[TYPO3-UG US] OT: Forms, accessibility (was Drupal vs. TYPO3)

[Christopher Torgalson]

On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 11:55 PM, virgil huston <virgil.huston at gmail.com> wrote:
> Regarding Section 508, the backend really doesn't apply. Section 508 is
> concerned with web site visitors with disabilities being able to make use of
> a web site. It may be a nice thing for someone with certain disabilities to
> use the backend, but the requirement for this is extremely small and not
> required by law (for sites that fall under Section 508 rules, most don't),
> it is the frontend that matters.

This is all correct. I referred so Section 508 only as an
accessibility standard that many people would be familiar with.

I wouldn't consider this anything but a
> very minor complaint about TYPO3. Thanks for your response to my question.

I have two answers to this:

1. The lack of an accessible administration area can instantly exclude
TYPO3 from consideration by clients with any but the most minimal
organizational requirements for accessibility, no matter how
well-suited TYPO3 otherwise is to the project. This can result in
higher development costs by forcing developers to shoehorn the
client's needs into an otherwise less suitable system.

2. Web accessibility practices can have a very large overlap with good
application and UI development practices (for example, if a
well-designed UI is coded in valid html, it is all but certain to meet
WAI Priority 1). There isn't really much of an argument to be made for
not incorporating such practices into new BE development.

Obviously the current BE is a product of years of development. It'd be
a huge undertaking to re-do it, and I'd say that efforts in this area
should primarily be on future development. But the original question
was about the strengths and weaknesses of TYPO3 and Drupal, and the
accessibility of administrative pages is, in general, much less of a
problem for Drupal than it is for TYPO3.


-- 
Christopher Torgalson
http://www.typo3apprentice.com/