Re: QED & Marshall McLuhan

anne, thank you.  I keep forgetting to publish on the list because my
reply default is to the sender the way the list is set up.  Tables are
for tabular datta according to the w3c.  does this help?  Microsoft is
often in error when it comes to the standards.  look at the use of
frames in front page for everything.  as for graphics, one of the
things  that the guidelines attempt to defer is the use of graphics
without meaningful information being made available to people who
cannot process them for what ever reason.  It is assumed and perhaps
rongly so that people are going to design graphics into their pages. 
I don't know what a meaningful graphic would be in the case of
describing a lengthy process for something say philosofical.  I know
there are charts and data flow instruments and much information can be
conveyed by images with short labels, but getting many of the verbal
constructs across with graphics seems out of reach to me.  I'd propose
this.

expand the scope to read something like:
"ensure that pages are as readable/processable as possible to
......and those with special processing needs.
guidelines:
1> illustrate pages with meaningful graphics and symbology. (this
should be done in such a way as to allow for comprehention of the page
without reading the text on the page by individuals who are totally
graphically oriented).
2> use multimedia whereever possible to either speak the text of a
page or sho a demonstration which in an animated way explains the text
on the pages. (this gets at those with limitations of atention, focus
and other types of cognative processing which may interfere with
visual processing).
Note:
Making pages comprehensible after all is what we really hope to
achieve.  providing these curbcuts and doing a good job of it may well
assist many of the rest of us as the medium and the environment evolve
to a more real time paradigm much the way tv is now or trafic flow.  I
see this as moving to a situation where we will get our information
entertainment, instructions and assistance all from one bag connected
permenantly and irrevocably to a network, we wil be exploring our
world more and more through this filter.  If in this process, we
should look away for a second, we don't want to miss something
critical.  This then that I propose will help to ensure less data
loss.

Anne Pemberton wrote:
> 
> At 05:18 PM 6/8/1999 -0400, David Poehlman wrote:
> >tables are for datta.  any other use of tables according to the
> >general html4.0 spec is incorrect.
> 
> To make something "incorrect" that is both useful and accommodating seems
> to be shooting the horse before it runs the race. Perhaps the problem is in
> the understanding of "data", and I may be assuming you have a more narrow
> interpretation of "data" than indeed you do. When it creates web pages, MS
> Publisher 98 makes extensive use of tables automatically to control the
> placement of text on the page.
> 
> We have not achieved accessibility
> >yet we are far from it and having evaluated all that has been said
> >here, I still raemain confused as to what needs doing with
> >guidelines.  One of the things that is stated through out the
> >guidelines is that pages be easy to use.  this can take many forms.  I
> >am not interested in two worlds separate but equal a blind getto but
> >what you proppose may just set us on that path.
> 
> Whether the ghetto ends up being for the blind, or the cognitively limited
> seems in question. I don't want anyone relegated to a ghetto, and hope a
> way can be found to include everyone.
> 
> As to the guidelines, just saying that pages be "easy to use" is
> insufficient. How is a page, or navigation control "easy to use" if it is
> presented only in text and lacks a graphic that indicates what's what? It
> isn't, yet the guidelines don't guide a webmaster to specifically include
> "meaningful graphics" at the times and places where they are needed. Most
> folks with cognitive limitations are accommodated when "meaningful
> graphics" are used to illustrate the text. Most of them can read some text
> - it is only the extreme of the group that cannot access text at all.
> 
> Something must be
> >done like it is being done on the end with assistive technology for
> >other disabilities to make this happen.  when you have technology that
> >needs addressing, perhaps special tags or concepts of coding can be
> >addressed in the form of guideline proposals.  I will be as concrete
> >in my education of people as I can on these and other issues but I've
> >not much to go on here.
> 
> Thank you. That is a good start. Make sure folks know that "meaningful
> graphics" are NEEDED by some users, and extremely helpful to many others
> just as alt tags are NEEDED by some users and helpful to others.
> 
>                                 Anne
> 
> Anne L. Pemberton
> http://www.pen.k12.va.us/Pav/Academy1
> http://www.erols.com/stevepem/apembert
> apembert@crosslink.net
> Enabling Support Foundation
> http://www.enabling.org

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Received on Wednesday, 9 June 1999 08:59:20 UTC