A technology gap (was Re: Steps in developing technology

Hi,

I've been talking with different people in industry about dynamically
generated web pages.  (There is a lot of interest and jobs in the
field.) I feel like I'm seeing two different worlds.  Very few people
who are involved with dynamically generated web pages are interested in
accessibility and almost no one active in the field is involved with the
guidelines.  Similarly, almost no one involved with the content
guidelines has any industrial experience with dynamically generated web
pages.

My impression has been that people involved with dynamically generated
web pages usually have been surprised that there is so little research on
the optimal formats for different disabilities.  This is some what at
odds with how they would approach this type of problem.  Also, there have
been almost no technically compelling reasons that many developers of
dynamic web pages would accept about why dynamically generated web pages
should be the same for all disabled people with a possible exception of less
work.

There is much talk about the technology gap in the disabled community
and I think we have an example of it here.  The two worlds of disability
and dynamically generated web pages are not talking with each other.
Neither are showing many signs of wanting to learn more about the
other world and its approach to technology.

I don't know if this is a west coast thing versus an east coast thing,
but I also haven't seen a consistent opinion that most disabled people
want all dynamically generated web pages to be the same irregardless
of the disability.

I'm adding a form for screen reader users to vote about whether they would
prefer to use dynamically generated web pages which are formatted for
screen readers or which are using a standard format.  The URL is:

     http://members.aol.com/criptrip/dynamic_web_pages

Scott

Received on Saturday, 26 February 2000 17:40:19 UTC