- From: Anne Pemberton <apembert@crosslink.net>
- Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1999 18:53:58 -0400
- To: Kelly Ford <kford@teleport.com>
- Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
At 03:05 PM 6/10/1999 -0700, Kelly Ford wrote: >Even with proper encoding, there are vast parts of the web that I don't >have a chance of understanding. Recently I helped a college with some >accessibility issues related to the posting of various PhD theses. There >were more than a few of the documents that were of limited understanding to >me because I lack the knowledge and experience to understand the field of >discussion. How do you address this issue when exploring the needs of >people with cognitive disabilities? A post or two back I think I answered your question. Jonathan may differ because he works with the lower-level populations than I have. I said then my main concern was for information sites, news and especially government sites with information that was useful to such folks, should be accessible. I would include any sites that provide useful local information, such as bus, train, airline, or TV schedules. Whether the sites that collect PHD dissertations are accessible is not my concern because they do not usually include information of interest to the population in question. I have also said that the FIRST PAGE, or homepage of the site is most critical, so the user can determine if there is anything of interest or to move on. Let me add one point, tho, that I don't think I've made before. The guidelines that David Poehlman created, that would make the web more accessible to the cognitively impaired, would also make the web more accessible to students in the K-12 category whose cognition isn't developed yet. When I developed the Five Forks site (mentioned in my last post to Kynn) I had in mind high schoolers using the site, but the most recent SOLs in Virginia now include studies of the Civil War in the 3rd and 4th grades, and my site probably isn't as useful to the new younger students as it should be. It's something I need to address when I do the next update of the site. 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
Received on Thursday, 10 June 1999 21:04:25 UTC