it's hardware and software. You have things in hardware like biometrics, which is actually that done with voice and facial recognition and all sorts of things that have nothing to do with hardware. They're actually software functions. So they should be moved out into a general or an overall. As a matter of fact, the entire hardware section only a portion of it is actually hardware only. So we would suggest you re

- label that whole section as being either general or something so that people realize that that applies. And you have WCAG provisions way, way up burying you in your regulatory scoping area. This should be brought down. If software needs to comply to WCAG and a bunch of other provisions, you should put that down in the software section, thePage **5 7**  of **61**

first provision that shall conform to WCAG. This will also make it easier to harmonize with the European efforts where they're working on standards, and there is no scoping section of the same kind of thing because this is not reg ulation yet; it's a standard. And that will make it easier for people to look at things here and things there and make them both the same. So that is sort of a quick view of the kinds of things that will be coming, and thank you very much for the comments. NEIL MELICK : Thank you. TIM CREAGAN : We've come to the end of our list of people who have signed up. Is there anybody else in the room now who wishes to speak? There's someone who has not spoken previously. Is there someone putting up his hand? Yes, okay. Sir, will you please identify yourself and your affiliation. Vincent Martin: Hello. My name is Vincent Martin, and I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I am a former Georgia Tech employee. Currently, I am a graduate student. I am pursuing graduate work in Human Computer Interaction, but my background is I have multiple engineering degrees and also a degree in Engineering Psychology. I am an assistant technology practitioner in every sense of the word. I designed systems to help myself how to diagnose my own eye disease. Any rules that we have had for the Access Board or any rules that we are going to institute in the future are totallyPage **58** of **61**

irrelevant if the people that we make the rules for don't have them enforced. Very few fede ral agencies help people that understand what the rules are or able to follow the rules. First, I make part of my living now helping people sue the government because the people won't listen. There's one case I'm involved where I could have fixed the problem in two days. It's been going on for a year and a half. It would have taken maybe $ 2,000. It's going to cost the federal government over $ 200,000 in a lawsuit, and it could have been fixed that easy. There are agencies where they have no one that und erstands what any of the rules mean. They refuse to pay anybody to understand what they mean. They could have taken someone like me and hired me. They could take the compliance officer that I know that would do it, but no one will listen to them so we inte nd to continue to sue until it gets to the point where these people are gone. I usuallywrite two reports. The first report is simple solutions and simple problems because they normally are simple. The second report is the one that is about 200 pages and is entitled, "The Lawsuit Costs Less Than Accommodation Did." And if we ever just get to the point of listening to people that know what they're doing, we wouldn't have to have these long hearings, the software would be accessible, and we wouldn't have any p roblems. Thank you. NEIL MELICK : Thank you.Page **59** of **61**

TIM CREAGAN : Do we have anyone else in the room who wishes to speak? Okay. If you wish to speak, please stand up and approach the witness table. Lisa Irving: Good afternoon. My name is Lisa Irving. I am an individual. I don't represent anybody but myself. I will start off by saying I'm not real computer literate. I understood bits and pieces of what I heard today, and I want to thank everybody for the presentations. I have a couple of questions and my apologies if they have been answered. For the individual from Microsoft with regard to keeping up with technology and the rapid changes, you would increase employment of Persons with Di sabilities by increasing your accessibility and I want to know with regard to, I think, JavaScript, what are your plans to do to tag, make the program so JavaScript will have tags on it? I'm sorry if the question doesn't make sense. I guess my overall comment would be, again, as it relates to accessibility and employment. I realize a lot of our speakers today were commenting on government procurement and compliance. Government procurement works if there is money for procurement. I am thinking of government agencies like the various departments in rehabilitation where their d ollars are limited, and when they purchase semi

- accessible technology, they're still not able to help people to go to work. There's a trickledown effect also of accessible technology, not only does itPage **60** of **61**

go from affecting federal employment but it trickles down to the nonprofits and individuals who are self

- employed. And the problem here is that not

-for

- profits don't have the money to purchase technology. And when they do, they want to purchase completely accessible technology, not partially accessible techn ology. Thank you very much. NEIL MELICK : Thank you. That is all. We've run out of time. We won't be able to take more testimony today. I want to say thank you to everybody that have spoken today and please, please enter those comments into... TIM CREAGAN : www.regulations.gov

. NEIL MELICK : Thank you. Make sure those are entered. Again, closing for the public, for the comments is March 7th, so they need to be in by then. We can't do our work and if those that followed this, if you had seen what was in there in the 2010 advanced notice and what's in the 2011, we made the changes because of the comments that we've received. We want to make this product as good as we can, but we can't make it any better without the comments from those that use it, that develop it, and produce it. So we want everybody involved to get that information out, and I want to thank everybody for those comments. Please put that stuff in writing and submit it. Any other of the board members want to make any last closing remarks? JOHN BOX : No comments.Page **61** of **61**

GARY TALBOT : Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, everybody, for your time and coming in and testifying today. Thank you! NEIL MELICK : Okay, at this time we conclude our public hearing, and again thank you all for being here.

End of Hearing