Re: An article about Yahoo's simplicity of design

Subject: lack of resources available to people with cognitive difficulties

I think anne has really centred on the problem.
mostly our students rely on the cast off computers from admin.
naturally they do not have specialist software, and are a few years old.

jay@peepo.com

Jonathan Chetwynd
Special needs teacher / web accessibility consultant
education and outreach working group member, web accessibility initiative,
W3C
----- Original Message -----
From: Anne Pemberton <apembert@crosslink.net>
To: Dick Brown <dickb@microsoft.com>; 'Jonathan Chetwynd' <jay@peepo.com>;
Scott Luebking <phoenixl@netcom.com>; <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2000 12:14 AM
Subject: RE: An article about Yahoo's simplicity of design


> At 05:10 PM 2/3/2000 -0800, Dick Brown wrote:
> >But I guess my question is more bottom-line: How can site owners (such as
> the WAI) represent large amounts of text (such as guidelines) so that it
is
> accessible to non-readers? How can the many concepts in those guidelines
be
> represented in non-text form?
>
> Jonathon has made suggestions for this previously. Large amounts of text
> will pose the same problem as large numbers of graphics. The blind person
> will lose comprehension of a page of graphics, even if tagged, just as a
> severely cognitively/reading disabled person will lose comprehension of a
> page of text even if it is marked with eye-catching fonts in titles and
> subtitles, and the use of color to mark items of note in the text.
>
> >Likewise, what can the online version of the New York Times do to make it
> possible for non-readers to get all of the day's news? Is it enough that
an
> audio summary is available via Audible.com?
> >
> Let Jonathon answer definitively for his end of the population, but the
> folks I've worked with would enjoy an audio summary on something that can
> be installed free, such as real player.
>
> >Do sighted non-readers ever use screen reader software so they can listen
to
> >the text on a Web page?
>
> The PC's just delivered for my computer lab at a K-2nd grade school do NOT
> include any screen reader software. Nor have I been given a budget to
> purchase software even tho this is a change from MAC's to PC's (Actually,
> the only software tha came with it is Windows NT with Paint, Notepad and
> Wordpad... if this  were the place to do it, I'd be soliciting software
> donations!)
>
> 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 Saturday, 5 February 2000 05:28:02 UTC