- From: Al Gilman <asgilman@iamdigex.net>
- Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 21:17:08 -0500
- To: w3c-wai-eo@w3.org
Trip report: Last Friday I participated for a while in a meeting sponsored by the SPRY foundation on how to get health information to senior citizens via the Web. See www.spry.org. I was a panelist in Interactive Session D, which dealt with the fact that people browse the web with a variety of user interface configurations, especially when they have disabilities, which get more prevalent in advancing years. "Interactive session" means that the panel had nominally eight minutes each to frame the topic, and then the bulk of the session was a structured group brainstorming and decision process. The win for this event was taking a wad of QuickTips cards. I got our rapporteur for our session to wave one in her 10 minute report-back and tell people to pick them up on the way out. Everyone I talked to wanted one. There was not time in my flying visit to train the "reporting chain" to carry any more complex message. Al PS: For what it's worth, here is the spin I gave my pitch: Don't just think of seniors with disabilities. Realize that many of your intended audience are not only one computer upgrade behind the great mass of the population, they are also one upgrade behind on their eyeglasses and hearing aid. Taking the effort to scrub you site to meet accessibility guidelines is a good stress-test to make sure that it won't fail to be usable for the seniors you want to reach. I also trotted out my standard line about "Know that there are technological aids available [Bobby and WAI guidelines] to help you create a universally accessible site; but also know that the technology can't do the whole job. Use the technological aids first, and then to be sure, get you prototypes checked out by real people with disabilities who actually use assistive technology and alternative user interface modes. If there is a problem with either of these story lines, I need to be trained.
Received on Thursday, 1 April 1999 21:13:33 UTC