Re: CD and Web Accessibility

Kynn,

	Overall, I like what you are doing with my suggestions ...

At 12:35 PM 10/25/00 -0700, Kynn Bartlett wrote:
>Anne, what sort of instructions should we write on how and when to
>illustrate something?  My initial thoughts are:
>
>* Provide enough illustration so that a user who is unable to
>   read the text of the page can at least guess at the functionality
>   from the graphics with a high degree of reliability

More than the functionality, the user needs to know what the topic of the
page is. The first or main illustration for a page should indicate the
topic as much as possible. Functionality is important, if the user is to
search further on the site, but if they don't know the topic other than
whatever keyword was used to search it (none, if the link was supplied by
another user in e-mail, etc.) If a site is about "accessibility" or
"disability", an icon of a wheelchair is pretty easily understood ...
biographies should have a picture of the person discussed ... topics that
include a concrete object will be easier to illustrate than abstracts, but
most topics have been illustrated somewhere by someone in some media, and
others can copy.

A late thought ... illustrations may be best if captions are included
and/or references made to them in the body of the text ... problem is that
captions may constitute another column of text on a page which may not
linearize properly ... but captions help combine "the best of both worlds"
to put a graphic into meaningful text ... I suspect that showing the alt
tag on the page would immensely aide some folks with learning disabilities
... if the alt tag would appear as a caption on a page without flummoxing
the speech readers, it could be the best of both worlds...! and help
encourage proper use of the alt tag.

>* Design to allow navigation via graphics by non-textual users

The best navigation graphics will have text on them so there is no
ambiguity. An arrow for "forward" or "back" should have the word "next",
and "back" on the arrows. The reason for this is a tendency with a lot of
learning disabled persons to have difficulties with direction. Putting the
word with the icon "cements in" what is there.
(Hmmmm... will this re-open the debate on what text in graphics needs to be?) 

>* When providing "raw information", consider ways to add graphics
>   to aid in comprehension -- for example, add icons in additional
>   to textual information in tables

Good addition, Kynn ... My husband (dyslexic) spends a lot of online time
pouring over tables of data on trains (his hobby), and usually selects the
line to study based on the graphic in the first column, usually a picture
of the described engine. Column headings are another place where a icon can
save words. (typically, he clicks on the image, looks at it large, smalls
it, and then read the table, returning to the image after reading ...)

>>2) write in the simplist language possible,
>
>What sort of guidelines can we write for this?

Hmmmm.... avoid passive voice, for starters ... keep sentences short ...
put definitions on links. Define all "vocabulary words" (topic-specific
words, for those outside education)... perferably in a link so that after
the definition is read and understood, the user can return and re-read the
sentence of paragraph from whence he came ... 

>* Remember that writing simply is _not_ "writing down"; in fact,
>   it takes greater skill to communicate to all audiences than to
>   a highly technical or specialized audience.

Yes, indeed. The first time I taught Kindergarteners, I carefully explained
that inside the CPU were a lot of silicone chips that worked like their own
brain. Next week, I had to run down an old CPU to open up in class, because
almost half the kids thought I meant there were potato chips inside the big
box! ... 

>* Create a simple summary of content which is longer than (some
>   measure of length); include this length as both a visible summary
>   and in the META DESCRIPTION tag for the page.

Yes, yes, yes ... As a minimum the summary could be a solid sentence as a
single paragraph, or a moderate paragraph,  preceding and separated from
the rest of the document perhaps by size, color, etc. 

>This is a good idea.  Do you think that some sort of icon would be
>useful for this?  Maybe a little open book after such a link?  The
>difficulty is distinguishing a definition link from an ordinary
>link; there needs to be a visible distinction made for usability's
>sake.  Naturally we can't -mandate- something for all pages out there
>but we can definitely -suggest- alternatives.

Hmmmmm.... I guess it depends on whether the page is mostly information, or
mostly access to other sites ... or becomes half and half ... Maybe it's
because the first use I ever saw of hyperlink (Mac hyperstack) showed an
instructional text in which all "vocabulary words" were defined wherever
they appeared in the "glossary" ... and it's rare to find use of glossary
since the early days of the web ... sadly ... 

>Now, here's the next topic for us to ponder:
>
>      How can we make web interactions -- such as forms, searching,
>      e-commerce -- more accessible to people who have cognitive
>      disabilities or reading difficulties?

Let me think on this and the rest of your questions, and talk to hubby and
his sister, who both use the web, tho neither has ever made an e-commerce
transaction, tho each's spouse has ... 

As to forms, I'm the form filler-outer in the family, whether the form is
on paper or the web ... tho hubby will do phone menus which I hate ... As a
high school teacher, I used to discuss with students the merits of marrying
someone with an different type of dysability ...

                          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, 25 October 2000 20:23:54 UTC