Re: [wbs] response to 'EOWG Weekly Survey – 18 Apr 2016'

Hey Shadi,

All the terms we have to use really hurt our readability level, so I don’t envy your position :)  To me, we have to make language that is not specific terms as simple and conversational as we can.  This is what I could come up with in the time I had tonight.  Hope it helps some!  I’d be happy to keep discussing if you want...

I would cut paragraphs 1 and 3 altogether.  I would then go with this and pare down paragraph 2 to go after the following….

Accessibility, usability, and inclusion are terms that often overlap.  While they are related, there are important distinctions.  This article will discuss those differences and provide practical advice to those working in these fields.

Let’s start with the scope of each term to help understand how they relate:

Inclusion is concerned with ensuring access for everyone, and that nobody is left behind.  This includes many topics such as language and cultural diversity, connectivity (to electricity and internet), computer skills and literacy, affordability of hardware and software, and access for people with disabilities.

Usability is about designing products that allow users to get things done quickly, correctly, and in a satisfying way.  By studying and understanding users’ skills, challenges, and objectives, we can create highly usable products. While usability often considers various areas of inclusion (which is a good thing), access for people with disabilities if often not considered at all.

Accessibility is sometimes called “usability for people with disabilities” because the goal is the same – allowing users to get things done quickly, correctly, and in a satisfying way.  The difference is that in addition to many of the same skills, challenges, and objectives, disabled users may bring unique challenges to the table.  This difference is very important.  Usability makes things easier to use while accessibility often makes things possible to use.  For the Web, accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with websites and tools, and that they can contribute equally without barriers. 



Regards,
James






On 4/21/16, 2:21 AM, "Shadi Abou-Zahra" <shadi@w3.org> wrote:

>Hi James,
>
>On 21.4.2016 04:39, James Green via WBS Mailer wrote:
>> I can tell this took a lot of work and there is valuable information
>> included, but I am sad to say that it needs a lot of work.
>>
>> It does use shorter paragraphs with headings (which is good) but still
>> needs visuals.  And more importantly, I think it misses the mark we
>> discussed Friday.  I could see academics linking to this, but not your
>> average interested party.  It needs simple, succinct language to motivate
>> users to stick with it.
>>
>> Currently, this resource has a Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score of 15.2
>> (well into college graduate level language) and an average grade level
>> (among 5 different formulas) of 16.5.  I ran those tests against a few
>> other WAI pages and never got anything below grade 14.  To me, this
>> resource is definitely consistent with what we have, but I don't think it
>> represents where we want to be when it comes to developing new resources
>> going forward....
>
>Thank you for these suggestions. I will try to further improve the text 
>and writing level. It would be helpful if you have specific suggestions 
>or examples of how to improve the language.
>
>Also for visuals. A Venn diagram was suggested, though I'm not sure if 
>that will actually make things easier or more difficult. Do you have 
>other suggestions and ideas for visuals?
>
>Thanks,
>   Shadi
>
>-- 
>Shadi Abou-Zahra - http://www.w3.org/People/shadi/

>Activity Lead, WAI International Program Office
>W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
>

Received on Friday, 22 April 2016 03:19:49 UTC