Re: A Fresh Look at Accommodating Cognitive Disabilities

Do you know if there are any guidelines to do a visual alternative for text?

I understand from the discussion that have been going on that we don't yet 
have a clear picture of how this should be done and need to figure it out 
first to be able to explain what the visual alternatives mean. For text 
alternatives there exist guidelines how an image should be described, such 
as the NBA guidelines and it is pretty clear what objects should have the 
explanation i.g. image element or captions for audio and description for 
video (with SVG we probably need a bit more guidelines as now we can attach 
explanations about parts of the image too). However, at least I don't know 
yet how to explain what parts of text or document (and there are different 
kinds of texts) should have pictures and what kinds of pictures, what is 
the minimum requirement and what is extra help?

If you have some ideas to add to the brainstorming, it would be very 
helpful at least to me.

Marja

At 12:28 PM 5/9/2000 -0400, Anne Pemberton wrote:
>Greg,
>
>         There are many points on which we agree, and I feel your 
> refinements of
>the guidelines 14.1, 14.2, and 14.4 are excellent. But I'd like to revisit
>a point I made in mid March about guideline 1. Guideline 1 says "Provide
>equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content." The guideline
>should say "Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory, visual, and text
>content." This makes it clear that there are indeed two distinct types of
>"visual" content, and that text is a stumbling block for some disabled
>folks, just as auditory content is for some and graphical "visual" content
>is for others.
>
>         Personally, I suspect some who criticize the guidelines know at 
> gut level
>that there are many with disabilities who aren't accommodated by the
>current guidelines. I also feel web designers will be less resistent to
>guidelines that acknowledge the needs of the graphically-visually dependent
>as well as those who are flummoxed by graphics.
>
>                                         Anne
>
>
>Anne L. Pemberton
>http://www.pen.k12.va.us/Pav/Academy1
>http://www.erols.com/stevepem/Homeschooling
>apembert@crosslink.net
>Enabling Support Foundation
>http://www.enabling.org

Received on Wednesday, 10 May 2000 10:44:15 UTC