Re: Illustrating Guidelines

Wendy,

	Your skills in pulling together all the fibers in this thread are
admirable!!!

     Where you expressed my points, thoughts, hopes, and experiences, you
did them exactly as I would have myself! 

	I am not surprised that you found more information on learning disabled
students than on adults with this disability. There are social reasons why
this is so. LD folks tend to "melt into the population" after they leave
school. This is because in school the ratio of tasks that are difficult for
an LD person to accomplish to the tasks they can handle is much higher than
in other walks of life. LD persons, unlike CD persons, are usually
competitively employable, sometimes running their own businesses large and
small. As blind people used to routinely employ readers, LD folks employ
secretaries (spell checkers aren't sufficiently developed to meet the needs
of dysgraphic users, tho there is hope that predictive writers may ...) One
difficulty in doing research on LD adults, is that they just don't end up
in a situation where they can be tested as easily as people with other
types of disabilities. Research that is done, is often done on LD adults
who are pursuing higher education who may or may not be employed ... 

	One need of many LD students, is to use text (textbooks and handouts)
which have been marked-up with a highlighter to show key points, terms,
names, etc. Once got a new principal from North Carolina who was shocked
that we didn't automatically provide each LD child with such books since it
was "mandatory" in NC ... but is used on an "as needed" basis in Virginia.
In addition to illustrations, LD folks benefit greatly from easy-to-access
glossaries, dictionaries, and other expansions and explanations of the
text. But that need is already addressed in the Guidelines, so I don't
mention it ... but that is why the illustrations for G3 include a glossary
as well as a "topical illustration", an illustrations page, page for
multi-media, etc. in the set shown for G3.1

	Don't worry that you didn't illustrate ... as you suggest, creating a "web
site" is usually going to be a multi-person task, so it may as well be
tasked by multi-skilled people so it can approach the ideal of meeting all
needs. 

	Text is a wonderful medium, for those who can use it, but depending on the
statistics you read, text isn't as universal in the "real world", even in
the US, as in some exclusive enclaves ... Folks of the "real world" use on
"visuals", "tactiles", "kinesthetics", "sounds" before "text" ... when
nephew stops up the toilet, hubby goes for the snake, not a book ... (for
those who aren't married to a plumber, a snake is a long coil used to clean
out a sewage pipe ... professional plumbers have long snakes ... )

				Anne

PS: <grin>


	



	

	





At 04:57 PM 5/11/01 -0400, Wendy A Chisholm wrote:
>The discussion is beginning to degrade...that must mean we are close to a 
>resolution? <grin/>  I certainly hope so.  I have done my best to get my 
>head around the issues and to see as many perspectives on this issue as 
>possible.  I have documented my thoughts at: 
>http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2001/05/cog-notes.html
>
>I have called it <q>Wendy's unillustrated notes, thoughts, and questions 
>about the recent WCAG WG "Illustrating Guidelines" thread</q> because it is 
>very dense text and does not have one single illustration. 
><grin/>  However, I tried to provide assistance for people who only want to 
>skim the most important parts - e.g. using boxes, bold text, italic text, 
>and lists.
>
>It is a living document, and will continue to change until we come to 
>consensus on this topic.  Anyone want to add anything?  Have I grossly 
>misinterpreted something?  Let me know!
>
>Here is the table of contents:
>Axes of discussion
>Rough summary of main points of discussion
>Research
>To do's and questions
>Conclusions
>Open Issues
>
>Be well.  Be civil.  See each other's perspectives.  Have patience.  We 
><em>will</em> get through this.  It doesn't mean we all have to agree, but 
>that we agree to move forward.
>--wendy
>
>At 03:02 PM 5/11/01 , Anne Pemberton wrote:
>>Matt,
>>
>>     Your basic logic has a serious flaw that is probably contributing to 
>> failure to comprehend the similarities I'm presenting...
>>
>>You said: >MM No, it isn't. Not in the same way alt text is necessary to 
>>blind users.
>> >Without alt text, 100% of blind users will fail to receive information
from
>> >an image. The presence of alt text on an image makes access to data less
>> >than impossible. The same is not true of illustrations: 100% of the
>> >cognitively disabled will not fail to receive a document that's not
>> >illustrated.
>>
>>First, lets keep both examples in the apple orchard ...
>>
>>You are correct that without alt text, 100% of blind users will fail to 
>>receive information from an image.
>>
>>It is equally correct that without graphics, 100% of non-readers will fail 
>>to receive information from text ...
>>
>>Or, we can move to the orange grove ...
>>
>>
>>100% of blind users will not fail to receive a document whether or not it 
>>has alt text.
>>
>>and
>>
>>100% of non-readers will not fail to receive a document whether or not is 
>>has a graphic.
>>
>>Do you understand where you err? Or do I need to illustrate the logic?
>>
>>                         Anne
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>---
>>Anne Pemberton
>>apembert@erols.com
>>apembert45@yahoo.com
>>apembert45@lycos.com
>>apembert@pen.k12.va.us
>>
>>http://www.erols.com/stevepem
>>http://www.geocities.com/apembert45
>>
>>On Fri, 11 May 2001 09:00:25
>>  Matt May wrote:
>> >----- Original Message -----
>> >From: "Anne Pemberton" <apembert45@lycos.com>
>> >>     Lisa didn't just find the illustrations "nice", she found they
helped
>> >her more quickly and efficiently process the content. I think that is the
>> >point you are missing, tho I've no clue why. This is not just about making
>> >the web "nice", or even "more friendly", tho there are some checkpoints
that
>> >do no more than that already (such as synchronizing scripts).
>> >
>> >MM Synchronized text (WCAG1 1.4, WCAG2 1.2) allows deaf users to receive
>> >pure audio content in multimedia presentations. Synchronized auditory
>> >descriptions (1.3 in both) allow blind users to receive pure visual
content
>> >in multimedia. Both of these are more than "nice" and "friendly".
>> >
>> >> The definition of priorities is that, for P1 priority, it needs to be
>> >necessary for a substantial number of users. This is the case with
graphics
>> >and multi-media.
>> >
>> >MM No, it isn't. Not in the same way alt text is necessary to blind users.
>> >Without alt text, 100% of blind users will fail to receive information
from
>> >an image. The presence of alt text on an image makes access to data less
>> >than impossible. The same is not true of illustrations: 100% of the
>> >cognitively disabled will not fail to receive a document that's not
>> >illustrated.
>> >
>> >P1 compliance doesn't make every web page a utopian paradise for blind
>> >users, either. All it does is make it less than impossible for everyone to
>> >receive the ones and zeroes such that their computer can present it to
them.
>> >(This bears repeating: the _computer_, or rather the physical human
>> >interface device, is the dropoff point for most of the checkpoints. How it
>> >gets from the HID of the user's choice into his or her brain is not
>> >something that's easy to quantify.)
>> >
>> >What is necessary is the use of _good_ illustration through graphics and
>> >multimedia, and what is "good" is extremely dependent on the content being
>> >presented, and -- I'll say it again -- the _people_ who are producing the
>> >content. The number of people who are capable of creating illustrations,
>> >audio, motion video, or interactivity is extremely small relative to those
>> >who can produce text or HTML, and the subset who can do multimedia in a
way
>> >that complements the text is a small fraction of that. You can require
>> >multimedia all day long, but if they don't have the tools (which are
>> >expensive) and the skills (which take months to build and years to
master),
>> >what we'll get is a web full of silly, irrelevant clip art someone
tacked on
>> >because we (or a tool like Bobby) said it's "accessible."
>> >
>> >I want to see guidelines that can be easily followed without significant
>> >retooling by content providers, and rules that are proven to increase
access
>> >to people with all disabilities, but _without_ reducing usability for the
>> >rest of the users of the web. Forcing illustration and multimedia without
>> >regard to who is providing it or what it's being used for as a P1 is
not the
>> >way to improve accessibility or usability to the web as a whole.
>> >
>> >> I'm not sure how "fairly common" it is to browse with images turned
off...
>> >On this list, some folks say they use the web that way, but in my life
away
>> >from this list, NO ONE I KNOW uses the web that way! Just as I don't know
>> >anyone in real life who uses television without the screen on, or
listens to
>> >anything but music on the radio....
>> >
>> >Blind users browse without the help of images, and watch TV without their
>> >eyes. That's pretty common. There is also a measurable percentage of
the web
>> >who browse without images using Lynx, or by manually turning their images
>> >off to save download speed.
>> >
>> >-
>> >m
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>>Get 250 color business cards for FREE!
>>http://businesscards.lycos.com/vp/fastpath/
>
>--
>wendy a chisholm
>world wide web consortium
>web accessibility initiative
>seattle, wa usa
>tel: +1 206.706.5263
>/--
>
>
Anne Pemberton
apembert@erols.com

http://www.erols.com/stevepem
http://www.geocities.com/apembert45

Received on Friday, 11 May 2001 18:52:44 UTC