- From: Mike Paciello <paciello@webable.com>
- Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2000 15:22:37 -0400
- To: "William Loughborough" <love26@gorge.net>, "Guidelines" <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Sorry to interject and otherwise interrupt the thread of this conversation -- but thanks Bill for bringing a smile to my face today. This response is a gem! (Sorry Al). - Mike > -----Original Message----- > From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org]On > Behalf Of William Loughborough > Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2000 2:34 PM > To: Guidelines > Subject: Principles > > > AG:: "First, leave no gratuitous barrier between the information and its > consumer." > > WL: Now that's the level of abstraction that I think we should be pursuing > here. Although this "requires" a bunch of explanation, as a guiding > *principle* it might be hard to cap. It has nothing to do with > not only the > Web but with media at all - even language! > > AG:: "...the intrinsic structure of the information is graph-shaped, not > tree-shaped..." > > WL: The characterization of the structure's shape is of interest but until > the fundamental of there being such a thing as "structure" reaches our > audience, it mattereth little if we think of ovals and arrows or > some other > realization. The problem we face is that authors and their tools are > besieged by retinal conceit. Too many aren't even aware that the > tasks they > use their eyes for could readily be made available to machines (and > incidentally blind folks) through the use of some not-too-tedious > constructs. It just has to be put into what they think of as "English" (or > "French" or whatever) so that they "get it". Most of us are > totally clueless > as to how this is done and often even demean such efforts. I've > tried to do > it but without much success and it may be that the ability to > participate in > all these "inner workings" precludes the particular communication skills > needed to write in less-polysallabic terms. Al's shot at de-mystifying the > thing about "navigable, hierarchical > content decomposition." gave us a small taste of how problematic this is > because none of the words in that quote (except possibly "content" - which > is debatable) are in the daily vocabularies of much of our intended > audience. > > If I try to explain what I do to the people I play poker with > (mostly Latino > agricultural workers), I bumble horribly. Al Gilman has a similar problem > with almost everyone he talks to outside the rarified places he mostly > frequents. While I don't expect to pattern-match to the guy who maintains > the milking machines, I think we even have a problem with a great many > people who design Web sites - and even more so with their managers. > > -- > Love. > ACCESSIBILITY IS RIGHT - NOT PRIVILEGE >
Received on Thursday, 7 September 2000 15:19:54 UTC