- From: Jason White <jasonw@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au>
- Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 16:31:18 +1000 (EST)
- To: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Writing ex officio again: I don't think the guidelines assume that the reader of web content must be literate. An illiterate person can in principle operate a computer via speech input and listen to speech output. What the guidelines demand is that (per Principle 4) content must not be expressed in a more complex manner than the nature of the purpose and subject matter demand; and that modality-specific (auditory/visual) presentations be provided to aid comprehension where appropriate. This reduces the over-all comprehension threshhold, but it also needs to be acknowledged that a certain ability to understand language will be necessary in order to access most (though not necessarily all) content. This is a plain and simple fact which no access strategies can overcome. However, we can try to minimize complexity, provide a consistent style of presentation, include graphical/auditory material where appropriate, etc., to aid understanding. This will not make all content accessible to all people, but it will facilitate comprehension and under certain circumstances amount to the diference between content's being accessible, or inaccessible, to particular individuals.
Received on Thursday, 17 August 2000 02:33:06 UTC