Re: Does the user know for sure whether the page is dynamic or static?

I have yet again to disagree.
I understand that historically WAI may have come from the initiatives that
you outline.
I should perhaps add that, people with cognitive disabilities, because of
their circumstance rarely have need to engage in purchasing. Not that this
is ideal.

As I imagine it in the future, and possibly presently the vast bulk of links
are from individuals. Not necessarily partaking of commercial content rather
social interaction. There is also a centre third of small business and
academics who have no need or requirement for the latest technologies.

The ability to author pages easily would effect the balance considerably.

It is these non commercial sites that the vast majority of hits by people
with disabilities  relate to.
It is by enabling the average person to author accessible pages that much is
to be achieved.

A superb and accessible leading edge site may raise the profile of WAI, but
if it is near impossible for any individual to imitate, it will not have the
desired trickle down.

Dynamic pages are one of these technologies they would be better accessible,
but jo doe will not be able to use (ie pass on) the accessibility, more
especially if he cannot find it again.

jay@peepo.com

Jonathan Chetwynd
Special needs teacher / web accessibility consultant
education and outreach working group member, web accessibility initiative,
W3C
----- Original Message -----
From: Al Gilman <asgilman@iamdigex.net>
To: <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2000 1:59 AM
Subject: Re: Does the user know for sure whether the page is dynamic or
static?


> At 08:42 PM 1/23/00 +0000, Jonathan Chetwynd wrote:
> >Al wrote:
> >
> >We need a way for people to be able to be sure that
> >they are accessing the same information, even when it is presented
> >differently.
> >
> >This just cannot make sense, the presentation DOES affect the meaning.
> >(bold is used as illustration not intention).
>
> Let me try an example, then.
>
> Something which is bold in vision can be un-modified in the synthetic
> speech, in which case information is lost.  Or it can be inflected a
little
> louder or with a heightened articulation index, in which case we come
> pretty close to equivalent presentations.
>
> In referring to "the same information" I actually was referring to a more
> mechanical level where data engineering technology can help.  For example
> in the matter of Mac prices.  A price in a web page should always have
> effectivity information so people are not surprised if the merchant says
it
> is no longer good.  If an obsolete price quotation is not obviously
> obsolete, then the response of the system is not predictable.  That kind
of
> issue.
>
> >
> >My concern as usual is that members are allowing themselves to get too
far
> >away from the common person. And that person's ability to use the tools.
> >
> >It is all very well Al not wishing  a "total disconnect between our
> >set of rules and the Web run by money."
> >Who is the code being written for the end users or the middle men?
> >If accessibility is just a sop to salve the conscience of the money men
> >count me out.
> >
>
> When you ask "who is the code being written for?" I am not sure we have
the
> same code in mind.  I am thinking about the content publishing and serving
> code, and the web applications composed of server-side and client-side
> scripts taken together with HTML or HTML-generating data.
>
> There is an immense expectation of future profitability for those who own
> the most successful code for managing the transit of information through
> the web.  There is a lot of money chasing this expectation in the form of
> code developed around profit motives.  The web of the future will be
> defined by the code so developed.  We have no way around that.  We can't
> stop it, we can try to steer it a little.  But to steer it we will do
> better with the carrot of competitive advantage than with the stick of
> moral disapproval.
>
> The carrot is the fact that checking for known gross failure modes in
> usability by people with disabilities has a ripple effect of making the
> content better designed, usable, and more readily understood by many more
> people.  It is a quality check tool for effective communication.
Effective
> communication is where one sees the profits.  The Wall Street Journal
wrote
> this past Christmas shopping binge season about how e-commerce retailers
> suffer a higher rate of returned purchases because the online medium does
> not yet communicate as clearly to buyers just what they are buying.  This
> is our leverage point.  Understanding what makes web pages comprehensible
> across the full spectrum of adapted modes of access teaches how to make
web
> pages more readily and correctly understood by all.  It impacts the
> comprehension rates for people with disabilities and people without.
Fewer
> unhappy returns.  Increased return on investment.  QED.
>
> I don't believe we should be pandering to people's greed for any moral
> choice of my own, but because I don't see any other choice.  There's
nobody
> else out there, to speak of.
>
> Al
>
>
>
>

Received on Monday, 24 January 2000 04:43:26 UTC