Re: Terminology

There is in fact a great deal of semantic information that can be extracted
from HTML if it has been encoded, but there are a lot of visually oriented
designers who are sufficiently bloody-minded about the importance of visual
presentation that they will hard-code the "underbrush" into content while
leaving out the semantic information that would make their page useful across
different hardware and software setups.

It is true that there is a limit to the amount of information that can be
extracted from the current versions of Explorer, Opera, Netscape, Neoplanet,
Doczilla and Lynx. Structured browsers can provide more (e.g. Amaya) but more
still will be available when RDF and XML are implemented and shippable (in
part this is not really possible, because the XML linking mechanism has not
yet been finished).

The idea of providing a non-graphic version which has been optimised is not
intrinsically bad. The idea that this restructured view of a page, and a
completely unstructured view as propogated on the web today adds up to
accessibility is wrong, for the reasons I outlined in my previous message on
the topic. In order to make this approach work to provide accessibility the
workload increases to provide various different presentations optimised for
various groups, and becomes isolating to the extent that different groups of
users are not getting the same page and have difficulty in talking about what
is ostensibly the same thing in a way that other groups can recognise.

I would suggest that you are doing a good job on presenting the page to one
group of users, but that it would be more profitable to focus your efforst on
the original page.

As a visual user I perfectly understand the visual imperative for
communication. My basic training in Graphic Communication also gives me an
understanding that there is more to it than having a lot of fancy images -
there are plenty of examples of visually designed and visualy appealing but
almost unusable sites out there. Those just demonstrate that it is possible
to do a bad job in many media at once as well as to do a good job. I would
encourage you to continue with the approach of having a site which a
primarily visual user is comfortable with, but I would encourage you to turn
some of your talent to making that version itself better for users.

Charles McCN

On Sun, 19 Dec 1999, Scott Luebking wrote:

  Hi, Charles
  
  I may not have been very clear in my posting.  An issue seems to be
  whether to identify a type of page as being designed for blind users.
  There seems to be a variety of opinions on this aspect through my very
  informal surveying.  For example, one blind man said if he can ask
  for information in braille, how is it different to ask for a web page which
  is easier to use?
  
  The reason that the phrase "non-graphical" came up was a way to address the
  preferences of those blind users who are uncomfortable with selecting
  a web page format which is identified as being for blind users.
  
  The phrase "non-graphical" was not meant to convey that the pages would
  only have graphical elements removed.  The format would include other aspects
  such as order based on the semantic information of the page, etc.
  
  Do you have a different suggestion for terminology?
  
  
  I agree that a better approach is to provide alternatives from which
  a user can make a selection.  A key technical limitation has to do
  with the fact about which Tim Berners-Lee has written that it is very hard
  for software to extract semantic information out of HTML once the
  HTML is created.  As a result, alternatives which are dependent
  on semantic aspects need organized along the semantic aspects
  before the HTML is created.
  
  Do you understand this technical limitation?
  
  
  A second question is whether you think that it is easier for many blind people
  to use web pages which are organized along semantic aspects?  What tests
  have you done along these lines?
  
  
  In my informal surveying, a number of blind users have commented on how they
  are challenged using screen readers.  The more complicated they are,
  the harder it will be for blind users of average intelligence or
  technical motivation to use them.  Learning to use screen readers is
  not the preferred past-time of many blind people.
  
  One blind man's view of a screen reader is like a tool for cutting through
  the underbrush.  The more types and variations of underbrush, the
  more complex the underbrush device has to become and the harder it is
  to learn to use.  A better strategy would be to avoid creating the
  underbrush when possible.  While there are those who might like
  fighting through the underbrush, there are those who just want to
  get through the underbrush as quickly as possible and get on
  with other aspects of their lives.
  
  I believe from the various conversations I've had with blind folks
  whose lives are not technology that each aspect which makes web
  pages easier to use will help diminish the digital divide which
  could harm the quality of their lives.
  
  
  Do you understand the issue of the visual imperative of web pages
  and why sighted people are less likely to compromise the
  visual appeal of web pages in order to make them easier to use
  by blind people?
  
  
  Scott
  
  
  
  > I think this is a major mistake, for thesame reason a text-only page is a
  > mistake.
  > 
  > Although there are a number of web users out there with no faciilty whatever
  > to view graphically represented information, there are a larger number whose
  > facility to do so is simply different from the assumptions made by some web
  > content providers.
  > 
  > To simply throw away the graphics and suggest that it is now an accessible
  > site is like turning the volume off and saying now this site is fine for deaf
  > people. Consider the following cases:
  > 
  > A person with poor vision magnifying the page by perhaps 8 times. There is no
  > intrinsic reason why this person should not see the "graphical
  > version". However, to provide a poorly designed graphic version which does
  > not magnify cleanly, and a non-graphic version is to effectively to offer
  > such a person two unworkable choices.
  > 
  > A person who is congenitally deaf, uses a sign language, and is a poor
  > reader. To provide this person with an uncaptioned movie presentation or with
  > the collated text transcript is generally a bad solution.
  > 
  > In fact the problem is not really one of terminology, but one of what is
  > required to be able to use a page. In general terms one could sum it up as
  > access to the content of the page, but in a case where a person has a
  > limitation (whether a disability or other environmental constraint is
  > irrelevant) in the media they can use, then it is to provide sufficient
  > alternatives that they can come as close as practicable to the original
  > goal. The approach of providing a version for only two groups of users (blind
  > users and people with a certain hardware/software combination that has been
  > presumed to be a "standard") is much better than only proviing for one group
  > of users, but is still a very serious shortfall. A better approach is to
  > provide the relevant information and alternatives from which a user can take
  > as much as they can use.
  > 
  > It is for this reason that the current guidelines do not recommend an
  > alternative version, and that many members of the working group are opposed
  > to promoting such a solution. Perhaps better terminology would be an
  > accessible version and an inaccessible version (I would use stronger language
  > but there is only rhetorical value anyway). The situation in which I
  > recommend such a strategy is where there is some constraint which means that
  > an inaccessible version is going to be produced. An example would be an
  > organisation which produced forms that were legally required to have a
  > certain format, and the only possible exemption was to provide the forms in
  > accessible format specifically for people with disabilities. I remain opposed
  > to this strategy as anything but a last resort.
  > 
  > Charles McCN
  

--
Charles McCathieNevile    mailto:charles@w3.org    phone: +61 409 134 136
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative                    http://www.w3.org/WAI
21 Mitchell Street, Footscray, VIC 3011,  Australia (I've moved!)

Received on Sunday, 19 December 1999 21:43:27 UTC