- From: William Loughborough <love26@gorge.net>
- Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 22:26:03 -0700
- To: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
At 01:18 PM 5/12/01 +1000, Jason White wrote: >In particular, there is disagreement over the efficacy of multimedia and >illustrations in this context. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "efficacy of multimedia". It's hard to imagine that anyone in the discussion thinks that multimedia presentations aren't effective. Much of our document is intended to assure that the extensive communication afforded those who have, e.g. sensory access to all aspects of these media is also afforded those who do not. Just that attention proves we take the efficacy of multimedia as fact. If it weren't efficacious we wouldn't have to deal with it. There was an argument as to whether text *by itself* was adequate to communicate content - for everyone (except people who could not read it). I thought it had become quite clear that "literacy" is more complex than it's been given credit for and that some literate people (including some who have spoken up in this regard) are excluded from accessing content that is *all/only* text. For those people (and, in fact for a great many others who are merely "put off" by unillustrated text), we need to make it clear that there is a problem with sites that are unadorned by multimedia presentation elements. For people who essentially make their living by writing it, text is marvelous, and in fact *seems* adequate by itself - as the entirety of the communication process. It is not. The very widespread complaints about our documents and in fact our entire oeuvre indicate that the guidelines themselves need to consider the inclusion of multimedia components as a self-imposed requirement - for the documents themselves and as guideline recommendations. -- Love. ACCESSIBILITY IS RIGHT - NOT PRIVILEGE
Received on Saturday, 12 May 2001 01:24:26 UTC