Re: Text equivalents and cognitive considerations

At 11:49 PM 3/14/2000 -0600, Gregg Vanderheiden wrote:
>Anne, if I missed your point - then I sincerely apologize for making you
>read all this.   I'm interested in your thoughts or reactions.   If I did
>miss the boat, could you post back an example of a specific guideline that
>you are interested in seeing?  Maybe that will help me.
>
I don't seem to have the skills to write a guideline that expresses the
needs of "all the above" of your examples. But I can share thoughts and
experiences, and hope someone else in the group can turn them into the
necessary words for a guideline.

>Is there something that you think we should do besides:
>1) making sure all text is electronic (so that it can be read to the user by
>their browser)

The popular browsers do not read as yet. If they did, this would be a fine
solution for some/many, but it isn't here yet. Browsers that read to a user
are not typically (if any) user-friendly to ordinary users. And browsers
which work with standard sound cards don't seem to be commonly available
even in the nearby cities. Perhaps I've looked in the wrong places.

>2) encouraging the use of graphics on a page  and

I would suggest requiring the use of graphics on a page, not for "style"
but for content. By graphics, I mean not only pictures, but diagrams,
tables and all the other alternates to text that are typically used in
textbooks and decent encyclopedia. I know this is problematical, but I feel
it is doable, and a good solution. 

>3) keeping the language as simple as possible

I suspect this one needs to be in BOLD and HIGHLIGHTED, and put in the
highest priority! In the past few months when I tried to find sites for use
by young children studying common "Famous Americans", I grumbled often over
the unnecessarily wordiness of many sites. As I said in an earlier post,
out of searches of perhaps hundreds of sites, only two were actually useful
for my young pre-readers. This isn't technical information on thermophysics! 

Thanks for the gracious response. Looks like I'll be grounded yet tomorrow
with this "crud".

					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, 15 March 2000 15:58:02 UTC