ACCESS B OARD P UBLIC H EARING CALIFORNIA STATE U NIVERSITY AT N ORTHRIDGE (CSUN) C ONFERENCE

Manchester Grand Hyatt One Market Place San Diego, CA March 25, 2010 9:00 a.m.
– 12:00 p.m.

NEIL MELICK: G ood morning. M y 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. W e 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 thos e members here today. S o 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: T hank you, Neil. M y name is Ron Gardner. I ’m from Salt Lake City. I serve on the Board of The United States Access Board. I t’s a pleasure to be here. T his 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. N ot just for this public hearing, but for the other things going on because what happens here really does affect people

— people’s lives. P eople 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 Un ited States Access Board. T hey have truly done a wonderful job of engineering and coordinating and writing and everything. T his is the time for people with disabilities to make your suggestions known. T his is the time really to, you know, throw off thos e timid feelings. Make your comments! We have until June 21st in this public hearing time period. P lease get together those things that are important to you. R ead the rules, study the proposed rule I should say, and make your comments so that we can ma ke 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 th em 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. T he U.S. Access Board does have a chair. N eil and I are partners, but the chair is Doug Anderson. D oug, 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. S o, Doug? DOUG ANDERSON: T hanks, 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 willturn it over to John to introduce himself.

JOHN BOX: Yes. I ’m John Box public member and also resident of California. TIM CREAGAN: T im Creagan Access Board staff. NEIL MELICK: I will introduce myself again. I am Neil Melick. ELIZABETH STEWART: E lizabeth Stewart. MAZEN BASRAW I: M azen Basrawi. JOHN WYVILL: J ohn Wyvill.
KATHY MARTINEZ: Kathy Martinez on behalf of the Department of Labor. JOSEPH CIRILLO: J oe Cirillo. NEIL MELICK: G reat. B efore we get started, I would like to turn it over to Tim Creagan. H e’s been the staff lead on development of this rule. H e will give you the summary and the timeline and the process. TIM CREAGAN: T hank you, everyone. I t is a pleasure to see so many familiar faces. F or those of you who were not on the committee, we’ll give you a brief overview of rulemaking history. O riginally, there started off as an advisory committee whose acronym is Telecommunications and Electronic and Information Technology Advisory Committee, TEITAC. I t was in existence from September 2006 until April of 2008. I n April of 2008, the committee delivered to the Access Board a very detailed voluminous report of their recommendations and findings. T he 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. T hat committee worked and has now produced what we have before us today. T he Adva nce 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] T hank you. W e 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: t he staff and members of the Board will be analyzing all of the Access Board comments that we received. A ll 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. W e will amend the draft materials you see today and they wil l 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. W e always welcome that information. W hen we have completed the packet and the Board is satisfied and it has voted to approve a regulatoryassessment, the package will then b e submitted to the Office of Management and Budget. T hey will

review it for at least 90 days, and when they are satisfied, it will then be published in the Federal Register. T here will be an additional comment period and there will be a very similar proc ess like we’ll be facing today. T here 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. W e 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 wi shes to speak to sign up at the front desk. W e ask that all speakers reserve their comments to 3 to 5 minutes. T hey will become public records, and after today, they will be posted on Regulations.gov. After all the pre

- registered speakers have spoken, t here will be an open microphone. A nyone who wishes to come forward may speak in order. T he hearing will run today from approximately 9:00 until 12 noon. I f 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. T his 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. T hat’s all. T hank you, Mr. Chair.
NE IL MELICK: T hank you, Tim. Two things I want to reiterate. T his is a two

-step process. T he 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”. T hat’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 reg istered please do so. I f there are those who still want to speak, we do have an open mic at the end. S o, 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. T im, you can call the first one up. TIM CREAGAN: T hank you, Mr. Chair. M r. Shadi Abou. A re you in the room, please? W e 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. T hank you. SHADI ABOU

-ZAHRA: T hank you for the opportunity to testify with the United States Access Board on Section 508, Section 255, and the American s with Disabilities Act guidelines. M y name is Shadi Abou

-Zahra, at World Wide Web Consortium, and I am myself activity lead of the International Program Office. O ur comments today are preliminary as I’ve had just a few days to study the Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in the ANPRM. W e 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. H armonization of standards is crucial for achieving more rapid progress in make the web accessible for people with disabilities. T his can p revent conflict and technical requirements for developers and prevent contradictory expectations for consumers. W e’re looking closely at section, at sub

-section E107, on harmonization. W ith the standard the approach is intended to support harmonization o n existing requirements; however, wewant to carefully assess the impact of this section as currently proposed, which includes the number of

requirements in addition to Level AA (“double A”). I n addition, we want to assess the impact of a number of significantly diverging requirements with provisions in Chapters 4, 5 and 6. T hese chapters cover platforms, applications, interactive content, electronic documents and synchronized media content and players. F or instance, could the requirements that have been added to section E107 create confusion for developers and monitors? M ight 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 t hat would ensure support for the production of accessible content. T here 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 provision s. W e’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. W e will send further comm ents in further review. T hank you. TIM CREAGAN: T he next speaker is Mr. Curtis Chung. CURTIS CHUNG: G ood morning. You have to get awful close to this. M y name is Curtis Chung and I am the president of the National Federation of the Blind in Comput er 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 th is was a very difficult task. I n the main, I want to say a couple things. F irst 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. T here are still accessibility issues in specifics that happen on the day

-to
- day job. You can have all of the wonderful technical requ irements 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?” A nd the answer is: “ It’ s still a mixed bag.” T here’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. W e 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 e nough and we would ask that consideration be given to including displays, electronic displays of information, things that show when you’re going to leave, whenyou’re going to arrive

— because for the blind, this is incredibly important. A nd this needs to be

added, not just self

-service machines. One thing to note: T here’re some exceptions that are mentioned in the Advanced Notice of Proposed Rule

- Making with regard to self

-service machines. T here’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. W e 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. F or example, one of the sections refers to closed devices, with closed functionality, which includes a self

-service machine. A nd therefore, we don’t think that the self

-service devices should be exempted from requirements that apply to devices with closed functionality. Asecond exemption, exception has to do with drive

- up self

-service machines. D rive ups. W e do not understand why drive

- up self

-service machines are exempted from a requirement to be accessible. W e 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 the se devices, drive up self

-service machines, are exempted. I f they are, that says something that we wish it didn’t say. I t 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, fro m a drive up location as it is from anybody else. S o 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 one s. NEIL MELICK: I f 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: T hank you. CURTIS CHUNG: A nd 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. T hank you very much. NEIL MELICK: T hank you. TIM CREAGAN: M r. Peter Korn. PETER KORN: G ood 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. F or making it an advanced draft, an d 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. I t is very gratifying that all of that hard work has been clearly carefully reviewed and largely brought forward. A nd 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 whi ch I have not yet fully memorized. I noticed...RON GARDNER: T here’s still time. [LAUGHTER}

PETER KORN: I noticed some things that came in from the e

- mails. I t makes the long nights that we put into this feel quite worthwhile. O ne, to phrase a few thi ngs 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. T hat clarification was something surely needed in our TEITAC discussions and i t’s very welcome. E 107 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. T he 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. A nd 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. O ne 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. F inally, like others in the industry, we will be doing a careful revi ew 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. T hank you. [APPLAUSE] TIM CREAGAN: M r. Douglas Loo? For those of you that signed up, we wil l 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. M r. Joel Snyder. JOEL SNYDER: G ood morning. M y 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. Abit 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. S ince then, I wrote and voiced the descript ion for several of the first described television broadcasts on WGBH. A nd then, for five years, directed for the National Captioning Institute

— producing description for television network, productions, movies, in movie theaters, dozens of episodes of Se same Street. I have trained 34 describers in D.C., and two dozen countries. T hank 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 ac cess for blind people to government sponsored media and film. I n Audio Description, there’s a requirement, and what exists for government response order media is minimal. A nd it really must expand. S o 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. O ne is a suggestion and one is a strong concern. F irst a suggestion. W hile 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. I t 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 access ed at all right now, and it’s almost a year now after the nation’s switch to digital transmission. S o 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. N ow, 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. T hey will alleviate that lack of access. NEIL MELICK: Start wrapping it up. JOEL SNYDER: I will wrap up it with my main item here. T he 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. I t is practically always, except when the text has been brailed, delivered as audio. N o matter the format it serves, there’s established Federal precedent i n the government for the phrase “Audio Description”. F or 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 understa nd 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’?” T hat’s not going to work. I n closing, “Audio Description” is no longer itself in infancy. I ts use i s growing and, as a field, we’re growing up, but it is still under

- known among its potential users. N owhere near with captions. W e 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”. O ne phrase that can be universally applied helps people know this important easy is service and know what to call it. T hank you. [APPLAUSE] TIM CREAGAN: T he next. T hank you. O kay. T he next speaker is Alex Li.
ALEX LI. G ood morning Access Board. M y name is Alex Li. I almost got the hundred pages memorized. I do not have my own speech memorized. P ardon me for reading from my own screen. On behalf of the Micros oft 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. W e also want to thank the Access Board staff for the collaborative effort for the last couple years. W e 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. M icrosoft has astrong commitment in making pro ducts accessible. W e 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. W hile 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 h ere 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 futu re 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: T hank you. [APPLAUSE] TIM CREAGAN: M s Terry Weaver. TERRY WEAVER: G ood 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 wit hin GSA. F or the past ten years, we have been working with the Access Board to provide technical assistance. S o 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. I t 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 a d hoc committee and I share, with Neil and Ron, the amazement with the board’s commitment, the staff members. T hey 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 Ac cess Board in working with the

-- they cover a lot of areas. We just had the opportunity. T hey see excitement within the Federal space of how to interpret the standards. W e look at new provisions and they’re far more detailed and going from 66 provision s to, I don’t know, a couple hundred? I t’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 governmen t 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. B ut giving them simple rules, and recognizing the importance and the clarity tha t 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. T he 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. T hank you. NEIL MELICK: T hank you. [APPLAUSE] TIM CREAGAN: T hank 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. I t 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. Alot 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 equipmen t like spectrometers. A nd 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 as ked 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 emph asis on the idea that this is more than just computers. F or 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. W hen you start looki ng at equipment like oscilloscopes and spectrometers, the lab, maybe that content format that’s being given doesn’t really apply to that. A nd again, it’s kind of a visual thing that I’m trying to address is

-- is something to give the engineers and scient ists in the labs the idea that this is broader than just computers. Just one other thing I noticed. T hat 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 maint enance 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. A nd again, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you. NEIL MELICK: T hank you. TIM CREAGAN: T hank you. [APPLAUSE] D aniel Goldstein. Daniel Goldstein. G ood morning. M y name is Daniel Goldstein of the firm of Brown, Goldstein in Baltimore. T hank you very, very much for this extraordinary revision. I want to focus on one particular advisory at 302.1 and in particular to the discussi on of visual rights and management technology. A nd 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.” A nd th en the next statement is “...An alternative best practice ... for publishers [is] to provide an alternate format which is compatible with assistive technology.” T hat 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. U p to now publishers have concern about what can happen to capturing a text while it’s in the buffer between the book and the Ass istive Technology, this grant access software. M y concern with that sentence is this: I know what lawyers can do. A nd the statement that an alternate format is accessible is an invitation to a text dump without structural data and that’s exactly where t he 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. T he reason I make

-- so, yo u have to say if you’re going to allow separate

— and I wish you wouldn’t, but Iunderstand why you are

— if you’re going to allow separate, that separate has to be equal. A nd, the

other way to approach this that I would point out is that if the book is b eing presented by a player of some kind, then the DRM doesn’t necessarily have to work with Assistive Technology. R ather the player could provide the text to speech. S o that’s another alternative, if the DRM is inaccessible, or if the book is being acces sed 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. T hank you. NEIL MELICK: T hank you. [APPLAUSE] TIM CREAGAN: D r. Gregg Vanderheiden. GREGG VANDERHEIDEN: H i. 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. A nd so we’ll reserve detailed comments until we have a ch ance 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. T his 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. I f 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. O ne, that the interfaces we have today are much more varied. W e have gesture. We have other kinds of things going on where we had no guidance before. I t was ve ry hard to have a specific guideline that would say how you will deal with these until we have more experience. B ut if you just say something general, then how are people going to be able to meet with it? S econdly, we’re seeing new strategies come forward. I f 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. I t’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. S o 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. S o I hop e 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. T hi s one has been written to last a long time. T hat’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. A nd it doesn’t just basically skate by because we didn’t have a specific rule for it. S o once again, I want to thank you and say as we go forward, let’s think about that aspect really carefully because this wa s so much work and if we can do a really good job, then, ah, it will last for a long time. T hank you very much. NEIL MELICK: T hank you. [APPLAUSE]TIM CREAGAN: I ask for Mr. Douglas Loo. M r. Douglas Loo?

Mr. Chairman, it’s time. NEIL MELICK: W e 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. J ust 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. S o you can get with staff and get information on that. A lso, we’ll be holding another public hearin g during this public comment period probably on the east coast later, like I said, later in the public comment period. S o look for that. A nd please, please even though there’s not been much comment to date, please make sure, as Ron said, get an opportuni ty to read this, review the text, the public comments, you know, to us so we can make this the best we can. T here were a lot of great comments. I took notes, and lots of information, we’ll be looking into that. W ith that, we’ll do open mic. TIM CREAGA N: M r. Chairman, I believe we just had someone sign in. J ust come on up, because at this points we proceeding with the open mic. A nyone who wishes to speak, come up and approach the table. T hank you. I f the speakers would please identify your name and your affiliation. T hank you. GREG LOWNEY: M y name is Greg Lowney. I have my own consulting business, Lowney Access Research business. I was with a very big software company. A nd 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. I n 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. B ut 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. A nd, 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. S omething that is lip

-service, rather than something which is really embraced. A nd we can see that in the accessi bility field today. I f 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 fo rward in terms of user needs. S o my experience has taught me that self

- evaluation and self

- reporting simply does not work. A nd 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. A nd I will keep it short and I will leave it at that. T hank you. TIM CREAGAN: T hank you. [AP PLAUSE] NEIL MELICK: At this time, if anybody would like to come forward and state your name. DAVE ANDREWS: G ood morning. M y name is Dave Andrews. I ’m with Minnesota State Services forthe Blind. I have not yet read the revised rules. I intend to d o so, but have not done so. B ut 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 Secti on 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. S o, 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. B ut 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? I t’s going to affect other things outside of Federal government. I t becomes all that much more important. Thank you. NEIL MELICK: T hank you. TIM CREAGAN: T hank you. [APPLAUSE]
BRATIK BATEL: T hank you. G ood morning. M y 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 busines s needs. T he 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. A nd 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. A nd I would like to do this with minimal cost associated with them. S o 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 techno logies on mobile telephones that currently cost 400 to $450 apiece can add cost to small businesses that can be significantly high. A nd for us to ensure that we can hire as many individuals with disabilities, to lower the rate of unemployment among that p opulation, 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 t hat another individual highlighted earlier this morning. I n addition, I would like to commend the Board to attempt to converge standards including Section 255 to double A compliance. T his 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. S o I will end my comments there and we’ll send additional comments in writing once everything has been rev iewed. Thank you. NEIL MELICK: T hank you. TIM CREAGAN: T hank you.[APPLAUSE]

ALICE SMITH: H i. I ’m Alice Smith and I’m attending the conference as a speaker. W e 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. M y comments are my own. S o, 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 dis appointed that a loophole the size of California is still in the regulation and has not been tightened up. A nd what I’m talking about is the market research for “most accessible product”. W hat I’m finding in practice is that it has turned into a paper ex ercise. I t’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 th at product into the system, despite the fact it is inaccessible. W e see a lot of market research documentation saying this is the only product that meets our business needs. W e have

-- we’re not experts in the products, and we have no resources that vali date that what they’re telling us is actually the case. S o I’m very frustrated that this doesn’t have any back up, that you didn’t go a little further to tighten this up. S o what I’m doing here at the Department of Homeland Security is once we accept som ething 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. S o I understand the reason for this “most compliant product”, but it’s not doing what it was designed to do. I t’s not ... making the vendors increase the accessibility of their product. I t’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. T hank you very much. [APPLAUSE] TIM CREAGAN: N ext speaker, please. LUIS A. MENDEZ: G ood morning. Can everybody hear me? TIM CREAGAN: Can you please put the microphone a little closer to you? LUIS A. MENDEZ: I s this better? TIM CREAGAN: Yes. T hank you. LUIS A. MENDEZ: M y 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 env ironmental law. A nd 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 forci ng, 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. S o too, I believe, that pro cesses, 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. A nd so I was concerned today when I heard a number of speakers address ing 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 pro mote the greater public good, but this is particularly true of any lawwhich, 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. S o, 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 technolo gy 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. T hank you. [APPLAUSE] TIM CREAGAN: T hank you. W e don’t have

-- oh, wait. W e have two people approaching. LAURIE VASQUEZ: I ’m th rilled to be here and thank you for being here and allowing us an opportunity to speak with you. M y name is Laurie Vasquez. I am a technology specialist. I work in Santa Barbara City College. W e’re one of 120 city colleges in California. M y role as an Assistive Technology Specialist

— I would like to give you an end

- user perspective. H aving 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. S o I appreciate the tim e and effort that you have put into this second process. I n 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. S o from an instructio nal 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. W hat 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 universa lly accessible to our students. B ut 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. I f they’re choosing video, audio, course management systems, you are probably using five or six: D esire to Learn, Angel, and A2. A nd 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. T hank you.
NEIL MELICK: T hank you. TIM CREAGAN: T hank you. [APPLAUSE] PHILLIP JENKINS: H ello. M y name is Phill Jenkins. I ’m also a member of the Board there, a publicmember of the U.S. Access Board. I ’m also employed by IBM and also work on the elections system s 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. O ne, 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. S econd 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? T he challenge: t he TEITAC took a long time to produce its regulations, a long time

-- more than a year. I t’s been almost two years since that was provided to the Board and published. A nd technology is continuing to change and, as many folks mention here, rapidly changing and perhaps accelerating. S o 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. W e want to be

- - we want the se to be the best regulations that we can make them, but sometimes that’s in direct conflict with the rapid pace of technology innovation. S o, 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. I f 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 ori ginal 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. T hank you. [APPLAUSE] TIM CREAGAN: T here’s someo ne here who wishes to make a comment. T he next speaker if you will come up, please. R eminder: s peakers, when you come up, please identify yourselves and any affiliation that you have. M a’am, we welcome you before the committee today. PINA D’INTINO: T hank you. G ood morning. M y 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. I n countries like Canada, we rely heavily on what is bein g done in the states to move forward our own agenda. In Ontario, specifically, we have an initiative to make Ontario fully accessible by 2025. H aving 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. S o we really would like to urge, where we can expedite, where we can harmonize better global standards, that this be taken into consideration. T he same applies in regards to global representation. S cotia 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 th ink 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. T hank you.NEIL MELICK: T hank you.

[APPLAUSE]
J ust a brief comment on the process. T here’s probably this Board, and especially this committee, wants to get out as quick as possible. I understand that. I t has been an on

-going process through the TEITAC and ad hoc. W e are guided by Federal regulation

. S o 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. T hat’s not an issue on our part. We have another speaker. GEORGE KERSCHER: H ello. M y name is George Kerscher. I ’m Presid ent of the International Digital Publishing Forum. T hat’s the organization that creates the standards for ePub, eBooks. A lso, I am Secretary General for the Daisy Consortium, which works internationally on the standards. D aisy Consortium and ePubs are h armonizing, 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. E ither self

- hosting applications, even on lightweight handheld devices, is certainly possible to day. A nd 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 publ ishers prize accessible content. S o 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. S o, I would hope that we could strengthen up this portion of the rule making as we move forward. T hank you. NEIL MELICK: T hank you. [APPLAUSE] NEIL MELICK: I s 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: T hank 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. B ut I’ll tell you, I am an American citizen, and I go through life ... and I enjoy life. B ut I have to say that it’s not free from fr ustration. N ow, 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. S o, without really wanting to comment too much on w hat 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 tha t 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

. P lease get this message out. T he 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. S o that the next step will be shorter, and faster, and quicker, more ap propriate, better, whatever adjective you want to use. O ur 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 lette r, e - mail, on the web, for Pete’s sakes, on the telephone

-- whatever, there is still a telephone

-- get those comments to us. H elp us understand some of the things that we may have overlooked. T he TEITAC committee did an admirable job. Admirable. T hey 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 norma l ordinary things, like a book in a library, and whether we can actually have it accessible or not. F or Pete’s sakes, books have been around for a long time. W e have the technology to make them accessible. S imple 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. T hose exclusions need to be looked at and addressed. I tru ly appreciate your attendance here today. I appreciate the things that I’ve learned. P lease spread the word. H elp us get as many comments in, so we really can make that step shorter. I believe that’s all I have, Neil. S o I’ll turn it back to you. T ha nk you very much. [APPLAUSE] NEIL MELICK: A re there any other members? You want to say something? D oug? DOUG ANDERSON: T hank you, Neil. I just wanted to again thank everyone for your comments. I realize it was a short period of time you had to rev iew 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. T hank you also for your hard work. [APPLAUSE] NEIL MELICK: A nybody else? O kay 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. S o we’ll close at this time. [END OF HEARING]