Re: Proposed rewrite of "aids not solutions" scenario

EOWG:

Minutes from our EOWG discussion today will be along later, but in the
meantime I thought people might want to see the next revised version of the
"aids not solutions" scenario. This is based on our discussion in the EOWG
meeting today, and I will be adding it to the "How People with Disabilities
Use the Web" document roughly as follows. 

Please note I've used numbers to indicate link concepts for now but these
would be changed to reflect the same format in the document once the
section is rolled in.

Please let me know if you have any comments.

- Judy

------

Adult with limited reading ability using the Web (as edited Feb 9 2001)

Ms. Sato is in her 40's and lives at home with her parents. She has
difficulty learning new concepts, and gets lost in complexity [1].
She can read a few words and recognizes many symbols. She is lively, 
has opinions about many things, and has been using the Web for two 
years now with some assistance. 

Ms. Sato goes to an adult day care center on weekdays, where she uses
the Web with the help of local college students. She has found that using 
a talking browser with synchronized highlighting [2] helps on well-designed 
pages, however on some pages with confusing layouts, the highlighting jumps 
around too much for her [3]. She has some difficulty with hand
coordination, making it 
hard for her to select links [4].

Some Web sites she finds very welcoming. These sites include graphics,
animations, music, games, and video including webcams, all of which help
her understand the content of a page [5]. She loves watching TV programs
on the Web, and finding her favorite songs. She bookmarks some pages and
returns later. Sometimes she copies words that interest her from Web pages, 
and pastes them into a search engine. Because the output of the search engine
is completely text-based, she needs someone to help her interpret all the
different choices that appear [6].

[1] link to impairments of intelligence
[2] link to talking browser with synchronized highlighting
[3] keeping layout clear and uncrowded layout
[4] link to difficulty selecting links
[5] inclusion of graphics and animation for comprehension
[6] options for searches

------

At 11:37 PM 2/8/01 -0500, Judy Brewer wrote:
>EOWG:
>
>I worked on the rewrite of Jonathan's draft scenario for "How People with
>Disabilities Use the Web" document again, trying to get it more consistent
>with the style & types of things we need to link to if using it as an
>example, and incorporating whatever I could from our discussion last week
>and from William's comments.
>
>I have left intact at the bottom of this message the draft text that
>Jonathan sent at the beginning of January.
>
>Please look this over carefully and reply to the EOWG mailing list with
>your comments.
>
>Note that after working so hard to avoid the use of any "disability term"
>in the first paragraph, we forgot that we have to provide a short title for
>the scenario in any case. Please comment on my first attempt, below. Better
>suggestions, if roughly consistent with our existing scenario titles, are
>welcome.
>
>Thank you,
>
>- Judy
>
>
>[draft rewrite -- note, the numbers in brackets in the text indicate where
>the links listed below would be positioned in an HTML'ized version of this.]
>
>
>Adult day care participant browsing for entertainment
>
>Ms. Sato is in her 40's and lives at home with her parents. She has
>difficulty learning new concepts and gets lost in complex arguments [1].
>She can read only a few words, but recognizes many symbols; knows numbers,
>but cannot do addition. She is lively, has opinions about many things, and
>has been using the Web for two years now with some assistance. 
>
>Ms. Sato goes to an adult day care center on weekdays, where she browses
>the Web with the help of local college students. She has tried using speech
>synthesis [2] so that she can listen to Web sites at the same time as she
>is looking at them, however the synthesized speech sometimes confuses her
>as it jumps around from section to section on the page.
>
>Some Web sites she finds very welcoming. These sites include graphics,
>animations, music, games, and video including webcams, all of which help
>her understand the content of a page [3]. She loves watching  TV programs
>on the Web, and finding her favorite songs. She also finds sites with a
>clear and uncrowded layout easier to use [4]. She bookmarks these pages and
>returns later. Sometimes she copies words from pages that interest her, and
>pastes them into a search engine. Because the output of the search engine
>is completely text-based, she needs someone to help her interpret all the
>different choices that appear [5].
>
>She has some difficulty with hand coordination, making it hard for her to
>select links [6] or to type words into a form. She gets frustrated when a
>form "times out" [7] because she is typing more slowly than the page
>designer expected.
>
>[1] link to impairments of intelligence
>[2] link to speech synthesis
>[3] inclusion of graphics and animation for comprehension
>[4] keeping layout clear and uncrowded layout
>[5] options for searches
>[6] link selection choices?
>[7] no timing out of pages
>
>[original draft from jonathan]
>
>At 11:42 PM 1/6/01 +0000, jonathan chetwynd wrote:
>>I've attempted to create a synopsis of something like ~100 clients that I 
>>see regularly. Not many have downs syndrome, and labelling them is not a 
>>'great' help to most people.
>>Very few of them will ever find work, let alone paid employment that is 
>>rewarding.
>>
>>In the scenario that follows, I've tried to describe the benefits of 
>>commercial sites as well as sites designed for this group.
>>
>>
>>I'd like to:
>>
>>see something visual with sound effects on the wai site, 
>>a photo (actor?) helps identification immensely. we can see how old they 
>>are... And we can use that fabled alt tag.
>>
>>pat people on the back for providing stimulation that is suitable and 
>>accessible to my clients, without worrying too much about the alt tags.
>(mp3, 
>>flash, shockwave, realmedia, java..... any or all) ok it helps to have text 
>>equivalents, it also helps to have multimedia equivalents, signing and 
>>symbols, & precis....
>>
>>recognises that we have serious and possibly long term, problems addressing 
>>cognitive disabilty, but are making small steps.
>>
>>
>>
>>---
>>
>>
>>Katie is 40 she has a learning disability and lives at home with her 
>>parents. She has mental health problems and tends to get lost in complex 
>>arguments.  She is lively, intelligent, and has a point of view, and in
most 
>>respects has the needs and abilities of any adult. 
>>
>>Every weekday a bus collects her, and takes her to a day centre and onto 
>>college, where she can browse the web. She enjoys signing with others, and 
>>benefits greatly when reading from the occassional use of symbols. She has 
>>the reading age of a 4 year old, and is a keen student. She has tried 
>>dictation software and text readers, with mixed results. Ataxia means that 
>>she has problems with a mouse, and prefers pages that don't contain scroll 
>>bars. She is not in a position to spend much money so banner ads are wasted.
>>
>>Her reading and writing skills enable her to use a search engine. She 
>>generally copies words from tapes or newspapers. However she usually needs 
>>help, to interprete the results, which rarely contain relevent images.
>>
>>She loves music and TV soaps. She finds that some sites provide small
images 
>>of stars  with links to music, videos, games and even webcams. She benefits 
>>most when their are only a few words and links on a page, all of which are 
>>relevent to her interests. Then she knows what she likes. She listens and 
>>watches, and often creates original artwork in another window. Copies 
>>keywords,  and prints out relevant images and text. She is always adding to 
>>her portfolio (or diary) of interests.
>>
>>Katie is not quite ready to browse the web on her own yet, but she's
>learning 
>>how, and the technology is moving her way. 
>>
>>---
>>I've been in bed all day with flu, its late, and i'll probably now need 
>>another day in bed.
>>
>>bye.
>>
>>-- 
>>Jonathan Chetwynd
>>jc@signbrowser.org.uk
>>Learning Difficulties teacher(IT)
>>
>-- 
>Judy Brewer    jbrewer@w3.org    +1.617.258.9741    http://www.w3.org/WAI
>Director, Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) International Program Office
>World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
>MIT/LCS Room NE43-355, 200 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA,  02139,  USA
>
-- 
Judy Brewer    jbrewer@w3.org    +1.617.258.9741    http://www.w3.org/WAI
Director, Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) International Program Office
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
MIT/LCS Room NE43-355, 200 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA,  02139,  USA

Received on Friday, 9 February 2001 13:05:47 UTC