ACCESS BOARD PUBLIC HEARING

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY AT NORTHRIDGE (CSUN) CONFERENCE

Manchester Grand Hyatt

One Market Place

San Diego, CA

March 25, 2010

9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

NEIL MELICK: Good morning. My name is Neil Melick. To my left is Ron Gardner. I wanted to say 

welcome to the first public hearing for the public rule making for information communication 

technology. We’re extremely excited to have our first meeting here at the CSUN conference, as many 

of our attendees are very knowledgeable in both the technology and accessibility for persons with 

disabilities. We especially would like to thank the efforts of our Telecommunications and Electronic 

and Information Technology Advisory Committee that helped make a lot of the recommendations in this 

rule — for this rule of the committee, and the ad hoc — and there are some of those members here 

today. So we ask that they would stand and be recognized, or otherwise be recognized, and we would 

like to give them a round of applause for the efforts on their part.

[APPLAUSE]

Before we get started, I’d like to turn the time over to Ron to make a couple comments and then we’ll 

do some introductions.

RON GARDNER: Thank you, Neil. My name is Ron Gardner. I’m from Salt Lake City. I serve on the 

Board of The United States Access Board. It’s a pleasure to be here. This is the first time I have been 

to a CSUN conference and there is a certain type of excitement here and I have to tell you it’s very, very, 

um, contagious. I’m excited to be here. Not just for this public hearing, but for the other things going 

on because what happens here really does affect people — people’s lives. People with disabilities. Neil 

did all the technical stuff. I’d like to just tell you from a personal standpoint, I would like to express 

appreciation to the staff at the United States Access Board. They have truly done a wonderful job of 

engineering and coordinating and writing and everything. This is the time for people with disabilities 

to make your suggestions known. This is the time really to, you know, throw off those timid feelings. 

Make your comments! We have until June 21st in this public hearing time period. Please get 

together those things that are important to you. Read the rules, study the proposed rule I should say, 

and make your comments so that we can make this the best product as possible at this particular time. 

I also recognize the fact that, there are many, many more people here at the CSUN conference than I 

think are in this room. As you get out and associate with those others, please share with them the 

information that you receive here today and encourage them also to make public comment. I think at 

this time, I would like to, turn the time over to our Board chair. The U.S. Access Board does have a 

chair. Neil and I are partners, but the chair is Doug Anderson. Doug, why don’t you introduce 

yourself and then we’ll ask all of the other members of the Board that are here at the table to introduce 

themselves. So, Doug?

DOUG ANDERSON: Thanks, Ron. I’m Doug Anderson, who is currently the chair of the U.S. Access 

Board. I would like to take a moment and thank Ron and Neil for their leadership in this committee. 

They have done an outstanding job, and I appreciate Neil for orchestrating the comments today. I will 
turn it over to John to introduce himself.

JOHN BOX: Yes. I’m John Box public member and also resident of California.

TIM CREAGAN: Tim Creagan Access Board staff.

NEIL MELICK: I will introduce myself again. I am Neil Melick.

ELIZABETH STEWART: Elizabeth Stewart.

MAZEN BASRAWI: Mazen Basrawi.

JOHN WYVILL: John Wyvill.

KATHY MARTINEZ: Kathy Martinez on behalf of the Department of Labor.

JOSEPH CIRILLO: Joe Cirillo.

NEIL MELICK: Great. Before we get started, I would like to turn it over to Tim Creagan. He’s been 

the staff lead on development of this rule. He will give you the summary and the timeline and the 

process.

TIM CREAGAN: Thank you, everyone. It is a pleasure to see so many familiar faces. For those of 

you who were not on the committee, we’ll give you a brief overview of rulemaking history. Originally, 

there started off as an advisory committee whose acronym is Telecommunications and Electronic and 

Information Technology Advisory Committee, TEITAC. It was in existence from September 2006 until 

April of 2008. In April of 2008, the committee delivered to the Access Board a very detailed 

voluminous report of their recommendations and findings. The Access Board then convened an 

internal review committee composed of representatives from the various agencies that make up the 

Access Board as well as additional governmental agencies — which are not on the Access Board, but 

who are involved, particularly in implementation issues. That committee worked and has now 

produced what we have before us today. The Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the ANPRM. 

It was just published this Monday and I’m sure that every one of you has read all 25 pages of 

commentary and the 100 pages of text, and has memorized it and will comment on it today. 

[LAUGHTER] Thank you. We are here today at the public hearing in San Diego, California and then 

we will be having comment period on the rules through June 21st.

The next steps after the comment period closes on June 21st, the next steps in the rule making will be as 

follows: the staff and members of the Board will be analyzing all of the Access Board comments that 

we received. All of the comments received through whichever venue, whether testimony taken today, 

whether thanks to e-mail to the ICT rule mailbox, sent by letter or fax, all comments will be posted to 

Regulations.gov — and will be reviewed by everyone. As I said, the staff and Board will review those 

comments and we’ll use them to develop a proposed rule. We will amend the draft materials you see 

today and they will become the NPRM, the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. At that same time, we will 

also be developing a regulatory assessment, which essentially is a cost-benefit analysis of the proposed 

provisions. At any time, we welcome anyone’s comments or information they wish to provide on the 

fiscal impact of any of these proposed regulations. We always welcome that information. When we 

have completed the packet and the Board is satisfied and it has voted to approve a regulatory 
assessment, the package will then be submitted to the Office of Management and Budget. They will 

review it for at least 90 days, and when they are satisfied, it will then be published in the Federal 

Register. There will be an additional comment period and there will be a very similar process like we’ll 

be facing today. There will be a comment period, comments to be analyzed and the assessment will be 

revised to reflect the changes to the draft document and then eventually you will have a final rule 

published. We have not put any dates on this because, again, much of this is dependent upon the 

comments received and other factors.

For today’s hearing, we wish anyone who wishes to speak to sign up at the front desk. We ask that all 

speakers reserve their comments to 3 to 5 minutes. They will become public records, and after today, 

they will be posted on Regulations.gov. After all the pre-registered speakers have spoken, there will be 

an open microphone. Anyone who wishes to come forward may speak in order. The hearing will run 

today from approximately 9:00 until 12 noon. If you have written remarks or PowerPoint shows, we 

ask that you give them to the staff at the registration desk and they will be added to the record. This is 

public commentary that is given to all, before the Board Members. We just ask that people please 

refrain from reacting publicly to any witness statements. That’s all. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

NEIL MELICK: Thank you, Tim. Two things I want to reiterate. This is a two-step process. The 

comments on this advance notice, as Tim explained, will go to amend the Advance Notice of Public 

Rulemaking (ANPRM). We did this because we have some real depth, and it’s very technical, and we 

want good input before we do the actual notice – the “NPRM”. That’s why we’re here today. Again, 

to reiterate the ground rules, Tim — as I’m legally blind as well — Tim will read the names of those who 

are registered to speak and we ask that you take 3 to 5 minutes. You get close to the end of your time 

and if it doesn’t look like you’re wrapping up, Tim will let me know and I will ask that you wrap up your 

comments to let others speak as well. Again, if you haven’t registered please do so. If there are 

those who still want to speak, we do have an open mic at the end. So, we’ll see how the time plays 

here. Again, we’re here to listen and learn, to get some information from you so we can further 

embellish on this rule. So, it won’t be a lot of Q&A or responding to the issues. Tim, you can call the 

first one up.

TIM CREAGAN: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Shadi Abou. Are you in the room, please? We ask when 

speaking, as you approach the microphone, to please identify yourself, and any affiliation you have, or if 

you’re speaking on behalf of a particular organization. Thank you.

SHADI ABOU-ZAHRA: Thank you for the opportunity to testify with the United States Access Board on 

Section 508, Section 255, and the Americans with Disabilities Act guidelines. My name is Shadi 

Abou-Zahra, at World Wide Web Consortium, and I am myself activity lead of the International Program 

Office. Our comments today are preliminary as I’ve had just a few days to study the Advanced Notice 

of Proposed Rulemaking in the ANPRM. We would like to provide more detail, public comments within 

the coming months.

We appreciate the Access Board, and preparation of this ANPRM. We appreciate the consideration 

given to the harmonization, harmonizing existing requirements in the United States with international 

standards developed by the World Wide Web consortium. Harmonization of standards is crucial for 

achieving more rapid progress in make the web accessible for people with disabilities. This can prevent 

conflict and technical requirements for developers and prevent contradictory expectations for 

consumers. We’re looking closely at section, at sub-section E107, on harmonization. With the 

standard the approach is intended to support harmonization on existing requirements; however, we 
want to carefully assess the impact of this section as currently proposed, which includes the number of 

requirements in addition to Level AA (“double A”). In addition, we want to assess the impact of a 

number of significantly diverging requirements with provisions in Chapters 4, 5 and 6. These chapters 

cover platforms, applications, interactive content, electronic documents and synchronized media 

content and players. For instance, could the requirements that have been added to section E107 

create confusion for developers and monitors? Might present diversions in Chapters 4, 5 and 6 

inadvertently set the standards in other countries?

We commend the Access Board for including provisions in section 413 Authoring Tools that would 

ensure support for the production of accessible content. There has been insufficient attention paid to 

the role tools can play in enabling more efficient access in enabling web content, that authoring tools 

merit consideration in these provisions. We’ll be looking at proposed requirements in the ANPRM in 

relation to the guidance of W3C’s Accessibility Guidelines.

Finally, we welcome the attention to a number of important user interface issues in Chapter 4 that apply 

to browsers and media players and we’ll be examining proposed requirements in the ANPRM in relation 

to guidance and the latest draft of the User Agent and Accessibility Guidelines. I would like to thank 

the U.S. Access Board for making available the ARPRM. We will send further comments in further 

review. Thank you.

TIM CREAGAN: The next speaker is Mr. Curtis Chung.

CURTIS CHUNG: Good morning. You have to get awful close to this. My name is Curtis Chung and 

I am the president of the National Federation of the Blind in Computer Science. I come here speaking 

on behalf of the National Federation of the Blind on the Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. Let 

me begin by saying that we very much appreciate the tremendous amount of work that clearly has gone 

on since the time of the TEITAC, and I want to echo the kudos to the staff of the Access Board and to the 

Board itself for turning the advisory board recommendations into a rule for a proposed rule, which, from 

our perspective, seems to have a lot of promise. We recognize this was a very difficult task. In the 

main, I want to say a couple things. First of all, from the consumer standpoint, those of us who are 

blind, when you look at the impact of section 508, it is regrettable that the net effect on the average 

blind person that happens to be a federal employee still is not as positive as all of us wish it were. 

There are still road blocks. There are still accessibility issues in specifics that happen on the day-to-day 

job. You can have all of the wonderful technical requirements in the world written in a document. 

We want to remind everybody that, in the end, the acid test is: “What is the net effect on the 

employee or on the member of the public who comes into contact with these technologies?” And the 

answer is: “It’s still a mixed bag.” There’re so many signs of progress, and still too many signs that 

we have not come far enough.

By and large, we in the National Federation of the Blind do not see much to criticize with regard to the 

advance notice as we have reviewed in the last week. We think that they position the 508 Standards 

to deal with what admittedly is a very moving target, which is the advance of technology.

We want to call to the attention of the Board, a provision having to do with proposed amendments as 

I’ve seen in the advance notice to the ADA accessibility guidelines dealing with access to self-service 

machines used for ticketing, check-in or checking out, seat selection, and boarding in provision 220.2. 

It is our belief that this does not go far enough and we would ask that consideration be given to 

including displays, electronic displays of information, things that show when you’re going to leave, when 
you’re going to arrive — because for the blind, this is incredibly important. And this needs to be 

added, not just self-service machines.

One thing to note: There’re some exceptions that are mentioned in the Advanced Notice of Proposed 

Rule-Making with regard to self-service machines. There’s a whole list of sections that are listed that it 

says, are not applicable to these devices. I think they list sections like : 302, 409-122, 506, et cetera, et 

cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We think that list should be analyzed with some care to be sure 

that in fact the list of sections really is the sections that should be excluded from compliance. For 

example, one of the sections refers to closed devices, with closed functionality, which includes a 

self-service machine. And therefore, we don’t think that the self-service devices should be exempted 

from requirements that apply to devices with closed functionality. A second exemption, exception has 

to do with drive-up self-service machines. Drive ups. We do not understand why drive-up 

self-service machines are exempted from a requirement to be accessible. We as blind people have 

often heard the joke about Braille ATMs and why would you put, you know, why would you, make a 

drive-up ATM accessible to a blind person who obviously cannot drive. I would say that I hope that’s 

not the reason why these devices, drive up self-service machines, are exempted. If they are, that says 

something that we wish it didn’t say. It is just as likely for a blind person who is in a vehicle to want to 

use a self-service machine, or an ATM or a device like that, from a drive up location as it is from anybody 

else. So we strongly urge the exempting for drive up self-service machines to be removed so that all of 

the machines are required to be accessible and not just, you know, so we don’t exclude the self-service 

ones.

NEIL MELICK: If we could, we need to start wrapping up.

CURTIS CHUNG: I was going to say thank you very much for this opportunity to comment publicly. I

am wrapping up, sir.

NEIL MELICK: Thank you.

CURTIS CHUNG: And I say it’s a tremendous job and we sure hope that in the end what we get is 

something that results in a net gain for everybody with a disability who uses information and 

communication technology. Thank you very much.

NEIL MELICK: Thank you.

TIM CREAGAN: Mr. Peter Korn.

PETER KORN: Good morning. I’m Peter Korn of the Oracle accessibility team, and also former TEITAC 

member. I want to thank the Access Board for all of your hard work, for sharing with us this advance 

draft. For making it an advanced draft, and not going straight to the NPRM as, I believe Neil and Ron 

have pointed out, to ensure that there is sufficient time to go through all of the many technical details, 

and I appreciate the specific 33 questions that you enumerated to help spur the feedback that you are 

seeking. As one of the 42 members of TEITAC, I was particularly pleased to see how much, in this draft, 

it is manifestly evident that our work has influenced your work and this draft. It is very gratifying that 

all of that hard work has been clearly carefully reviewed and largely brought forward. And it’s clear 

that you not only carefully read the report, but that you went beyond the report into the WIKI and even 

I think into some of the e-mail exchanges reading through the hundred pages which I have not yet fully 

memorized. I noticed...
RON GARDNER: There’s still time. [LAUGHTER}

PETER KORN: I noticed some things that came in from the e-mails. It makes the long nights that we 

put into this feel quite worthwhile. One, to phrase a few things that I noticed in my memorization, 

E103.5 clarifying that if you meet the technical provisions, then you are in fact deemed to have met the 

functional performance criteria. That clarification was something surely needed in our TEITAC 

discussions and it’s very welcome. E107 noting the harmonization that is in WCAG 2.0 Double A and 

giving guidance that if you are meeting 2.0, plus other specific things, that you are doing what you need 

to do. I also very much want to praise the embracing of the notion of disability services or accessibility 

APIs. The notion and recognition of a platform and that a platform has a responsibility to expose 

accessibility APIs, that an application has a responsibility to utilize those APIs. And then, specifically 

provision 412 that AT has a role in, ah, in leveraging the information provided by these APIs in order to 

make things accessible. One of the other things we struggled with in TEITAC is recognizing the notion 

that there are three distinct parties in play in making technology accessible — the platform, the 

applications, and the assisted technology — and I’m very pleased that that set of notions is carried 

forward in this report.

Finally, I very much appreciate the inclusion of expository advisory information in the document, 

whether it lives in the document proper or as an ancillary appendix. I think that having that expository 

explanation is helpful to developers and to implementers of the rule. Finally, like others in the 

industry, we will be doing a careful review of the documents exploring how this draft will apply to our 

products, and using that exploration to inform the feedback that we’ll be providing, and we very much 

appreciate 90 days to do that review, because that should allow us sufficient time to generate all of that 

feedback. Again, thank you for all of your hard work. I will continue to work with you as this moves 

through ANPRM to NPRM to the final rule. Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

TIM CREAGAN: Mr. Douglas Loo?

For those of you that signed up, we will proceed through the list, and then when signatories come in, we 

would like to move on. I would like to move to Mr. Joel Snyder. Mr. Joel Snyder.

JOEL SNYDER: Good morning. My name is Joel Snyder and I’m the president of Audio Description 

Associates based in Tacoma Park, Maryland — on the other side of the country. I have a contract with 

the American Council of the Blind to direct its audio description project, which began its activity in 

support of Audio Description in January 2009. A bit of background that may be helpful. I was one of 

the first audio describers dating back to 1981, beginning as a volunteer with the Washington Ear, the 

beginners of the first formal Audio Description program in the world. Since then, I wrote and voiced 

the description for several of the first described television broadcasts on WGBH. And then, for five 

years, directed for the National Captioning Institute — producing description for television network, 

productions, movies, in movie theaters, dozens of episodes of Sesame Street. I have trained 34 

describers in D.C., and two dozen countries. Thank you for the opportunity to offer a few comments 

for Audio Description. By the way, I just want to insert, I want to echo Mr. Chong’s extent to which 508 

has resulted in access for blind people to government sponsored media and film. In Audio Description, 

there’s a requirement, and what exists for government response order media is minimal. And it really 

must expand. So just a side note there, if you will.
But now let me reference in particular provision 604, Video Description and Transcripts for Video 

Content. I applaud the provision for Multiple Visual Areas of Focus, including text on screen that states 

the name and title of the person speaking, but usually light text is not included in the main audio output. 

A blind person has no clue who’s talking. I do have two issues. One is a suggestion and one is a 

strong concern. First a suggestion. While I’m in favor, the Board’s decision to keep Audio Description 

of pre-recorded content as an unconditional requirement consistent with the current standards. I

wonder if the rules could also encourage with strong language the review committee’s recommendation 

to provide text description of video content where space is not available in the main program for 

synchronized audio descriptions. I agree with the Board regarding the potential for the use of 

extended Audio Description in these situations, but I am echoing back to right now what is going back 

with Audio Description in the digital era. It has been so slow to come and I really have concern about 

the -- how quickly the new technology of extended descriptions will be adopted. I field questions on a 

regular basis from dozens of folks about how any description can be accessed at all right now, and it’s 

almost a year now after the nation’s switch to digital transmission. So for many, it’s no longer as easy 

to access Audio Description on their television as it was in the day when you hit the SAP button. Now, 

it is wonderful for us, but now we’re in a transition period that is awful because people don’t know how 

to access description. They will alleviate that lack of access.

NEIL MELICK: Start wrapping it up.

JOEL SNYDER: I will wrap up it with my main item here. The other item, I have to raise a serious 

concern for all users of Audio Description as well as many description providers. I ask in the strongest 

terms possible that the Board not replace the term “Audio Description” with “Video Description”. I

maintain that “Audio Description” is the appropriate term for what we do. It is practically always, 

except when the text has been brailed, delivered as audio. No matter the format it serves, there’s 

established Federal precedent in the government for the phrase “Audio Description”. For years now, 

the National Park Service has produced many documents to refer to “Audio Description” in the service’s 

regularly requisitions, “Audio Description” for its videos and films, and I understand at one of your 

meetings, someone said at one of our meetings imagine the embarrassment when they go up to a ticket 

window and ask, “Do you have ‘VD’?” That’s not going to work. In closing, “Audio Description” is no 

longer itself in infancy. Its use is growing and, as a field, we’re growing up, but it is still under-known 

among its potential users. Nowhere near with captions. We are not referring to “video captions” just 

because they happen on a video. I try to spread the word about description and I ask the Board to help 

in that effort by maintaining the phrase “Audio Description”. One phrase that can be universally 

applied helps people know this important easy is service and know what to call it. Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

TIM CREAGAN: The next. Thank you. Okay. The next speaker is Alex Li.

ALEX LI. Good morning Access Board. My name is Alex Li. I almost got the hundred pages 

memorized. I do not have my own speech memorized. Pardon me for reading from my own screen. 

On behalf of the Microsoft Corporation, I would like to congratulate the Access Board on the much 

anticipated draft. We’re looking forward to giving it a detailed review and providing meaningful 

feedback in the coming days. We also want to thank the Access Board staff for the collaborative effort 

for the last couple years. We recognize that it was no easy task to turn the TEITAC report and the 

diverse opinions that were expressed during the TEITAC process into the current draft. Microsoft has a 
strong commitment in making products accessible. We believe 508 has been a driving force in the 

accessibility space, and has resulted in more tangible and positive change in its ability than any other 

regulations, both in the U.S. and globally. While the Section 508 standards are U.S. Federal standards, 

we are confident that the refresh content will positively influence many other policies and standards 

outside of the country due to the global nature of ICT and the leadership of the Access Board. We 

welcome the initial hearing right here in CSUN where we can show our appreciation and encourage the 

Access Board and staff to continue to have further sessions where we can discuss chapter by chapter in 

detail, about what our findings are, and we welcome the, um, the opportunity in the future time to 

come when we all have an opportunity to digest the material and give you more meaningful feedback. 

And with that, we wish you continuous success and wish you a good hearing.

NEIL MELICK: Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

TIM CREAGAN: Ms Terry Weaver.

TERRY WEAVER: Good morning. I’m happy to be with you all here today. I really wanted to take 

this opportunity to basically express that -- by the way, this is meant as clarification — I am the director 

of the IT Accessibility and Workforce division within GSA. For the past ten years, we have been 

working with the Access Board to provide technical assistance. So we have, along with the Access 

Board, pretty much a bird’s eye view of 508 being implemented, and the questions everybody has been 

raising. I am impressed with the expertise we saw from the TEITAC Board and all the participants on 

there. It was the first time I was involved in it, and it just kind of amazed me to see how much we got 

out of that process.

I was honored to take part in the ICT ad hoc committee and I share, with Neil and Ron, the amazement 

with the board’s commitment, the staff members. They had to do a lot in a very short time. So it is 

amazing. I look forward to looking for the -- GSA is looking forward to working with the Access Board 

in working with the -- they cover a lot of areas. We just had the opportunity. They see excitement 

within the Federal space of how to interpret the standards. We look at new provisions and they’re far 

more detailed and going from 66 provisions to, I don’t know, a couple hundred? It’s kind of awesome. 

I am not concerned in that respect because the order of the fact, the way the provision are set up; we 

will be working with the Board to make it simpler for the government workers, the government officials. 

We don’t want to train and make experts of every Federal employee. I think we talked of that during 

some of the processes, and we recognize it’s a non-starter. But giving them simple rules, and 

recognizing the importance and the clarity that these provisions provide, particularly in the area of 

applications, as we look at more of the Web 2.0 and social media sites and people understand how, by 

the way, it is so important to be considered then. The new standard will help us a lot in that. I look 

forward to working in the future with the Board on this. I am interested in helping to review 

comments that come in that have impact on the acquisition process as well. Thank you.

NEIL MELICK: Thank you.

[APPLAUSE] 

TIM CREAGAN: Thank you. Mr. Jim Bradford.
JIM BRADFORD: I thank you for the opportunity. I’m Jim Bradford with NASA’s space launch center. 

I work in the Office of the Chief Information Officer. It is a facility and, one thing that we’ve 

experienced in applying the standards is going to the actual definition of Electronic and Information 

Technology — recognizing that the broad definition encompasses a lot of electronic lab equipment that 

a lot of people may not think on the surface would fit that definition, while it obviously does, and it’s the 

intent to cover. A lot of references and documentation that comes out refer to like institutional 

office-type of equipment, desktop equipment, things like that — and when examples are given, we don’t 

see references to specific equipment like spectrometers. And that makes it where engineers and 

scientists argue — notwithstanding the definition EIT — they still will rely on these examples to argue 

that maybe it’s not the intent to apply the 508 provisions to the lab equipment. I just asked we might 

need to have more references and how about we make general references or examples to that and the 

documentation that we might need to. I am not asking for an all inclusive list of all equipment, but just 

maybe something to help give more emphasis on the idea that this is more than just computers. For 

one example, I notice we’re using the term “content format” when it’s talking about electronic content, 

and the format, the examples that are given, are like JPEG, PDF, SML. When you start looking at 

equipment like oscilloscopes and spectrometers, the lab, maybe that content format that’s being given 

doesn’t really apply to that. And again, it’s kind of a visual thing that I’m trying to address is -- is 

something to give the engineers and scientists in the labs the idea that this is broader than just 

computers.

Just one other thing I noticed. That on one of the exceptions that is being proposed as being removed 

from 508 is the “limited spaces”, where the EIT equipment is to be accessed by maintenance people. 

In our environment, we have a lot of equipment in -- for example, test areas, test environment — and 

the users have no direct interface to that equipment and this exception does apply to those situations 

and without that, we’ll now have to start addressing these standards to equipment that will be in 

environment that will never be accessed by the users. And again, I appreciate the opportunity to speak 

to you.

NEIL MELICK: Thank you.

TIM CREAGAN: Thank you. [APPLAUSE] Daniel Goldstein.

Daniel Goldstein. Good morning. My name is Daniel Goldstein of the firm of Brown, Goldstein in 

Baltimore. Thank you very, very much for this extraordinary revision. I want to focus on one 

particular advisory at 302.1 and in particular to the discussion of visual rights and management 

technology. And more particularly to the last two sentences in the fourth paragraph, that say, “... a 

best practice is for publishers not to implement [the] DRM technology which creates barriers to 

accessibility.” And then the next statement is “...An alternative best practice ... for publishers [is] to 

provide an alternate format which is compatible with assistive technology.” That last sentence is one 

that I would love to see be the first obsolete statement in the new 508 standards, but the world being 

what it is, I suspect it will not because of barriers and assistive rights technical managers. Up to now 

publishers have concern about what can happen to capturing a text while it’s in the buffer between the 

book and the Assistive Technology, this grant access software. My concern with that sentence is this: 

I know what lawyers can do. And the statement that an alternate format is accessible is an invitation 

to a text dump without structural data and that’s exactly where the publishers are likely to take it. I

think it is safe to say that the alternate format must forward access to access the same information and 

permit all of the same transactions with the substantially equivalent ease of use. The reason I 

make -- so, you have to say if you’re going to allow separate — and I wish you wouldn’t, but I 
understand why you are — if you’re going to allow separate, that separate has to be equal. And, the 

other way to approach this that I would point out is that if the book is being presented by a player of 

some kind, then the DRM doesn’t necessarily have to work with Assistive Technology. Rather the 

player could provide the text to speech. So that’s another alternative, if the DRM is inaccessible, or if 

the book is being accessed to the cloud. Of course, you could have text to speech out of the servers 

that’s providing the content. I’ll try to follow up and provide assistive language, but I think it is an 

oversight in an otherwise excellent document and I wanted to bring this to your attention. Thank you.

NEIL MELICK: Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

TIM CREAGAN: Dr. Gregg Vanderheiden.

GREGG VANDERHEIDEN: Hi. I do want to thank the Board and the staff of the Access Board for the 

tremendous amount of effort and time and thought that has gone into the preparation of this 

document. I, like the others, am still in the process of digesting it and comparing it back and forth to 

the various inputs, and things we’ve had before. And so we’ll reserve detailed comments until we have 

a chance to look, and actually be able to suggest changes, et cetera, that would be constructive to 

what’s going on.

The one thing that, I would like to say as an overall comment though, as we go forward and look at 

revisions, is that we look forward and not backward as we try to look and apply these guidelines. This 

is an incredibly difficult area to try to do any type of rulemaking. You want to be specific. You are 

obviously talking about things that you know. If we look back even a few years, even when this 

process began, and we look at what interfaces look like, we can quickly see two things. One, that the 

interfaces we have today are much more varied. We have gesture. We have other kinds of things 

going on where we had no guidance before. It was very hard to have a specific guideline that would 

say how you will deal with these until we have more experience. But if you just say something general, 

then how are people going to be able to meet with it? Secondly, we’re seeing new strategies come 

forward. If we say that you can’t make a flat touch-screen accessible, and when the iPhone first came 

out, there was great concern it was impossible for accessibility. It’s turned out to be one of the more 

accessible phones now for individuals who have the physical ability to do the gestures, but may not be 

able to see. So we need to be looking forward and I — the provisions we talked about in terms of the 

functional versus the technical, are still, I think, somewhat ambiguous at how they’re written. So I 

hope we can get more clarity there, but I also think that it’s very -- we have to be very careful that we 

don’t say what all the rules are in the technical with provisions, and we have all types of interfaces that 

people with disabilities will encounter. This one has been written to last a long time. That’s the goal 

of it. I think in the final stages, we should be very, very careful that we make sure that it can last a long 

time and that it’s written in a fashion when somebody comes up with a new interface approach that in 

fact, these can be applied. And it doesn’t just basically skate by because we didn’t have a specific rule 

for it. So once again, I want to thank you and say as we go forward, let’s think about that aspect really 

carefully because this was so much work and if we can do a really good job, then, ah, it will last for a 

long time. Thank you very much.

NEIL MELICK: Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]
TIM CREAGAN: I ask for Mr. Douglas Loo. Mr. Douglas Loo?

Mr. Chairman, it’s time.

NEIL MELICK: We were hoping for more comments. I guess the rule was only published a week ago. 

So there is limited access to it at this point; however, we’ll open it up for open mic for those that would 

like to come up and speak, for those who have not registered. Just real quickly, we will have a webinar 

on provisions on April 1st. I think it starts at 2:30 in the afternoon, Eastern Standard Time, 2:30 to 4:00 

webinar. So you can get with staff and get information on that. Also, we’ll be holding another public 

hearing during this public comment period probably on the east coast later, like I said, later in the public 

comment period. So look for that. And please, please even though there’s not been much comment 

to date, please make sure, as Ron said, get an opportunity to read this, review the text, the public 

comments, you know, to us so we can make this the best we can. There were a lot of great comments. 

I took notes, and lots of information, we’ll be looking into that. With that, we’ll do open mic.

TIM CREAGAN: Mr. Chairman, I believe we just had someone sign in. Just come on up, because at 

this points we proceeding with the open mic. Anyone who wishes to speak, come up and approach the 

table. Thank you. If the speakers would please identify your name and your affiliation. Thank you.

GREG LOWNEY: My name is Greg Lowney. I have my own consulting business, Lowney Access 

Research business. I was with a very big software company. And from that perspective, I was 

responsible for working on numerous standards, both for accessibility and for mainstream purposes. 

And I not only helped Microsoft, but I also tried to promote both inside and outside my own employer. 

So I guess I want to say, from a very high level, is that, my experience shows that companies can comply 

with just about any kind of a standard if they perceive it to be a requirement, wherever that 

requirement is coming from. In those cases, when they feel it is in their best interest, they can absorb 

almost anything, and it will simply be a cost of doing business. But there is a big difference between 

what is done to comply with some minimal requirement, and what is done well because it is truly 

embraced. And, the result I have seen, on almost any topic, on almost any standard, is that some 

things will be done at a level that is a minimal effort, about what they think they need do to get by and 

satisfy a checklist. Something that is lip-service, rather than something which is really embraced. And 

we can see that in the accessibility field today. If we look around, we see that software sometimes 

meets a standard without actually meeting the needs of the users, and in many cases today, new 

products that are still being developed are actually taking steps backwards rather than forward in terms 

of user needs. So my experience has taught me that self-evaluation and self-reporting simply does not 

work. And I think if we really want to make sure that end users are getting the features they absolutely 

need, we need to have clear functional requirements that creators can meet or exceed, and we need 

verification and input from users on whether these product are actually meeting their needs. And I will 

keep it short and I will leave it at that. Thank you.

TIM CREAGAN: Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

NEIL MELICK: At this time, if anybody would like to come forward and state your name.

DAVE ANDREWS: Good morning. My name is Dave Andrews. I’m with Minnesota State Services for 
the Blind. I have not yet read the revised rules. I intend to do so, but have not done so. But I came 

forward this morning to say one thing for you to keep in mind as you move forward in this process. 

Approximately a year ago in Minnesota, there was legislation passed that, in very general broad terms, 

adopted Section 508 and WCAG 2.0 standards and rules and guidelines as ... the law in Minnesota. We 

are now embarked on a process to take the rules and the regulations and the standards and to fold 

them into Minnesota IT policy and procedures, as well as the procurement process. So, that is moving 

forward quite well and we’re, you know, trying to do it in such a way that what comes out of this 

process will be reflected in what is done in the future as well. But the reason I say all that is just to 

remind you that what you do here is very important and it also has, it has other lives. You know? It’s 

going to affect other things outside of Federal government. It becomes all that much more important. 

Thank you.

NEIL MELICK: Thank you.

TIM CREAGAN: Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

BRATIK BATEL: Thank you. Good morning. My name is Bratik Batel. I am the president and CEO 

of EZ Fire. I’m also the chair of the access committee for the American Council of the Blind. Today, 

my remarks will be personal and based on my business needs. The American Council of the Blind will 

be preparing its comments and the committee will be working with other parts of the organization.

I would like to focus a little bit on ... the Section 255 revisions and the standards associated with that. 

And in particular, I would like to commend the Board for its revisions and would like to remind the Board 

that as a business, as a small business who will be potentially hiring employees, I would like to ensure 

that the upcoming mobile technologies, as we go into the future, as we look to hire employees who 

have various disabilities, that those employees have full access to mobile technologies that are 

becoming more and more available and prevalent within the field. And I would like to do this with 

minimal cost associated with them. So anything that can be done to insure that these technologies do 

not have additional cost associated with them in order to make them accessible would be greatly 

appreciated from the small business perspective, especially technologies on mobile telephones that 

currently cost 400 to $450 apiece can add cost to small businesses that can be significantly high. And 

for us to ensure that we can hire as many individuals with disabilities, to lower the rate of 

unemployment among that population, it is quite vital. To make certain that any provisions and any 

exceptions within Section 255 or Section 508 rules, to make certain that employees have equal 

opportunities; that access technologies are made available including ... the exceptions that another 

individual highlighted earlier this morning. In addition, I would like to commend the Board to attempt 

to converge standards including Section 255 to double A compliance. This will help a great deal ... in 

ensuring that companies have companies and organizations who need to comply with standards will 

have a great deal of ... flexibility and a great deal of standardization in their practices. So I will end my 

comments there and we’ll send additional comments in writing once everything has been reviewed. 

Thank you.

NEIL MELICK: Thank you.

TIM CREAGAN: Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]

ALICE SMITH: Hi. I’m Alice Smith and I’m attending the conference as a speaker. We did a session 

on Section 508 artifacts in the Systems Engineering Life Cycle. I work for the Department of Homeland 

Security, Office of Assistive Technologies. My comments are my own. So, I just wanted to qualify 

that. I appreciate that a lot of attention has been paid to the standards and the revision of the 

standards, but I’m very disappointed that a loophole the size of California is still in the regulation and 

has not been tightened up. And what I’m talking about is the market research for “most accessible 

product”. What I’m finding in practice is that it has turned into a paper exercise. It’s very easy to 

write your business requirements to fit the product that you’re already decided that you want because 

this is in the law. We’re allowed to, or we’re required to once we have an official signature on the 

market research, allow that product into the system, despite the fact it is inaccessible. We see a lot of 

market research documentation saying this is the only product that meets our business needs. We 

have -- we’re not experts in the products, and we have no resources that validate that what they’re 

telling us is actually the case. So I’m very frustrated that this doesn’t have any back up, that you didn’t 

go a little further to tighten this up. So what I’m doing here at the Department of Homeland Security is 

once we accept something like this, we still require they go through the testing process, and that they 

take the testing results back to the vendor, and at least have the agency request the vendor to 

remediate. So I understand the reason for this “most compliant product”, but it’s not doing what it 

was designed to do. It’s not ... making the vendors increase the accessibility of their product. It’s just 

turned into a paper exercise, and I think it’s the major reason that a lot of things that we’ve accepted as 

the agency are not accessible. Thank you very much.

[APPLAUSE]

TIM CREAGAN: Next speaker, please.

LUIS A. MENDEZ: Good morning. Can everybody hear me?

TIM CREAGAN: Can you please put the microphone a little closer to you?

LUIS A. MENDEZ: Is this better?

TIM CREAGAN: Yes. Thank you.

LUIS A. MENDEZ: My name is Luis Antonio Mendez Cubero. I’m here as a private citizen, a user of 

access technology, speech technology. I am in my public capacity and my professional capacity an 

attorney in the field of environmental law. And as such, it is important to note that at least in the area 

of environmental law, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and the Resource Conservation Recovery 

Act; were all premised on the belief that the law was to be technology forcing, such that every revision 

of a standard would actually result in technological innovations that would drive the available 

technology to the fulfillment of its goal, in the case of environmental law, of eliminating pollution. So 

too, I believe, that processes, such as Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and Section 255 of the 

Telecommunications Act, should be viewed, to the maximum extent possible, as technology forcing 

provisions. And so I was concerned today when I heard a number of speakers addressing potential 

exemptions to the applicability of Section 508 or Section 255, to particular products, or exemptions to 

the applicability of Section 508 to ... publishers. To me, exemptions should be seldom, if ever, granted 

under any law that attempts to promote the greater public good, but this is particularly true of any law 
which, the supreme court notwithstanding, attempts to further the social and economic integration of 

people, and in particular, people with disabilities, a group that has until very recently been left out of 

the mainstream of society. So, I would urge the Board to be particularly receptive to comments and 

approaches that attempt to broaden the applicability of Section 508 and 255, and to make those 

sections more inclusive, more technology forcing, and ... to make of those, of these two provisions, 

provisions that really, over time, strive to eliminate barriers to participation — not only in federal 

employment, and the use of federal services, and telecommunications products — but that also create a 

market place in which universal design attention to access becomes the norm, not a checklist to be filled 

out. Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

TIM CREAGAN: Thank you. We don’t have -- oh, wait. We have two people approaching.

LAURIE VASQUEZ: I’m thrilled to be here and thank you for being here and allowing us an opportunity 

to speak with you. My name is Laurie Vasquez. I am a technology specialist. I work in Santa 

Barbara City College. We’re one of 120 city colleges in California. My role as an Assistive Technology 

Specialist — I would like to give you an end-user perspective. Having lived through the first version of 

508 guidelines and standards, and its application on a daily basis, it’s quite a hurdle to get through. So 

I appreciate the time and effort that you have put into this second process. In my role as an Assistive 

Technology Specialist, I train students — teach students on the use of Assistive Technology — and I’m 

also a trainer in the faculty resource center. So from an instructional point of view, it’s an interesting 

process — where instructors and administration and IT area — in the use of understanding of 508. I sit 

on our district technology committee. I sit on our committee on online instruction. I sit on the 

committee for curriculum. I instruct the technology committee. I am currently chair of the advisory 

committee to the Chancellor’s Office on assistive education. I am in a work group with other Federal 

agencies to try to understand how to implement 508. What strikes me, just briefly having an 

opportunity to review the latest version, the section on undue burden with our state budget woes, what 

you may hear often is that because of budget woes, it will be hard to implement and create a process 

that’s meaningful on our particular campuses. I appreciate the comment on universal design that it 

becomes the norm. As a trainer, that’s one of the concepts that we try to promote on our campus, and 

in terms of making sure that our instructional approaches are open and universally accessible to our 

students. But when you’re trying to train faculty in the design of applications and accessible media, 

especially through the delivery method of distance education, you have a host of ... challenges in terms 

of the delivery method that they choose. If they’re choosing video, audio, course management 

systems, you are probably using five or six: Desire to Learn, Angel, and A2. And trying is to educate 

our faculty, our 1.92 million students, is an enormous process. I would only like to advise and hope 

that, as we ... create an opportunity for further dialogue, that what we end up with is a guidance and 

standards document that helps us on the local level to achieve the access that we want for our students 

and our faculty. Thank you.

NEIL MELICK: Thank you.

TIM CREAGAN: Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

PHILLIP JENKINS: Hello. My name is Phill Jenkins. I’m also a member of the Board there, a public 
member of the U.S. Access Board. I’m also employed by IBM and also work on the elections systems as 

an advisory member. Today I’m going to speak on behalf of myself, not on behalf of IBM or as a public 

Board member. I’ve actually recused myself from participating in the regulatory proceedings because 

of my employment with IBM, so that the audience understands where I’m coming from. I would like to 

make two comments. One, a set of observations, and a challenge.

First of all, during this week here at CSUN, and over the last week since the ... proposed -- advance 

proposed regulations that have been published, there’re been many positive comments. I notice today 

that there have been very few negative comments in this hearing. I hope that continues. Second 

observation, the document itself and the process that the Board is going through, is being watched 

closely by other countries and they very much -- I heard -- they welcome the recent publication of this 

ANPRM.

Okay? The challenge: the TEITAC took a long time to produce its regulations, a long time -- more 

than a year. It’s been almost two years since that was provided to the Board and published. And 

technology is continuing to change and, as many folks mention here, rapidly changing and perhaps 

accelerating. So the challenge to the Board, and to the whole rule-making process, is to speed it up. I

know that’s a big challenge, but that’s what I wanted to make sure we leave for the record, that we have 

the challenge, all of us, not just the Board, to speed this process up. We want to be- - we want these 

to be the best regulations that we can make them, but sometimes that’s in direct conflict with the rapid 

pace of technology innovation. So, if there’s some way that we can ... improve the schedule and how 

long it takes to do things, the commitments from agencies, to reduce cycle times that are normally, you 

know, written in concrete or in stone. If there’s some way to negotiate and do this better, quicker, I 

think that the public and the original goals of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and the original goals 

of the guidelines in Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act will be better served, for not only the 

citizens of the United States, but also all those countries that are following our lead. Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

TIM CREAGAN: There’s someone here who wishes to make a comment. The next speaker if you will 

come up, please. Reminder: speakers, when you come up, please identify yourselves and any 

affiliation that you have. Ma’am, we welcome you before the committee today.

PINA D’INTINO: Thank you. Good morning. My name is Pina D’Intino and I work for a bank in 

Canada. I want to echo Phill Jenkins’ comment in terms of the guidelines, where we’re going, to 

process these standards. In countries like Canada, we rely heavily on what is being done in the states 

to move forward our own agenda.

In Ontario, specifically, we have an initiative to make Ontario fully accessible by 2025. Having said that, 

it’s not a long time to go where, you know, we have to finalize their own standards, look at what our 

neighbors are doing, and harmonize all these different standards, as we move forward. So we really 

would like to urge, where we can expedite, where we can harmonize better global standards, that this 

be taken into consideration. The same applies in regards to global representation. Scotia Bank 

resides in 50 different countries and certainly the challenge will be to make sure that whatever standard 

we develop to, will be easily transportable and repeatable in the different countries. Again, I think it’s 

very critical that these regulations —they’re not simply for the U.S. — they’re for countries outside that 

are looking in, very closely, as to what you guys are doing, to set our own road maps. Thank you.
NEIL MELICK: Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

Just a brief comment on the process. There’s probably this Board, and especially this committee, 

wants to get out as quick as possible. I understand that. It has been an on-going process through the 

TEITAC and ad hoc. We are guided by Federal regulation. So we have to go through the process as 

well. As a user, I am excited to get this out as soon as possible, like anybody else. That’s not an issue 

on our part.

We have another speaker.

GEORGE KERSCHER: Hello. My name is George Kerscher. I’m President of the International Digital 

Publishing Forum. That’s the organization that creates the standards for ePub, eBooks. Also, I am 

Secretary General for the Daisy Consortium, which works internationally on the standards. Daisy 

Consortium and ePubs are harmonizing, and the standards for digital books are becoming more and 

more accessible. I’m disappointed to hear that there are provisions for providing content in a separate 

mechanism than the commercial route. I would — I will be making comments on that. I believe that 

for almost all types of content, even that which is protected through DRM, that it can be made fully 

accessible to people with disabilities. Either self-hosting applications, even on lightweight handheld 

devices, is certainly possible today. And I believe that the other side is that the content that the 

publishers provide must be accessible and conform to the same kinds of guidelines for web content. 

Currently in the digital publishing standards, we point to WCAG and recommend that publishers prize 

accessible content. So the content must be accessible from the publishers, and there must be reading 

systems that are fully accessible to people with disabilities, including all of the note-taking, annotations 

and ... other functions that help in learning. So, I would hope that we could strengthen up this portion 

of the rule making as we move forward. Thank you.

NEIL MELICK: Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

NEIL MELICK: Is there anybody else that would like to speak?

I will ask Ron to make a couple closing statements and then see if anybody else on the panel would like 

to say anything else at this time.

RON GARDNER: Thank you, Neil. I have learned a lot this morning. I am not -- I’m not a “techie”. 

I’m not a “nerd”. I’m not whatever word people use for themselves to point out to others that they 

really understand all the technology. But I’ll tell you, I am an American citizen, and I go through life ... 

and I enjoy life. But I have to say that it’s not free from frustration. Now, this is not a pity thing, but 

dog gone it, when I hear someone like we’ve heard this morning, Gregg Vanderheiden, say every time 

we try to get specific and fix something, we’re limiting. So, without really wanting to comment too 

much on what I have learned today, I want to say to you that I have learned a lot, and it’s going to be, I 

think, interesting as we as public Board members and ... departmental Federal members on the Access 

Board, as we come together to discuss some of the things that have been talked about today, and I think 

many of the comments that we’ll receive in the future.
You know, it occurs to me that as we hear the admonition to move forward faster, it would really help 

us if you would not make any more comments and then we could ...

[LAUGHTER]

“...On the other hand,” as is stated in “Fiddler on the Roof”, “...on the other hand,” this is my plea to 

each of us here, and to as many of our fellow people who are interested in disabilities and make the 

world as accessible as possible. Please get this message out. The more comments we receive during 

this Advance Notice of Public Rulemaking, the better we have -- the better the opportunity is to get it 

right now. So that the next step will be shorter, and faster, and quicker, more appropriate, better, 

whatever adjective you want to use. Our staff is working hard, but I’m convinced they can work 

harder.

[LAUGHTER]

I don’t know if that’s possible, but I believe if we can get more, good, constructive and helpful 

comments through letter, e-mail, on the web, for Pete’s sakes, on the telephone -- whatever, there is 

still a telephone -- get those comments to us. Help us understand some of the things that we may 

have overlooked. The TEITAC committee did an admirable job. Admirable. They did a fabulous job 

and our staff has worked hard on it. I can tell you that the members of the Board are working hard on 

it, but I do understand the frustration, not only as a Board member, but I understand the frustration in 

daily life with having normal ordinary things, like a book in a library, and whether we can actually have it 

accessible or not. For Pete’s sakes, books have been around for a long time. We have the technology 

to make them accessible. Simple things, like coffee machines, so that we can have more people with 

disabilities truly able to be employees in more places. I heard one person this morning talking about 

scientific laboratories, and to make sure they’re not overlooked. Those exclusions need to be looked 

at and addressed. I truly appreciate your attendance here today. I appreciate the things that I’ve 

learned. Please spread the word. Help us get as many comments in, so we really can make that step 

shorter. I believe that’s all I have, Neil. So I’ll turn it back to you. Thank you very much.

[APPLAUSE]

NEIL MELICK: Are there any other members? You want to say something? Doug?

DOUG ANDERSON: Thank you, Neil. I just wanted to again thank everyone for your comments. I

realize it was a short period of time you had to review the Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. 

We really appreciate your participation today. Again, also just acknowledging the hard work of Tim 

and the other members of the Board staff that put this together and got this out. Thank you also for 

your hard work.

[APPLAUSE]

NEIL MELICK: Anybody else? Okay then, again as has been stated several times, please, please look 

at this and make your comments. Let’s move this thing forward as quick as we can. I appreciate you 

all being in attendance today, for your input, and your input is valuable to us. So we’ll close at this 

time.

[END OF HEARING]