Re: Evaluation results: disability and assistive technology

I am always concerned by people asking what proposrtion of web users
are disabled. To my mind, the question is irrelevant - the point is that
SOME are, that there are ways of designing which allow those people to use
web pages and ways of designing which exclude them and that the former is
good design and the latter is bad design.

As I see it, the primary purpose of these guidelines is to explain how to
do what I have called good design, not why to design things for disabled
users.

Thorough explanations of what the problems are, and how the solutions
proposed work, is valuable and should also be made avilable as a tool used
for verifying whether the guidelines achieve what they set out to achieve.
It seems to me that it shouldbe included in associated documentation such
as the techniques document rather than in teh guidelines themselves.

Charlses McCN

On Sat, 13 Mar 1999, Chetz Colwell wrote:

  <message 6 of 8>.
  Hi,
  Patrick Schmitz's comments reflect requests by our participants.  They said
  they would like more information about screenreaders, how users interact
  with them, what they can and cannot do, how users and screenreaders will
  interact with new tags.  It was also suggested that statistics on the
  percentage of the population who are disabled could be included.  It seems
  that more information of this type would help authors understand the
  purpose of the Guidelines and the utility of the new tags.
  
  Also, some participants formed some unhelpful misconceptions which could
  perhaps be avoided by the provision of further descriptions.  These
  included: that blind people may not realise that some pages need to be
  scrolled; and that a screen reader may not recognise vertical bars.
  
  Potential solution:
  * This type of information could either be provided within the body of the
  Guidelines, or perhaps in the Definitions Appendix.
  
  Regards,
  
  Chetz and Helen.
  
  -----
  Chetz Colwell and Helen Petrie,
  <c.g.colwell@herts.ac.uk>, <h.l.petrie@herts.ac.uk>.
  Sensory Disabilities Research Unit,
  University of Hertfordshire,
  UK.
  Tel: +44 1707 284629
  Fax: +44 1707 285059
  
  

--Charles McCathieNevile            mailto:charles@w3.org
phone: +1 617 258 0992   http://www.w3.org/People/Charles
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative    http://www.w3.org/WAI
MIT/LCS  -  545 Technology sq., Cambridge MA, 02139,  USA

Received on Sunday, 14 March 1999 17:11:08 UTC