Bobby approved?

[T.J.]

After checking my page for Bobby approval, it comes up with,

"If the Section 508 issues listed below do not apply to your page,
then it qualifies as Bobby Section 508 Approved"

How can I tell for sure if the issues listed apply?

 

[m]

After checking my page for Bobby approval, it comes up with,

"If the Section 508 issues listed below do not apply to your page,
then it qualifies as Bobby Section 508 Approved"

How can I tell for sure if the issues listed apply?

Bobby has links to the relevant articles. When you
you understand them you can determine whether
your page violates them.

Accessibility testing seems to have eluded machine representation
so far.

 

[Chris Morris]

Bobby has links to the relevant articles. When you you understand
them you can determine whether your page violates them.

You also need to check the things Bobby claims are fine. <img
src="pictureofgoat.jpg" alt="New York City"> is fine with Bobby, but
isn't accessible. It's a useful tool, but don't rely on it. Read
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www/acctools.html for a more detailed
explanation.

Accessibility testing seems to have eluded machine representation
so far.

Unsurprisingly. If an automatic process could tell if all alt
attributes were okay, then it could be written into browsers (at
least, browsers running on supercomputers), for example.

 

[m]

Unsurprisingly. If an automatic process could tell if all alt
attributes were okay, then it could be written into browsers (at
least, browsers running on supercomputers), for example.

Yes, the program would need to understand
the meaning of the material to a human. For instance:

"If you use color to convey information,
make sure the information is also represented another way."

To make a decision like that, a program would need a
human-like understanding of the content of the page to
know whether color is being used to convey information
or is being used for simply decorative purposes. (Of course,
using color for purely decorative purposes also conveys
information, but not information of the 'significant' kind.
Here we run up against the meaning to a human again.)

Work has been going on for many years in the AI commmunity
to give machines human-like understanding through
knowledgebases and rules. I don't know of any I'd even begin
to trust to make that kind of decision for me yet.