Re: diversity in web UI design

At 08:27 AM 11/2/2000 , Leonard R. Kasday wrote:
>There's another major concern I have about multiple interfaces. 

I'm really curious about this ongoing discussion of multiple
interfaces, mainly to ask what the point is.

Len, are you trying to discredit the idea by pointing out possible
problems?  Are you hoping to see any reference to the idea removed
from the discussion and banned from WCAG 2.0?

I realize that you and others may be content to bury your heads
in the sand and adopt a completely dogmatic approach -- but please
realize that those of us who live in the real world, where these
issues are not merely a matter of academic interest for a paper
or term project but instead an actual product that we are planning
to ship in the near future, we're going to go ahead and do these
things with or without the W3C's help.  Accessibility is that
important -- people's needs to get at information is so great
-- that we can't simply decide to discard an idea because I haven't
yet convinced you that it's a good idea.

This is my fear regarding the W3C process -- that we become too
fixated that it be done "my way or else!", that we derive solutions
(such as text-on-graphics-using-CSS) based entirely on dogmatic
approaches rather than on what will provide true benefits in the
real world to real people -- that we ultimately make ourselves
meaningless to people doing web work and people designing web
policies.

If we make decisions based entirely on how we would Really Really
Like The World To Be instead of figuring out how more people can
use the web today and in the future, then we've lost the battle
and people will look elsewhere to the solution, and not to the 
W3C's stuffy academic exhortations.

To address the problem you raise:  Yes, adaptive content of any
kind introduces challenges in training and support.  This will be
a challenge for sites which use these technologies in web
applications.  This is part of the cost of accessibility, and it
ultimately is cheaper than being inaccessible to those audiences.
The problem is definitely solvable with good documentation and
training; it's no show-stopper and I don't see why this one issue
should warrant -- as you seem to be proposing -- the continuance
of the absurd WCAG 1.0 statement that alternate interfaces are
a "last resort."

For some of us, they're the first and only solution needed.

--Kynn

-- 
Kynn Bartlett  <kynn@idyllmtn.com>                    http://kynn.com/
Director of Accessibility, Edapta               http://www.edapta.com/
Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain Internet   http://www.idyllmtn.com/
AWARE Center Director                      http://www.awarecenter.org/
What's on my bookshelf?                         http://kynn.com/books/

Received on Thursday, 2 November 2000 13:10:06 UTC