RE: ACTION-78: Add techneques for autisim to https://rawgit.com/w3c/coga/master/techniques/index.html (Cognitive Accessibility Task Force)

I certainly agree with that as described by John and Kate's excellent
breakdown.
It's disappointing as usually webaim's materials are very good.

I guess it could be partly due to the question Funka Nu recently raised
"Cognitive accessibility – how come we know so little?". A problem which we
are working to address right here.

Bonus points to Kate for getting in a reference to Ulysses! Nice work.

Steve Lee
Sent from my mobile device Please excuse typing errors
On 15 Mar 2015 13:47, "Rochford, John" <john.rochford@umassmed.edu> wrote:

>  Hi Lisa,
>
>
>
> Thank you for that info, and for your good memory.
>
>
>
> Yes, long ago, I cited on the “Research sources” page, all of the articles
> you listed. See
> http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/cognitive-a11y-tf/wiki/Research_sources
>
>
>
> The one exception is the article you listed as having “interesting ideas”.
> I found an active version at
> http://www.autism.org.uk/working-with/autism-friendly-places/designing-websites-suitable-for-people-with-autism-spectrum-disorders.aspx.
> In my opinion, none of the techniques listed are unique to people with
> Autism Spectrum Disorders. Thus, I did not add any to our techniques page.
>
>
>
> I don’t feel comfortable adding the techniques authored by Kate Deibel and
> Katherine Mancuso. I will rely upon them to add those themselves.
>
>
>
> I also reviewed the “real problems” Kate informed us about the WebAIM
> guidelines. I thus agree they should not be included on our techniques
> page. For everyone’s convenience, the following are Kate’s concerns.
>
>
>
> Sent: Monday, June 02, 2014 11:40 AM
>
> To: public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org
>
> Subject: Re: Short comment on autisim in the gap analysis
>
>
>
> In general, I'm always hesitant to cite (or even recommend) WebAIM's
> recommendations on cognitive disabilities. The lack of cited research is
> one factor, but a larger problem for me are the unscientific examples given
> in the reading section. This balderdash taints the rest of the advice.
>
>
>
> Let me explain what I mean by balderdash. Currently, the example box under
> the Reading, Linguistic, and Verbal Comprehension section gives two
> examples. The first plays around with spacing in the Hamlet quote "To be or
> not to be." One can click to see the same phrase next to a picture of
> Shakespeare and this somehow alleviates the problem of poor spelling. Sure,
> this works if one assumes the reader has this huge storehouse of cultural
> knowledge. This might be compelling if it were not for the fact that the
> phrase is very simple. What if we take a popular quote from Ulysses by
> James Joyce? Would that make it easier to understand? I doubt it.
> Furthermore, what is one to gain from this example? You can ignore spacing
> assuming you provide contextual information?
>
>
>
> The second example given on the WebAIM page is a link to a personal
> website that talks about scrambled text and how we apparently only pay
> attention to the first and last letters in words (or the first two and last
> two). This is pretty much a continuation of an Internet folklore
>
> forward: http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/cambridge.asp
>
>
>
> Pretty much all examples showing how scrambled text can be read just fine
> rely upon short common words. The moment you get into more domain-specific
> text or more complex text, the effect breaks down.
>
> Additionally, correct reading alone is a poor measure! Reading speed is
> certainly affected. If one's reading is already labored---as occurs with
> disabilities like dyslexia---then further reductions are a bad thing.
>
>
>
> A while back, I started putting together a breakdown of the scrambled text
> meme, but then I found this really comprehensive web article with
>
> citations: http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/
>
>
>
> These odd-spacing example and scrambled text examples do nothing to help
> illustrate what reading disabilities are like. In fact, they suggest that
> reading is this super skill that can easily adapt to problems with minimal
> consequences. The actual suggestion here for designers is that readers will
> compensate on their own... which is very problematic.
>
>
>
> I mentioned on a phone call before that we need to be careful not to
> replicate bad information. These WebAIM examples are such hot potatoes that
> we must let drop.
>
> <End Kate’s message>
>
>
>
> John
>
>
>
> John Rochford <http://profiles.umassmed.edu/profiles/display/132901>
> UMass Medical School/E.K. Shriver Center
> Director, INDEX Program
> Instructor, Family Medicine & Community Health
> www.DisabilityInfo.org
> Twitter: @ClearHelper <https://twitter.com/clearhelper>
>
> [image: Facebook Button]
> <http://www.facebook.com/pages/New-England-INDEXShriver-CenterUMass-Medical-School/227064920160>[image:
> Twitter Button] <https://twitter.com/NEINDEX> [image: WordPress Logo]
> <http://www.disabilityinfo.org/blog/>
>
>
>
> *From:* lisa.seeman [mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com]
> *Sent:* Sunday, March 15, 2015 3:38 AM
> *To:* Rochford, John
> *Cc:* public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org
> *Subject:* RE: ACTION-78: Add techneques for autisim to
> https://rawgit.com/w3c/coga/master/techniques/index.html (Cognitive
> Accessibility Task Force)
>
>
>
> Hi
> We asked web aim for information about how much these guidelines were
> tested or based on reasech . We did not hear back from them. We can not
> recommend information that we do not know is reliable, or we have not
> reached consistences on whether we accept it. Kate cited some real problems
> with some of their suggestions.
>
> At the time we also had the following links recommended. Hopefully they
> were cited
>
> This is Katherine's work about autism:
> http://www.catea.gatech.edu/scitrain/science/modules/autism/module9_1.phpWhere
> these included in the user research? If not they should be reviewed for
> useful content.
>
> There are some interesting ideas on
> http://www.autism.org.uk/working-with/leisure-and-environments/designing-websites-suitable-for-people-with-autism-spectrum-disorders.aspx
> - this is no longer active so you may need to look around for the content.
> (It was sent to the list a year ago)
>
>
>
> Also -Sources on ADD/ADHD and Autisim  from Katherine Mancuso
>  This is from STEM education for NSF.
>
> http://www.catea.gatech.edu/scitrain/accommodating.pdf
>
> (This link may require you to register first)
>
>   LD/ADHD stuff:
>
> http://www.catea.gatech.edu/scitrain/science/modules/adhd/introduction.php
>
> http://www.catea.gatech.edu/scitrain/science/modules/ld/module8_1.php
>
> Because all of this is about STEM education, some of the accommodations
> relate specifically to computer use.
>
>
>
>
>  All the best
>
> Lisa Seeman
>
> Athena ICT Accessibility Projects <http://accessibility.athena-ict.com>
> LinkedIn <http://il.linkedin.com/in/lisaseeman/>, Twitter
> <https://twitter.com/SeemanLisa>
>
>
>
>
> ---- On Fri, 13 Mar 2015 17:02:13 +0200 *Rochford<john.rochford@umassmed.edu
> <john.rochford@umassmed.edu>>* wrote ----
>
>  Hi Lisa,
>
>
>
> I don't know of techniques unique to people with Autism. That is why, in
> the Autism Gap Analysis <http://www.w3.org/TR/coga-user-research/#autism>,
> I listed the techniques of WebAIM’s Cognitive Web Accessibility Checklist
> <http://wave.webaim.org/cognitive>. Thus, I cannot add a subset of
> Autism-specific techniques to our master list.
>
>
>
> We may want to consider adding WebAIM’s techniques to the superset that
> applies to all people with cognitive disabilities.
>
>
>
> John
>
>
>
> John Rochford <http://profiles.umassmed.edu/profiles/display/132901>
> UMass Medical School/E.K. Shriver Center
> Director, INDEX Program
> Instructor, Family Medicine & Community Health
> www.DisabilityInfo.org
> Twitter: @ClearHelper <https://twitter.com/clearhelper>
>
>
> <http://www.facebook.com/pages/New-England-INDEXShriver-CenterUMass-Medical-School/227064920160>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Cognitive Accessibility Task Force Issue Tracker [*mailto:sysbot+tracker@w3.org
> <sysbot%2Btracker@w3.org>*]
> Sent: Monday, February 23, 2015 12:11 PM
> To: Rochford, John
> Subject: ACTION-78: Add techneques for autisim to *https://rawgit.com/w3c/coga/master/techniques/index.html
> <https://rawgit.com/w3c/coga/master/techniques/index.html>* (Cognitive
> Accessibility Task Force)
>
>
>
> ACTION-78: Add techneques for autisim to *https://rawgit.com/w3c/coga/master/techniques/index.html
> <https://rawgit.com/w3c/coga/master/techniques/index.html>* (Cognitive
> Accessibility Task Force)
>
>
>
> *http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/cognitive-a11y-tf/track/actions/78
> <http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/cognitive-a11y-tf/track/actions/78>*
>
>
>
> On: John Rochford
>
> Due: 2015-03-02
>
>
>
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>
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>
>
>
>
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>
>
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