United States Access Board Public Hearing on the Information and 

Communications Technologies Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ICT NPRM) 

U.S. Access Board Town Hall Meeting, Salt Lake City, Utah. April 29, 2015 

Page 1 of 6

[The public hearing on the ICT NPRM was the third of four items on the 

agenda during a Town Hall meeting held by the Access Board at Salt Lake 

City, Utah.]

[Hearing commences] 

>>SACHIN PAVITHRAN: All right. We have two items remaining on the 

agenda. The next item is the public hearing on the Information and 

Communications Technology Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ICT 

NPRM). We have had two public hearings on this rule already. We had 

one at the CSUN conference in San Diego and one in Washington D.C. in our 

offices. This rule was published in the Federal Register on February 27 and 

it is still open for public comments.

At this time, if there is anyone in the audience who would like to make a 

comment in regards to this particular rule, we would like to open it up for 

that right now. I would like to keep the length of the comments for this 

hearing limited to five minutes. If you want to make a comment, please let 

us know and we will either get a microphone to you, or we will ask you to 

come forward to the table. 

>>SPEAKER: Sachin, can I ask a question? Do we get to comment on the 

previous speakers? And if so, when is that?

>>SACHIN PAVITHRAN: We will have comments about the panelists who 

spoke on the two prior panels during the Open Microphone Session which 

will begin after this public hearing. 

>>SPEAKER: So in how long do you think? An hour? 

>>SACHIN PAVITHRAN: This public hearing should be done in 15 minutes, I 

would say. We are now starting the public hearing on the ICT NPRM. Go 

ahead, Cyndi.
United States Access Board Public Hearing on the Information and 

Communications Technologies Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ICT NPRM) 

U.S. Access Board Town Hall Meeting, Salt Lake City, Utah. April 29, 2015 

Page 2 of 6

>>CYNDI ROWLAND: Of course, I couldn’t not comment to this august 

group on this issue; this is certainly what we live and breathe at Utah State 

in WebAim.

So, to the members of the Access Board, I'm providing public comment on 

behalf of two organizations today. Both are projects out of Utah State 

University as you know, and both focus on issues of Web accessibility 

within the broader topic of electronic and information technology covered 

by the section 508 standards. The first is WebAIM, long respected in the 

Web accessibility community. The second is the National Center on 

Disability and Access to Education or NCDAE, one of the many groups 

providing web accessibility expertise to the communities.

It should be noted, I did not mention it earlier, but the NCDAE was an 

invited member of the TEITAC that made recommendations to the U.S.

Access Board regarding the Refresh of the new Section 508 that’s before us 

all now, I guess. That work was conducted from 2006 to 2008. The Access 

Board first published the initial Section 508 E&IT standards almost 15 years 

ago. I know you have heard this before, haven't you? Once in place, the 

standard helped many understand the federal floor for Web accessibility 

and how to attain it; with that said as technologies changed the standard 

was quickly outdated. This made it problematic for the web accessibility 

community. Shortly after the Section 508 rule was promulgated for E&IT, 

those implementing web accessibility found that following the standard 

could mean that creating the Web designs, applications or content could 

result in less than optimal accessibility. Not that the standard was wrong, 

but that it was insufficient to provide an accessible user experience for 

many with disabilities. The culprit was a set of standards based on specific 

technologies gone out of date or never fully implemented in ways originally 

envisioned.
United States Access Board Public Hearing on the Information and 

Communications Technologies Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ICT NPRM) 

U.S. Access Board Town Hall Meeting, Salt Lake City, Utah. April 29, 2015 

Page 3 of 6

In fairness, the international community was plagued with the very same 

problems. For example, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 1.0 

was created with specific technologies in mind too. Recognizing the

problem, the community moved forward with new international guidelines 

from W3C. The development of the WCAG Web Content Accessibility 

Guideline 2.0 moved away from the problematic technology based 

guidelines, to ones that were grounded in principals of accessibility. This 

approach, which is intended to be neutral to future technology, has been 

widely accepted.

However, the finalization of WCAG 2.0 in 2008 created a wider gap 

between the federal government standard for Web accessibility and those 

accepted in the international community. The U.S. Access Board initiated 

the work of TEITAC to address the problems above and refresh the 

standards in 2006, with the set of final recommendations submitted to the 

Access Board in 2008.

The current proposed standard addresses major concerns noted above, 

including the need to harmonize the standard within the international 

community. But let me say again, the US Access Board has had 

recommendations to update a failing standard since 2008. Seven years of 

known solutions for existing problems is too long. We recognize 

rulemaking is a labor intensive, time intensive process, but this is too 

long. While there may be issues debated in the current version, it is the 

opinion of both WebAIM and NCDAE that the proposed 508 standard for 

web accessibility must be passed and must be passed now without 

delay. We cannot allow the old standard to continue, as vendors further 

develop to that which we know creates insufficient user experiences for 

many with disabilities. As Voltaire said: “better is the enemy of good.” The 
United States Access Board Public Hearing on the Information and 

Communications Technologies Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ICT NPRM) 

U.S. Access Board Town Hall Meeting, Salt Lake City, Utah. April 29, 2015 

Page 4 of 6

field can no longer afford to tweak and improve this proposed set of 

standards any longer as there would be no end. Also we believe them to be 

a solid set of standards. While the field waits guidance from U.S. Access 

Board, the lives of individuals with disabilities are affected in real ways, 

each day. Please finalize this proposed standard now. Thank you.

>>SACHIN PAVITHRAN: Thank you Cyndi. Any more individuals that would 

like to testify in regards to this particular rule? Sure – Please state your 

name.

>>VICKI FLAKE: Mr. Chair? May I approach a moment? I will get to the mic 

so you can hear. Does it matter which one?

>>SACHIN PAVITHRAN: No.

>>VICKI FLAKE: I'm Vicki Flake. I'm here with Utah Council of the Blind. I 

agree with the previous comment it is really critical that we do pass a new 

standard, an up to date standard, and pass it immediately. I also would like 

to be sure that as we do this, that we enforce it on the level of state 

governments. Being here in Utah, and having been involved with blind 

computer access, I have been a trainer for advanced computer skills for the 

blind for many years now, and I find one of my greatest frustrations is that 

the websites in our state that deal with getting jobs are not accessible, not 

adequately accessible to our blind consumers. So I would like to encourage 

us to enforce these standards on our state governments. In Utah in 

particular, that would be the Department of Workforce Services and State

Jobs website. We thank you for being here, by the way; we are just glad to 

have you here.

>>ROSE MARIE BUNALES: For the record, could you please spell your 

name? --
United States Access Board Public Hearing on the Information and 

Communications Technologies Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ICT NPRM) 

U.S. Access Board Town Hall Meeting, Salt Lake City, Utah. April 29, 2015 

Page 5 of 6

>>VICKI FLAKE: Vicki L. Flake.

>>SACHIN PAVITRAN: Is there anyone else that would like to testify in 

regards to this ICT rule?

>>MONICA YOUNGDELL: I would rather not sit. My name is Monica 

Youngdell. I'm a Board member of the Utah Council of the Blind and I am 

also a Salt Lake County delegate for my county. I’ve also been a graduate of 

DSBVI since 1998 and I have worked independently with Eric Carillo, who I 

believe is here today. He is a teacher and trainer. I am pleased with his 

efforts to go out of his way, and I am pleased with the efforts of Board 

members and the blind community and other outreach communities who 

have come out of their way. The Americans with Disabilities Act is 

supposed to help all people with disabilities. That includes blind, visually 

impaired, Deaf, hard of hearing, people that are mute or, I don't know what 

the formal word, but with a speech impediment. But everything, people 

that are quads, quadriplegic.

So let me suggest, that the law, that is being passed right now, requires

that the website stay up to date with the technology that is coming 

out. Because it is racing at not a snail’s pace, but racing very fast and the 

children, even not just the adults and teenagers, but the children are 

expected to keep up at school at rapid rate because everybody is coming 

down to smart phones, iPods, iPads, iTouch -- you name it, all these user 

friendly things to the sighted people. That is great if you click on the yellow 

image for someone with big thick glasses that can see the color yellow. For 

me that is not accessible or I can't click on right arrow or left arrow unless 

the screen reader navigates to the arrow to the right and says “yellow 

arrow” and has to verbalize everything because I have lost all my vision in 

the right eye and 99%, basically I just have light perception, in the left eye.
United States Access Board Public Hearing on the Information and 

Communications Technologies Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ICT NPRM) 

U.S. Access Board Town Hall Meeting, Salt Lake City, Utah. April 29, 2015 

Page 6 of 6

So this law that you are talking about, the new law, it has to pass, because 

you know, how are they ever going to expect us to be real members of 

society, when they force us as a general public to keep up with their mass 

transition high technology? Please pass this law. Thank you.

>>ROSE MARIE BUNALES: Miss Monica, could you spell your last name 

please?

MONICA YOUNGDELL: Oh excuse me, I’m sorry. My last name is Youngdell, 

Y-o-u-n-g-d-e-l-l.

>>SACHIN PAVITHRAN: Thank you, Ms. Youngdell. Are there any other 

individuals that would like to speak? We will close this hearing now. 

[Hearing ends.]