E-Mail reservation as conforming alternative version?

[detlevhfischer]

Hi,
There is a football website for wheelchair users that is fully accessible apart from 3rd party content in an iframe that loads a form for reserving football tickets for one of the next three games. This form apparently cannot or will not be made fully accessible, so the site owner integrating it claims.

The question was posed if providing an alternative reservation option via email on that page with the not fully accessible form in the iframe could count as a conforming alternative version so the site can be called conformant, and under what conditions.

The problem is that the dates and details (who plays?) for the next three games for which tickets can be reserved are displayed in the (not fully accessible) iframe and cannot be extracted for an alternative display outside of it. So, using the alternative E-Mail-based reservation process would rely on users being able to read the content in the iframe. If there are no issues with doing just that (because issues may relate to other aspects, say, the form field markup or error handling further down), could that be deemed acceptable in terms of Conformance requirement 1 (5.2.1 Conformance Level) if the conforming alternative version is clearly labelled as such ?

And more generally, can the alternative mail protocol, triggered by activating an accessible mailto link, ever count as an alternative for a web-based process (the user may not have an email account installed on the machine they are using?) My hunch is it cannot.

Any opinions?

A WG response clarifying the scope of acceptable conforming alternative versions would be welcome.

[NickBromley]

It seems that an additional critical factor is the time-sensitive nature of reserving seats. What happens if someone emails to reserve specific seats but someone else attempts to reserve the same seats online before the email can be actioned? Could you guarantee that an email user has the same opportunity to reserve the seats of their choice as forms user? If not, then I don't see how it could be considered an acceptable conforming version.

[mraccess77]

I would say no for many of the reasons above as well as I don't think email would be considered a conforming alternative web page linked from non-conforming page or as the conforming page itself which links to a non-conforming web page. Even though an email contain embedded web content I don't think it in itself meets the definition of a webpage.

[pp-ernst]

Would it be conforming to add an accessible HTML version instead of the e-mail version on the same or a linked page, that displays the next 3 matches and where you can reserve tickets?

[mraccess77]

On related matter - would an accessible PDF download count as an alternative to an inaccessible PDF viewer on a web page if the download link was on the same page.

[patrickhlauke]

On related matter - would an accessible PDF download count as an alternative to an inaccessible PDF viewer on a web page if the download link was on the same page.

I personally would say yes, but just going with my gut feeling here - not read the tea-leaves about conforming alternative versions in detail