OpenID Accessibility

[Martin Atkins]

I think in this case you may be starting at the wrong end.

Rather than thinking "how can we use AX to transmit accessibility 
information" we should be starting with what problem we're trying to solve.

Therefore I'd like to suggest that we figure out what practical problems 
exist today accessibility-wise and only then try to figure out whether 
OpenID can solve those problems. A good place to start would be to try 
to get some accessibility experts involved in this discussion, since I 
don't think any of "us" (the active posters on the OpenID mailing lists; 
I'm not sure who's on diso-project) are really qualified to be doing 
this. Do correct me if I'm wrong, of course!

It's probably worth reaching out to the folks in W3C's WAI group, who 
have done lots of research into the problems various folks have with the 
web, and are familiar with various kinds of assistive technologies and 
so on.

Chris Messina wrote:
> I'm reluctant to write about this, because I've been afraid of the
> answer, but I wanted to broach the subject of OpenID Accessibility.
> Google tells me that this issue has only been raised once before [1]
> and it didn't seem to dredge up much of a response.
> 
> With IIW coming up, I thought I might put in a request that
> accessibility be considered.
> 
> To this end, I'd like to throw out an idea on serving user preferences
> according to accessibility needs... namely through the use of AX. I
> can imagine an AX schema for accessibility that would allow an OP to
> request that a high contrast version of a site be displayed, or that a
> certain stylesheet be used for forms... While I imagine that much of
> these issues should be handled by the user's browser, it seems to me
> that OpenID through AX could make more specific requests of RPs to
> alter themselves to the needs of a given user.
> 
> I also wanted to bring up the issue around user flows, language and
> the like... and what the experience is like for blind people when
> they're bounced from one site to another in the OpenID flow... and how
> we could make that flow better.
> 
> Interestingly, I'd like to point out (and Derek can attest to this)
> that better and more accessible designs often improve the usability
> for typical users without special needs.
> 
> Chris
> 
> [1] http://openid.net/pipermail/general/2008-March/004324.html
>