Re: Some thoughts and Possible Action Steps for CD

I have tried to order my thoughts, not easy, and in this case rather
lengthy.

I'd certainly be interested in contributing to these ideas.

CD seems to me to be an unusually large problem, unlike say text to speech,
which to some extent is already solved, or say alt tags. If the effort is to
be purely voluntary, then it needs a large number of members and
contributors, and by no means all should have experience of CD, it needs to
have a mix of experience as do the other working groups.

As Anne and I have both remarked are efforts are voluntary, as I recognise
are many members, however we have no commercial interest in web page
development.
It is very important that CD is represented ideally by themselves and in the
meantime by mediators/facilitators.... at CD and main stream conferences
such as CSUN and WWW9.
WWW9 is in amsterdam, but whilst I could visit, probably arrange
accommodation, and have been invited to speak, I could not possibly afford
the entrance fee.You will be aware that taking the timeout represents some
problem.
I have drawn this to the attention of many members and officers offline
without the desired result.

on your specific points:

2  Perhaps we need to consider rephrasing the meaning of accessibility
concerning the Guidelines.
Universal accessibility is a central tenet at WAI, and there may be stong
objections to this development...
Certainly an element of usability is being included.
Why are the Guidelines rooted in what must obviously be for the present a
fallacious argument that pages can be accessible to all, certainly some
pages can be recognised by the new born, but we probably all agree it is
fruitless to expect all to be, for now.

It needs to feedback into mainstream WAI work on a very regular basis, in
order to ensure to avoid being sidelined and to ensure it stays rooted to
reality, even if it has some unrealistic for the present, objectives.

d)  I agree some start has been made, the uptake is a little slow, with a
lot of friction.

3  EOWG has created some simple pages that when given more prominence and
futher developed will I hope be a great resource for all. And show how and
why we all need to develop from, what I consider to be, an academic style of
presentation to a more popular format.
The most important facet currently, being imho the avoidance of a need to
use scrolling. ie dividing information into page sized chunks, and thus
having to think more clearly about search and navigation.

1   I would like to see a recommendation within the Guidelines that meta
tags give some indication of audience, I believe porn sites already attempt
to exclude themselves from universality.
Also after thought and debate something such as: some means of recommending
that links attempt to aid development of understanding. ie bright persons
can find stuff, homepages in the mai should especially be designed to lead
the less able.

4  There are a number of successful and very sucessful graphics packagers
that publish images that are used by large numbers of CD clients.
One only needs to visit their sites, and or possibly purchase their
productsa to see the means graphics are used to promote literacy.

Finally this leads me to what I see as the central problem surrounding these
proposals.
WAI appears to be attempting to provide 'A' solution.
Literacy historically has always had an extremely idiosyncratic or personal
and individual solution.
Text  only Guidelines will be extremely vague and probably innapropriate.
(eg where are our streaming captioned audio, far more effective than any
number of pages of guidelines.
I'd be able to copy and past for a start)
It will be important to ensure that if and when we publish resources that
are accessible they are not taken as gospel, rather as indicators.
This is difficult as their apparent transparency should induce people to
copy rather than conceive.

Please accept my apologies for this rather lengthy blather, I now have to
take my daughter and grandmother to the park, on a sunny Sunday. Enjoy the
rising full moon before it wanes. Great Party last night.

jay@peepo.com

Jonathan Chetwynd
special needs teacher and
web accessibility consultant.
----- Original Message -----
From: Gregg Vanderheiden <gv@trace.wisc.edu>
To: GL - WAI Guidelines WG (E-mail) <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2000 6:02 AM
Subject: Some thoughts and Possible Action Steps for CD


> Anne, Jonathan,
>
> You must be pretty frustrated by now with this discussion on the GL list.
> Similarly -others are also frustrated.   Yet everyone seems to be trying
to
> address the same problem.    I have been trying to figure out where the
> mismatches are and I think I may have picked up some of the clues from the
> last 20 messages or so.  Let me try a couple things.
>
> Jonathan - you said " This group do not need 'every' page to be
accessible,
> however it would be very helpful if every site had a part for them.  For
> example these people need to know their legal, medical and educational
> rights.  They need to be able to browse the web and find suitable
pages...."
>
> Anne, you said that text was often too complicated to understand even if
> read.   Yet some ideas cannot be expressed except via language.
>
> These lead me to the following thought train
>
> a)  It sounds like perhaps you two  are not asking that all pages be made
> accessible to people with CD but that more content be made available in
this
> form.
>
> b) However, the web content guidelines are intended to be applied to all
web
> pages.  (at least that is how everyone has been treating them).
>
> c) therefore - what you are asking for is not changes to the web content
> guidelines but rather something else.   What - I am not quite sure.
Perhaps
> a call for more content on the web to be made accessible to people with CD
> or severe CD.  Perhaps a call for the development of guidelines for those
> who are trying to create specific pages targeted toward people who have CD
> or severe CD.
>
> d) In the guidelines, we have tried to put as much as we can to make ALL
> pages as accessible as possible to people with CD by requiring that they
be
> written in the simplest language possible for the pages content and by
> encouraging the use of graphics to supplement the text.     This will help
> for some and make more pages accessible to more people.  But as you
pointed
> out, some pages will have text that is too complex and adding graphics
will
> not solve the problem for many.  We need guidance on what to do for them.
>
>
>
> So I think I might suggest the following ideas for discussion
>
> 1)   CONTINUE LOOKING AT OUR CD GUIDELINES ( in WCAG) THAT WOULD BE
REQUIRED
> OF ALL PAGES
> "That we continue to try to see if there is any more that can be though of
> that should be required or encouraged for ALL web pages (and to add those
to
> the guidelines if we find any)
>
> 2)  TARGETED CD PAGES TECHNIQUES DOCUMENT  (to be given a better name
> though)
> That a subgroup be formed to explore the development of a specific set of
> techniques for people trying to create particular pages on their sites
> accessible to people with CD or severe CD.
>
> 3)  CD PAGE EXEMPLARS
> That the subgroup also take a look at a series of sites and actually
create
> sample pages that follow the guidelines to demonstrate these ideas and
> provide examples for others who might not understand the techniques doc
> without examples.   You might pick a variety of sites.    Maybe the Disney
> site, the WAI site, and I would like to see the Trace site included in the
> examples.  [Lets call this
>
> 4)  CD ACCESS TECHNIQUES RESEARCH AND TESTING
> I think it would be a great idea to also have someone submit a proposal to
> do comparative research to see if people who cannot understand spoken text
> could understand information provided in pictures or graphics - and which
> types of information could be presented that way - and which types of
> pictures or graphics would be most effective.   This then could drive the
CD
> techniques doc.
>
>
>
> Thoughts ?
>
> Gregg
>
> -- ------------------------------
> Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D.
> Professor - Human Factors
> Dept of Ind. Engr. - U of Wis.
> Director - Trace R & D Center
> Gv@trace.wisc.edu, http://trace.wisc.edu/
> FAX 608/262-8848
> For a list of our listserves send "lists" to listproc@trace.wisc.edu
>
>
>

Received on Sunday, 19 March 2000 06:20:32 UTC