Proposed rewrite of "aids not solutions" scenario

EOWG:

I worked on the rewrite of Jonathan's draft scenario for "How People with
Disabilities Use the Web" document again, trying to get it more consistent
with the style & types of things we need to link to if using it as an
example, and incorporating whatever I could from our discussion last week
and from William's comments.

I have left intact at the bottom of this message the draft text that
Jonathan sent at the beginning of January.

Please look this over carefully and reply to the EOWG mailing list with
your comments.

Note that after working so hard to avoid the use of any "disability term"
in the first paragraph, we forgot that we have to provide a short title for
the scenario in any case. Please comment on my first attempt, below. Better
suggestions, if roughly consistent with our existing scenario titles, are
welcome.

Thank you,

- Judy


[draft rewrite -- note, the numbers in brackets in the text indicate where
the links listed below would be positioned in an HTML'ized version of this.]


Adult day care participant browsing for entertainment

Ms. Sato is in her 40's and lives at home with her parents. She has
difficulty learning new concepts and gets lost in complex arguments [1].
She can read only a few words, but recognizes many symbols; knows numbers,
but cannot do addition. She is lively, has opinions about many things, and
has been using the Web for two years now with some assistance. 

Ms. Sato goes to an adult day care center on weekdays, where she browses
the Web with the help of local college students. She has tried using speech
synthesis [2] so that she can listen to Web sites at the same time as she
is looking at them, however the synthesized speech sometimes confuses her
as it jumps around from section to section on the page.

Some Web sites she finds very welcoming. These sites include graphics,
animations, music, games, and video including webcams, all of which help
her understand the content of a page [3]. She loves watching  TV programs
on the Web, and finding her favorite songs. She also finds sites with a
clear and uncrowded layout easier to use [4]. She bookmarks these pages and
returns later. Sometimes she copies words from pages that interest her, and
pastes them into a search engine. Because the output of the search engine
is completely text-based, she needs someone to help her interpret all the
different choices that appear [5].

She has some difficulty with hand coordination, making it hard for her to
select links [6] or to type words into a form. She gets frustrated when a
form "times out" [7] because she is typing more slowly than the page
designer expected.

[1] link to impairments of intelligence
[2] link to speech synthesis
[3] inclusion of graphics and animation for comprehension
[4] keeping layout clear and uncrowded layout
[5] options for searches
[6] link selection choices?
[7] no timing out of pages

[original draft from jonathan]

At 11:42 PM 1/6/01 +0000, 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.
>
>-- 
>Jonathan Chetwynd
>jc@signbrowser.org.uk
>Learning Difficulties teacher(IT)
>
-- 
Judy Brewer    jbrewer@w3.org    +1.617.258.9741    http://www.w3.org/WAI
Director, Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) International Program Office
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
MIT/LCS Room NE43-355, 200 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA,  02139,  USA

Received on Thursday, 8 February 2001 23:38:12 UTC