Re: Understanding vs. Accessibility

we could argue semantics till dooms day and get nowhere.  In point of
fact as I have written to jonathan and others in private, though I may
not share kim's approach entirely, I do understand his point that
there is a line between good web design making content available to
all and what is proposed which intrincicly locks out some in fact to
streight forward access.  I am not speaking here about a cognative
barrier which can be dealt with at least to some degree by making the
graphics meaningful and adding multimedia content where appropriate
but rather the assumption which states that what is there even though
there is no problem in getting at it needs to be re written in such a
way as to make it consumable by bridging almost a barrier that is in
many senses developmental.  I say again, follow good design practices,
and use any method you want within that to convey information which
you feel or know will achieve your goal.  In doing this however, be
quite aware that the road you build will never be traversable by many
for whom the original road was intended.  The site peebo.com if it is
an example of that road clearly points this out.
Thank you with respect for all.

Anne Pemberton wrote:
> 
> At 09:28 AM 6/12/1999 -0700, Kynn Bartlett wrote:
> >For those of you playing along at home -- I routinely bow out of
> >theoretical discussions whenever the "other side" starts accusing
> >me of discrimination, bigotry, cruelty, and other such nastiness.
> 
> I'm rather inclined to call a spade a spade. Prejudice doesn't go away by
> pretending it isn't noticed, it gets worse. While you insist that
> accessibility as you need it for yourself, is a good thing and call it
> "good web design", you dismiss the needs of others as "dumbing down" and
> say it doesn't deserve consideration as part of "good web design". Your
> concept of "good web design" is flawed, and your attitude towards those who
> need graphics is insulting at the very least. You are clearly choosing
> which groups of disabled are to be accommodated and have excluded some
> people solely based on your perception of their disability as less
> deserving than yours. If you have another reason for your disccrimination,
> you haven't made it clear to me. Your strawman of the "definition of
> accessibility" was examined and found flawed since accessibility clearly
> includes understanding.
> 
>                                 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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---sig off---

Received on Sunday, 13 June 1999 10:32:22 UTC