Axxlog

Time to inaugurate a new feature here on Axxlog, the Media Access Weblog with the Vaguely Risible Name: OlympicWatch™.

Yes, that old fascist Juan Antonio Samaranch has finally been deposed, but how well are things really improving in the International Olympic Committee and the host cities for the various Games?

Seasoned readers will be aware that I refer to the now-notorious case of Maguire vs. SOCOG, in which a single blind person filed a discrimination complaint against the Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games – and won. His beef? The SOCOG Web site wasn’t accessible to him as a screen-reader (also Braille-display) user.

I am not unproud of my coverage of this case, which remains definitive four years later:

• Reader’s Guide to Sydney Olympics Accessibility Complaint
• Building Accessible Websites: “Mighty Olympics vanquished!”

Right. Now let’s start with some news. Marco Battilana pigeonholed the CEO of the Vancouver Games committee concerning Web accessibility.

Mr. Furlong assured me that the Web site will certainly lead an example to the rest of the world. That once a team is in place to look after the related tasks, that certain guidelines will be followed. The site that you see right now will definitely change as the Olympics draw near.

The one actual quote from Mr. Furlong that had the most impact for me was “Never good enough.” Mr. Furlong assured me that this is the motto to be followed. That whatever is being built is continuously improved upon every step of the way…. When I can see that there has been some advancement on the accessibility of its design, I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that maybe, just maybe, I made a bit of a difference.

I will be phoning around for official comments on plans for accessibility at the official Olympic site and at the Athens Games site. Managers of both those sites, and all their contractors, have had rather a long time to get their acts together. What’s gonna happen this year, I wonder?

Well, to start off, it seems that the Athens developers have drunk at least some of the erythropoietin Kool-Aid®, since their homepage actually validates. So did all but one page I dug through there. Welcome to the 21st century, Athens!