Re: Personalized web pages

Hi, Gregory

The impression I'm getting is that an issue that seems to be bothering
you is the labeling.  Different people have different views.  For
example, since I use a wheelchair, I tend to look for doors with
wheelchair symbols because I know they will be easier for me to use.
For most people who aren't disabled, they don't need to look for the
specially marked doors.  Having the doors marked with wheelchair symbols
seems very straight-forward.

Looking at the template.  Blind people have less trouble using web pages
which are organized according to semantic/concept structure.  (I believe
this is probably true for most blind users.)  Sighted people often
prefer web pages which are organized to be visually interesting.  Does
this make sense to you?  (You might want to look at my examples before
answering this.)

In most situations, these pages are very different.  (Trying to get one
page to be both usually means compromising either the visual impact or
the ease of use by blind users.  Guess who probably does not come out
well in these compromises.)  As a result, the templates used to generate
the web pages need to be different.  What would you call a template
designed to present information organized according to semantic
structure?  It would not be very convenient to call it the
"semantically-organized template" since most blind users would not know
what that means.

Scott

> aloha, scott!
> 
> again, i must apologize for not having checked out your demo pages, due to an
> utter lack of opportunity...  please rest assured that it is at the very top of
> my list of things to do online!
> 
> my point is simply this:  if you provide structure, into which personalized
> content is dropped -- either via a template driven database-based program such
> as ColdFusion or via XML in combination with RDF -- there is no quote
> tailorization for the blind unquote necessary -- merely tailorization for the
> individual (who in this case, just happens to be blind)...
> 
> there is an old saying that a blind man's poison is another man's food -- a saw
> which, having had a wealth of experience working with individuals with widely
> varying visual acuity -- i would amend to one blind person's panacea is
> another's poison...
> 
> tailor content for individuals, and let them take it from there, but do not
> tailor the presentation of that content solely on the basis of their perceived
> disability...  i, having been fully sighted for my first twenty years, process
> information in a vastly different manner than someone who has never had any
> usable vision...  my inability to read braille due to neuropathy in my
> fingertips, also has had a profound effect on how i process information...  so,
> although i operate in a non-visual modality, my experience of that modality is
> vastly different from jason white's or dave poehlman's or janina sajka's, to
> name but 3 blind users who immediately spring to mind...
> 
> i want information tailored to my tastes as an individual, not to as a member
> of an amorphous (and, potentially apocryphal) class of users...
> 
> gregory.

Received on Thursday, 16 December 1999 14:45:53 UTC