Re: Revise guidelines around changes in language

Thanks Andrew, group!

If I may make two brief comments for later consideration:

> 1) […] If a sighted user encounters text in a different language they are able
> to view the text and determine if they are able to read the language as they
> are able to view an accurate representation of the information and make that
> determination.  A non-sighted user encountering text that is in a different
> language than the default language of the page where the language is not
> correctly indicated will hear information that will be difficult or impossible to
> identify even if the user understands the language.

Are these actually different problems, or don’t they rather support
the main criticism that language determination is not, in fact, an
accessibility issue since it affects everyone? For the sighted user in
this example the information is just as much difficult or impossible
to identify. If someone says yyudysuyudusyd and claims it means
something, we’re all at a loss.

> 2) Marking up all changes does take more time than not marking up changes,
> but WCAG does not necessarily require that authors do this work themselves.
>  An author could choose to employ a tool or web-based service to identify and
> properly indicate the language, if such a tool was available to them.

Here, too, isn’t this an acknowledgment of another point of criticism
that tools may be able to (and should) do the job? And isn’t it
rather, odd to suggest tools should mark up language, when the very
same technology could instead more conveniently be used to just
process (e.g., read aloud) that otherwise-to-be-marked language
correctly (and do away with the burden and eventually bloat of
language code)?

No immediate comment needed, but for the record.

Thanks for your and the group’s reconsideration of the matter.

Best,
 Jens.

-- 
Jens O. Meiert
http://meiert.com/en/

Received on Wednesday, 8 October 2014 15:50:31 UTC