Re: Book Recommendation and User Testing Proposal

At 10:25 AM 9/19/00 -0700, Kynn Bartlett wrote:
>The assumption is that a document written for a technical audience cannot 
>be written in a way that non-technical audience can understand it.  I 
>think this shows lack of familiarity with good writing practices more than 
>anything else; I feel that it should be perfectly possible for WCAG 2.0 to 
>have solid technical information while not requiring a Computer Science 
>graduate degree to understand.

WL: I have the same problem with this that I have with Jonathan's frequent 
urge to have something like ALT=grafix to illuminate text: it's a lot 
easier to propose than to dispose. It's not as if we sit around saying "how 
can we make the clear things dark".  IOW it's not our (at least not my) 
assumption that we are: a) writing for a "technical" audience; b) 
unfamiliar with "good" writing practices.

I gave some credence to these notions at first but when I open-mindedly 
read http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT-TECHS/#themes I must say that I 
don't really know how at least that section would only be understood by 
someone with a Computer Science graduate degree. I never studied Computer 
Science and not only did I understand it but I found it quite informative, 
not only for writing for the Web but for general communicativeness.

KB:: "The W3C process is very good at what it does -- make technical specs 
for product engineers -- but it is not _sufficient_ for the task which this 
working group has taken upon itself."

WL: Although I respectfully disagree with this I do think the proposal to 
"user test" the totality of our output (not just the admittedly 
formal/technical guidelines themselves) is admirable. Do it. I'm so far 
removed from most human habitation that I can't be of much use - neither my 
goats nor peafowl can read and the folks I play poker with just aren't 
interested <g>.

--
Love.
                 ACCESSIBILITY IS RIGHT - NOT PRIVILEGE