RE: Illustrating Guidelines

Bruce,

    Lisa didn't just find the illustrations "nice", she found they helped her more quickly and efficiently process the content. I think that is the point you are missing, tho I've no clue why. This is not just about making the web "nice", or even "more friendly", tho there are some checkpoints that do no more than that already (such as synchronizing scripts). 

The definition of priorities is that, for P1 priority, it needs to be necessary for a substantial number of users. This is the case with graphics and multi-media.

Yes, multi-media .... Just asked one of the LD teacher for help in finding "hard data", and she said that there are decades of research indicating that LD persons need more than a single modality, usually at a time, in order for them to comprehend something at the same level as a non-disabled person. Will the hard data specifically mention "The Web" .... perhaps not, but the parallels from our knowledge of low-tech need to be made to high tech. The teacher I spoke with went on at some length pointing out how much information her students retained by using multi-media software instead of a text document or book. It's so clearly obvious and basic to some of us, that it's hard to comprehend why it's incomprehensible to others. Perhaps I need to illustrate my email????

                        Anne

       
    
---
Anne Pemberton
apembert@erols.com
apembert45@yahoo.com
apembert45@lycos.com
apembert@pen.k12.va.us

http://www.erols.com/stevepem
http://www.geocities.com/apembert45

On Fri, 11 May 2001 09:25:40  
 Bailey, Bruce wrote:
>Dear Anne,
>
>> Thanks, Bruce. I really did put a lot of energy into it, and not enough
>> time to make hubby growl over the project...
>
>It shows.  I've fiddled around with graphics enough to know how time
>consuming this kind of work is.
>
>>> Dear Anne (et al.)   First of all, let me say that I very much like
>> >> your work at URL: 
>> >> <http://users.erols.com/stevepem/guidelines/G3/g3.html>
>> 
>> >>> I guess this
>> >>> means I met your [WL] and Bruce's challenge to prove that even 
>> >>> the guidelines can be illustrated!
>> 
>>> My challenge was more on the order
>> >> that illustrations can not adequately REPLACE text.
>> 
>> > You are confusing illustrations with symbolism. Illustrations, by
>> definition, illustrate something, often text ... Pictures, painting,
>> drawings, maps, and other graphic types can be illustrations, or they may
>> stand as content on their own depending on their complexity.  
>
>No, but we are being fairly loose with our terms.
>I believe the word comes from "illuminated drawings" and were originally
>used in hand-transcribed bibles to help a largely illiterate population
>remember the stories they had heard aurally.
>
>The images you have on your site above, despite their large size, are closer
>to computer icons than to a painting.  They are useful to the document
>because they provide visual book marks and as reminders of the content.  How
>much they aid with comprehension, I could not say.  Some people really like
>that kind of thing (like Lisa S.) while others find them either distracting,
>wasteful of space, or unprofessional.  Most of us, I suspect, are rather
>neutral.  In the best case, we are debating P3 levels of accessibility.
>
>I understood that the objective of this exercise was to present an example
>of how illustrations can be used to make even a technical document of some
>value to a non-reader.  If this was the case, I don't believe that you have
>succeeded.  The images chosen are highly textual.  They may be nice for most
>people -- but are of extremely limited (at best) to the intended target
>audience.
>
>> An aside: One of the few sites I have on my links page for the kids that
>is
>> used independently by first graders is a site that displays a satellite
>> view of a spot on the site map ... needs no reading by the user to use it
>> to get a very interesting picture which is a interesting to scientists as
>> to my first graders ... (how often is text able to span such a group of
>> users?)<grin>
>
>No one is debating that pictures aren't "nice".  The question is how much
>dare we make them a "requirement".  Sure, most of us doodle and we learn to
>draw as kids, but very few of us get paid for producing computer-oriented
>art.  Most of write as part of jobs, so we are comfortable sharing our
>words.
>
>In spite of all the bandwidth, I don't believe that this conversation has
>gotten beyond "make your site attractive and easy to use". 
>


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Received on Friday, 11 May 2001 10:14:59 UTC