Re: Steps in developing technology

Scott,

	I would think that the problem with your solution is that a single
prototype isn't going to include ALL members of the addressed group. When
developing a product, somewhere along the line, a decision is made as to
the people who will and will not be served by the product, and the
prototype follows this mission. Guidelines cannot be restricted to a small
definition of the prototype of a disabled person, no matter which, or how
many disabilities they are affected by. "Common wisdom" of what the
visually impaired folks, those with limited vision "need", yet I know some
online "visually impaired" folks who would be bored if the web were limited
to their presumed "needs". Another presumption is that "learning disabled"
folks are accommodated by including more white space and omitting
animations, yet despite the fact that I've a career full and family full of
LD folks, not a one of them is drawn to web pages with "more white
space"... yuck!.. and several seek out the animations as the reason the web
is worth $20 a month! If a prototype is clearly impossible for the learning
disabled and the visually impaired, is there a group of disabled persons
for which is IS possible?

	Even tho there are many blind folks who use screen readers with
synthesized speech, how many more blind folks would come online if they
could access natural human speech instead of synthesized???

					Anne

				Anne

	

	

At 12:29 PM 2/22/2000 -0800, Scott Luebking wrote:
>Hi,
>
>As I've been looking at dynamically generated web pages and what would
>be helpful for screen readers, I've been basically following these steps:
>
>    1.  gather information by observing screen reader users work with web
pages
>	and interviewing them
>
>    2.  extract key aspects from the information gathered
>
>    3.  develop a prototype
>
>    4.  have people use the prototype and get feed back.
>
>    5.  refine prototype and get more feedback.  repeat as needed.
>
>    6.  demonstrate technical feasibility
>
>Software / product development generally follow steps similar to this.
>I'm wondering if there is something about these steps which are
>not compatible with developing the guidelines?
>
>Scott
>
>
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 Thursday, 2 March 2000 06:18:01 UTC