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[Solved] 2 quick questions

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Michael Hauk asked on 10 Oct 2008, 09:59 AM

Hi,

I got 2 questions.

1) Is there a 64Bit version of the Telerik controls that runs nativ on x64 or i64?

2) On the Testpage http://demos.telerik.com/ASPNET/Prometheus/Editor/Examples/Default/DefaultCS.aspx#
is a WCAG 1.0 Logo at the end of the page.
But the WCAG page says:
1.1 Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element (e.g., via "alt", "longdesc", or in element content). This includes: images, graphical representations of text (including symbols), image map regions, animations (e.g., animated GIFs), applets and programmatic objects, ascii art, frames, scripts, images used as list bullets, spacers, graphical buttons, sounds (played with or without user interaction), stand-alone audio files, audio tracks of video, and video.
6.3 Ensure that pages are usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported. If this is not possible, provide equivalent information on an alternative accessible page.
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/full-checklist.html

As for me the Rad Editor didnt work without javascript, it cant even show content.
Did i do something wrong?

10 Answers, 1 is accepted

answered on 22 Oct 2008, 05:07 PM

Instead of using fancy Validators you should have used your brains and disabled javascript to see if it still worked(it doesnt).

http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/

6.3 Ensure that pages are usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported. If this is not possible, provide equivalent information on an alternative accessible page. [Priority 1]

Conformance Level "A": all Priority 1 checkpoints are satisfied;
Conformance Level "Double-A": all Priority 1 and 2 checkpoints are satisfied;
Conformance Level "Triple-A": all Priority 1, 2, and 3 checkpoints are satisfied;

I tried it with Firefox as well as IE, without javascript none of your compnents i tested worked, that means none of them, even those claiming conformance level AAA even conform to level A.

answered on 24 Oct 2008, 03:43 PM

Hi Michael,

Yes, most of our controls do not work by default with disabled javascript, but please note that without enabled javascript it is not possible to provide complete end-user experience. The good news is that there are workarounds and some of them are covered in blog posts:

RadMenu for ASP.NET Ajax - Working with disabled JavaScript

Telerik RadGrid Section 508 Compliance

RadCombobox with disabled javascript.

Most of the times workarounds do exist so the control is partially usable when JavaScript is disabled. We have ideas how to degrade our controls when javascript is disabled and we will try to implement them or document them for the next releases.

Best regards,
Rumen
the Telerik team

Check out Telerik Trainer, the state of the art learning tool for Telerik products.

answered on 24 Oct 2008, 08:34 PM

http://www.telerik.com/products/aspnet-ajax/accessibility.aspx
you claim WCAG conformance evel A even for Rad AJAX (asynchronous JAVASCRIPT and xml) i'd really love to see how you make it work without javascript.
you do not mention that your customers need to apply workarounds anywhere in the descriptions on demos.telerik.com and i also couldn't find it in the Online Documentation. It looks like you are trying to fool potential customers into thinking your controls conform to the WCAG without any workarounds.

http://blogs.telerik.com/AtanasKorchev/Posts/08-10-02/RadMenu_for_ASP_NET_Ajax_-_Working_with_disabled_JavaScript.aspx
nice, but would it also work without stylesheets?

6.1 Organize documents so they may be read without style sheets. For example, when an HTML document is rendered without associated style sheets, it must still be possible to read the document. [Priority 1]

"Most of the times workarounds do exist so the control is partially usable when JavaScript is disabled. We have ideas how to degrade our controls when javascript is disabled and we will try to implement them or document them for the next releases."
"Most of the times workarounds do exist"...unless you put them into the usermanuals they dont really count because they aren't part of the product. "patially usable"...the whole WCAG are about providing equaly functionality not partial functionality, if it doesnt look as good without javascript thats fine, but it really should provide equal functionality.
"we will try to implement them or document them for the next releases."... you are claiming conformance for this realease and you probably did so for several releases before.

Basically youre saying your components conform to the WCAG because someone could theoretically figure out a way to use them without breaking the guidelines, although you dont know for sure if such a way exists.

i think its time for you to remove all claims of WCAG conformance and post and apology to your customers.

answered on 27 Oct 2008, 09:47 AM

Hi Michael,

Accessibility standards and to what extent and how they can be covered with the available "arsenal" of web technologies is a vast topic. It is not the first time that such a discussion is raised - and Telerik RadControls have gone a long way to meet as many accessibility requirements as possible. We completely agree that there is more to be done - and we continue to improve our products in this area. However, here is some practical knowledge that we have gathered from our experience with accessibility so far:

- Accessibility and rich functionality are at great odds. In fact, examining the specifications in detail leads to the conclusion that information, rather than rich functionality is the key requirement. However, what we do at Telerik is produce presentation layer components. If you are an accessibility purist, you will not be using any such presentation layer controls as they could never satisfy the AAA requirements. What we have done, however, is do our best to bring our presentation layer control to a level where they can be useful in an accessible website - but not take care of the site's accessibility per ce. Accessibility transcends the controls - it requires adequate support from the client (e.g. the browser), it requires a specific way of organizing the site framework, its content - etc. To claim that the controls are solely responsible is not correct.

- As I mentioned we have been approached with questions on accessibility before - mostly by corporate customers or by governmental institutions for which meeting certain requirements is a must. The approach that has proven effective when such enquiries have come has been to ask them about their specific scenarios - and what capabilities our controls miss in those particular scenarios. Having this information has helped us add specific features, and provide specific advice for those customers so as to meet their requirements. This is, in fact, how most of the accessibility capabilities of Telerik RadControls suite have been implemented. Again, it is instrumental to remember that Accessibility support is not something universal that can be taken out of the context of the application and pushed onto the UI control level.

That said, our customers who have contacted us with real-life scenarios so far have appreciated our help and explanations. We would gladly discuss your scenario as well, in case you are developing such an application yourself - and see where our controls can fit in. But to be of use, we really need to focus on discussing specific scenarios, and not the abstract text of a document.

Since your account was registered in the day of your original post, and you have not downloaded any of our controls, we do not have any information about your company's profile, projects and focus. So far you have not provided information about your scenario either - hence right now we are unable to continue our discussion in a productive manner. I wish to assure you, however, that our customers with accessibility criteria has found our help useful - in fact some have admitted they would not have been able to implement their applications with a different control suite, and would have had to stick with basic HTML instead.

We do plan to keep to the Accessibility logos in our products, and continue to help customers with actual requirements, as well as improve the products when contacted with specific scenarios.

Sincerely yours,
Tervel
the Telerik team

Check out Telerik Trainer, the state of the art learning tool for Telerik products.

answered on 27 Oct 2008, 01:45 PM

@Vlad the W3C validation services don't cover all of the WCAG, right now there is no way they could.
Let me give you an example that should be easy to understand:
"1.1 Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element (e.g., via "alt", "longdesc", or in element content). This includes: images,...[Priority 1]"
So let's assume you have a picture of a cat on your page, but the longdesc says "green chair", the validator would still say its valid, although you can clearly see that its not. The validator only checks for the existence of any longdesc or alt or whatever attribute.

I hope you get my point.

The WCAG also requires that all functionality still exists if Javascript is disabled. An automated validator cant possibly tell apart what parts of a Javascript are vital for functionality and which are only about appearance like making the mouse cursor look different.

As for RadAJAX, that "j" in Ajax stands for "Javascript", do you think it will work without Javascript, as required for conformance level-A?

Im getting tired of explaining it over and over again. Please just work through the checkpoints in the WCAG manually and see for yourself.

@Tervel
"If you are an accessibility purist, you will not be using any such presentation layer controls as they could never satisfy the AAA requirements."
http://www.telerik.com/products/aspnet-ajax/accessibility.aspx
Look at the bottom of the page, you claim AAA for 5 of your controls.
"We do plan to keep to the Accessibility logos in our products"

You mean your products don't conform the WCAG and you know about it, but you won't stop telling everyone that they do conform the WCAG?

answered on 30 Oct 2008, 07:54 AM

Hi Michael,

Your points are essentially correct and we do not argue against those. But we count on agreeing on the important distinction between controls and complete applications. The two are of completely different scope - and Telerik sells UI components, while what you make accessible is applications. Controls are the application building blocks. The Accessibility specification deals explicitly with the page level, not with is building blocks.

In a way, demanding the components (e.g. the building blocks) on their own to make your application accessible is similar to claiming that a 30-meter-tall building can only be built with 30-meter-tall bricks. As mentioned earlier, building an accessible application is a task that greatly transcends the use of UI components. RadControls provide application developers with various accessibility-related features - semantic rendering, shortuct support, AccessKey support, title, various other features (which vary accross controls).

To summarize my point, I strongly believe that to continue the discussion in a meaningful manner, we need to focus on specific scenarios in a specific application - as the Accessibility specification is about applications.

Best wishes,
Tervel
the Telerik team

Check out Telerik Trainer, the state of the art learning tool for Telerik products.

answered on 30 Oct 2008, 02:34 PM

"Your points are essentially correct and we do not argue against those. But we count on agreeing on the important distinction between controls and complete applications. The two are of completely different scope - and Telerik sells UI /*components*/, while what you make accessible is /*applications*/. Controls are the application building blocks. The Accessibility specification deals explicitly with the page level, not with is building blocks."
Okay, then you should stop explicitly telling your customers that your UI components comply with the WCAG. In fact they make it impossible for any application that relies on them to to comply with the WCAG!!!

"In a way, demanding the components (e.g. the building blocks) on their own to make your application accessible is similar to claiming that a 30-meter-tall building can only be built with 30-meter-tall bricks."
It's more like demanding the foundation of said building to be strong enough to support the whole buildings weight.

"To summarize my point, I strongly believe that to continue the discussion in a meaningful manner, we need to focus on specific scenarios in a specific application - as the Accessibility specification is about applications."
Not long ago i had the opportunity to work on a web application, the customer wanted it to comply with WCAG Level-AA. (They also wanted it to be written in PHP, but thats not the point here so lets pretend it was an ASP.NET application) I would have looked around the internet for UI components i could use for the project. I would have found TelerikRadControls and thought "Great, i can use those controls, some of them even for Level-AAA", the rest of the application would have been mostly HTML and i wouldn't have bothered check the RadControls for their conformance. I would have finished the application, given it to the customer and they would have thought i was trying to rip them off trying to give them an application that doesn't even reach Level-A when i had signed a contract to deliver an application that reached Level-AA.

To summarize my point:
RadControls do NOT conform to WCAG!!!
You already said in this thread that its impossible for products like yours to conform to Level-AAA, you also said that i was right about the rest.
On your web page and in the documentation you still say they DO conform to WCAG, some even to Level-AAA.
What i want you to do: change your web page and documentation so it no longer says your controls do conform to the WCAG.

If you still don't see it my way i suggest you change this threads title to "RadControls and WCAG compliance".