- From: Vicki Stanton <vicki.stanton@gmail.com>
- Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2009 17:42:21 +0800
- To: public-html@w3.org
- Cc: John Foliot <jfoliot@stanford.edu>, Jonas Sicking <jonas@sicking.cc>, Matt May <mattmay@adobe.com>, Laura Carlson <laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com>, Dan Connolly <connolly@w3.org>
John Foliot wrote: > without the transcript the posting will not meet the > WCAG requirement. Does the HTML WG care about this? > > Dan C. posted earlier that by W3C policy transcripts must be included with > audio and video content. Does this affect the decision process? > > In both cases the decisions are policy driven and not technology driven. > The one thing that I don't want however is > for this to be seen as "the accessibility extremists" frustrating > progress. The WG should do what it thinks is right. I hope the transcript issue doesn't get in the way of the argument for/against recording the teleconferences. It does seem to me, however, that we should be enthusiastically leading the way, not be dragged kicking and screaming into compliance with W3C policy. Jonas Sickling wrote: > I care much more about what helps people than what is policy. So if > something helps people but goes against WCAG (or any other policy) > then I would choose to go against WCAG policy in order to help people. Funny you should say that. It was drummed into me in my first web development job years ago (and I still adhere to the principle) that in practical implementation, the spirit of the guidelines is just as important as the actual guidelines. If we keep equity and accessibility in mind in everything we do regardless of whether or not official guidelines apply, we're not likely to exclude any group of users, however small in comparison to the majority - neither those with disabilities nor those with limitations imposed by their hardware or software or infrastructure (or time zone!). John Foliot wrote: > Assuming however that publishing an audio file as part of official W3C > business without a transcript is actually a viable option, completely > ignores the social component of the larger discussion I am professional web developer who is a strong advocate of web standards and web accessibility. But I constantly have difficulty participating in many of the things other professionals can participate in, due to my deafness. Even after I received cochlear implants last year, although my hearing will continue to improve I still usually need to look at people's faces when they talk, and need to ask people to repeat themselves. This makes meetings of any kind difficult, as conversations tend to flow quite fast. At this point in time I generally don't hear on the phone, particularly when talking with someone with an accent different to my own. Sometimes I can follow video without captions but mostly I can't. Audio alone is currently almost impossible. This difficulty, affecting "just one" individual (except of course it's likely to be many more besides myself even within the HTML WG - people who tend not to want to jump up and down about it and instead just accept peripheral participation) may not seem like a big deal to many of the WG members, but it's isolating and frustrating in the extreme for intelligent professionals who feel they have a lot to offer - if they could just know what's going on! Web accessibility in general doesn't have to be difficult or expensive. Sometimes small measures can mean the world to many individuals. John - thanks for your generous offer of paying for the first transcript. It does mean a lot to those of us who are otherwise excluded, and in ways that go far beyond the value of the actual information accessed. On a different note, another aspect to consider is that transcripts are often more useful than audio to people who can hear perfectly well. Many folks who can't attend "in person", especially due to time or time zone constraints, prefer to read a transcript at their leisure rather than have to set aside a block of time to listen to an audio file all the way through. -- Vicki. :-)
Received on Saturday, 15 August 2009 09:42:56 UTC