- From: Charles McCathieNevile <charles@w3.org>
- Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 19:57:54 -0500 (EST)
- To: jonathan chetwynd <jc@signbrowser.org.uk>
- cc: William Loughborough <love26@gorge.net>, <w3c-wai-eo@w3.org>
This gets to something that was only a an unidentified nagging feeling until Jonathan said it plain. I agree that it is valuable to show where there are things that we can't completely solve, but where accessibility is still important because it makes a difference. And using an example that describes things which are already done is a good thing I think. It enables people to understand that this is something that is part of everyday work, and that they are probably taking some of it into account without realising it. It makes it clear that small steps are a great deal better than no steps. There is an ongoing argument that suggests people won't try to conform to WCAG other than at the defined levels. I think that is rubbish, that people will do what they can, and this kind of scenario demonstrates why that's a good thing. There are a couple of things that have really stuck in my mind as scenarios. One is Peter Bosher (I think) saying on the WAI video that with the Web he can get stories to read to his little boy. The other is the blind person who wanted to help their sighted child study for their driving test, but couldn't because nobody thought that access to driving information was important for a blind person. If we had a couple of multimedia clips available it would be helpful to convey the message to those who are accustomed to visual processing. (Which includes a lot of the people creating inaccessible websites). And it makes the people in the stories more real somehow. It requires people who are prepared to have a bit of their life stuck out for everyone to look at, but there are such people, and a few of them participated in the WAI video. I don't think we should wait forever to publish this document - we can improve it and republish it later. Having a document we can refer to is better in my mind than not having a document, but being able to say there will be a really good one later. But it would be good to keep these things in mind, as I think they represent good ways to significantly improve on what we have. (Besides, the technology changes, and the ways people can or can't use the Web change with it. Not so long ago the example of someone navigating tables with a screen reader would have implied that they were using emacspeak, which is a very rare product in standard working environments. Now it is possible in a much wider range of systems). my own late-night thoughts... Charles McCN On Sat, 6 Jan 2001, jonathan chetwynd wrote: I've attempted to create a synopsis of something like ~100 clients that I see regularly. Not many have downs syndrome, and labelling them is not a 'great' help to most people. Very few of them will ever find work, let alone paid employment that is rewarding. In the scenario that follows, I've tried to describe the benefits of commercial sites as well as sites designed for this group. I'd like to: see something visual with sound effects on the wai site, a photo (actor?) helps identification immensely. we can see how old they are... And we can use that fabled alt tag. pat people on the back for providing stimulation that is suitable and accessible to my clients, without worrying too much about the alt tags. (mp3, flash, shockwave, realmedia, java..... any or all) ok it helps to have text equivalents, it also helps to have multimedia equivalents, signing and symbols, & precis.... recognises that we have serious and possibly long term, problems addressing cognitive disabilty, but are making small steps. --- Katie is 40 she has a learning disability and lives at home with her parents. She has mental health problems and tends to get lost in complex arguments. She is lively, intelligent, and has a point of view, and in most respects has the needs and abilities of any adult. Every weekday a bus collects her, and takes her to a day centre and onto college, where she can browse the web. She enjoys signing with others, and benefits greatly when reading from the occassional use of symbols. She has the reading age of a 4 year old, and is a keen student. She has tried dictation software and text readers, with mixed results. Ataxia means that she has problems with a mouse, and prefers pages that don't contain scroll bars. She is not in a position to spend much money so banner ads are wasted. Her reading and writing skills enable her to use a search engine. She generally copies words from tapes or newspapers. However she usually needs help, to interprete the results, which rarely contain relevent images. She loves music and TV soaps. She finds that some sites provide small images of stars with links to music, videos, games and even webcams. She benefits most when their are only a few words and links on a page, all of which are relevent to her interests. Then she knows what she likes. She listens and watches, and often creates original artwork in another window. Copies keywords, and prints out relevant images and text. She is always adding to her portfolio (or diary) of interests. Katie is not quite ready to browse the web on her own yet, but she's learning how, and the technology is moving her way. --- I've been in bed all day with flu, its late, and i'll probably now need another day in bed. bye. -- 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 until 6 January 2001 at: W3C INRIA, 2004 Route des Lucioles, BP 93, 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France
Received on Saturday, 6 January 2001 19:57:58 UTC