Re: How to convince businesses to be accessible...

The fact taht nobdoy knows wheter a single person uses a computer all the
time, or whether one person uses different computers, is a general problem in
this area. Cookies are one possible way of implementing something like this,
and tehre are others - as you say, there are a number opf sites that are
already using registration, cookies, and other techniques to personalise
content - for example web-based email services, and portal sites.

Cheers

Charles

On Tue, 10 Oct 2000, Anne Pemberton wrote:

  Charles,
  	I hope I'm not hopelessly simple in saying that cookies are pretty
  efficient at collecting user data ... the only problem is with a family
  computer where just one user has special needs ... the user needs to be
  able to change settings "on the fly" as well as have "defaults" ..
  
  	Thinking fancifully, a "cookie" could be created that would include user
  information that would be picked up by a site that provides a variety of
  user options. The "cookie" would have to be standardized, but could be
  provided on one of the "register yourself" sites ... 
  
  				Anne
  
  At 12:50 PM 10/10/00 -0400, Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
  >One problem is that although I use lynx I actually prefer to get the images
  >included in the source - every so often I decide to look at one, which is
  >very trivial.
  >
  >The basic difficulty is that what browser a user has is not a good guide to
  >what are the preferences and needs of the user - that needs to be answered by
  >hte users themselves. W3C is working on a system called CC/PP (that's easier
  >to remember than the real name) designed to allow this kind of information to
  >be sent by the browser to the server. And there are in fact a lot of people
  >using these kinds of approaches. The simplest version is to provide a link to
  >a text-only version of a page (This is helpful to some users but not by
  >itself a solution), and there are many other methods used. The trick is to
  >get the right information about the user and what they want, and that is not
  >easy.
  >
  >Cheers
  >
  >Charles McCN
  >
  >On Fri, 6 Oct 2000, Ryan Eby wrote:
  >
  >  A friend of mine did this on his site with ASP (as a learning tool - his
  >  site is not commercial). He wrote all his content in XML pages and then
  used
  >  a ASP page to check the HTTP header to find the browser version and then
  >  apply a different XSL stylesheet depending on the browser. It was then sent
  >  off to the browser as HTML. If the browser was one that didn't support
  >  images than he used a stylesheet that left out the images and HTML that
  >  might have been a hindrance. It may seem like a lot of work but it really
  >  wasn't. He only created the content once and about a half dozen
  stylesheets.
  >  And the ASP code he wrote once and then copy and pasted it for the other
  >  pages changes the content variable to point to the proper file. It worked
  >  quite well as far as I could see (on lynx, NS, and IE). I'd give you the
  >  link but he is running it locally on his machine now because of lack of
  >  extra funds for hosting). Are there any problems with this approach that I
  >  am missing.
  >  _____________________________
  >  Ryan Eby
  >  ----- Original Message -----
  >  From: "Reidy Brown" <rbrown@blackboard.com>
  >  To: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
  >  Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2000 8:24 PM
  >  Subject: RE: How to convince businesses to be accessible...
  >  
  >  
  >  > I'm a little surprised that no one (especially Kynn) has talked about
  >  using
  >  > server-side logic to create customized pages based on user preferences.
  >  It's
  >  > true that many small business web sites are static, but a growing number
  >  of
  >  > commercial sites use Cold Fusion, ASP, JSP, cgi,php or other server side
  >  > technology. It's not a trivial matter, certainly, but it is possible to
  >  set
  >  > up the site to generate no-image, low-bandwidth, and high-bandwith pages
  >  on
  >  > demand. With a little additional thought, you can set the system to
  handle
  >  > client-side logic (javascript) where possible or desired (and many people
  >  > _do_ want this) and server-side logic where necessary.
  >  >
  >  > Admittedly, it's not a quick-fix solution, but it is a viable option for
  >  > well-engineered web sites. And for those that don't have the capability
  >  > in-house, something like Edapta is an up-and-coming solution. I'm not
  >  > familiar enough with Edapta's functionality, but I suspect that this is
  >  the
  >  > sort of thing it's designed to do for existing sites.
  >  >
  >  > Reidy
  >  >
  >  > -------------------------------------------
  >  > Reidy Brown
  >  > Accessibility Coordinator/
  >  > Software Engineer
  >  > Blackboard, Inc.
  >  > -------------------------------------------
  >  >
  >  >
  >  >
  >  > -----Original Message-----
  >  > From: David Poehlman [mailto:poehlman@clark.net]
  >  > Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2000 6:24 PM
  >  > To: Anne Pemberton
  >  > Cc: Dave J Woolley; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
  >  > Subject: Re: How to convince businesses to be accessible...
  >  >
  >  >
  >  > I think we need to carefully define accessability.  it is no more just a
  >  > question of who need what to access in terms of disability.  it is fast
  >  > becoming what will the software and hardware will bear and I am here to
  >  > tell you that that will decrease drastically over time.  graphics should
  >  > get out of the way of information and lower costs for the connection
  >  > mean more buying power for those businesses trying to sell to us.
  >  > --
  >  > Hands-On Technolog(eye)s
  >  > ftp://poehlman.clark.net
  >  > http://poehlman.clark.net
  >  > mailto:poehlman@clark.net
  >  > voice 301-949-7599
  >  > end sig.
  >  >
  >  
  >
  >-- 
  >Charles McCathieNevile    mailto:charles@w3.org    phone: +61 (0) 409 134 136
  >W3C Web Accessibility Initiative                      http://www.w3.org/WAI
  >Location: I-cubed, 110 Victoria Street, Carlton VIC 3053, Australia
  >September - November 2000: 
  >W3C INRIA, 2004 Route des Lucioles, BP 93, 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex,
  France
  >
  >
  Anne L. Pemberton
  http://www.pen.k12.va.us/Pav/Academy1
  http://www.erols.com/stevepem/Homeschooling
  apembert@crosslink.net
  Enabling Support Foundation
  http://www.enabling.org
  

-- 
Charles McCathieNevile    mailto:charles@w3.org    phone: +61 (0) 409 134 136
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative                      http://www.w3.org/WAI
Location: I-cubed, 110 Victoria Street, Carlton VIC 3053, Australia
September - November 2000: 
W3C INRIA, 2004 Route des Lucioles, BP 93, 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France

Received on Wednesday, 11 October 2000 12:11:36 UTC