RE: Graphic Designers work - potential for WCAG?

My thoughts:

(1)  I very much like Meg's work.  (Hmm, she's from Madison.  What's the
odds of that?) <smile/>

(2)  I am very much in favor of adding icons (and earcons) to the WCAG.  No
insult intended to Anne or William (both of whom have done a great job in
leading us towards this end), but plainly if we include icons, they should
be done professionally!

(3)  Owing to recent threads, I feel compelled to point out that icons of
this sort do NOT make content accessible to non-readers.

Several of Meg's sample icons share characteristics with the current WCAG
button/banner graphics that I find objectionable.  From reading Meg's notes,
I am confident that she can produce excellent work within the constraints I
propose:

(4)  Images should be limited to the 216 "browser safe" palette.  See note
below for my rant/justification*.

(5)  Images (that don't completely fill a rectangular area) should have a
transparent background and NOT a white background (or other color chosen to
match the default page background color).

(6)  We expect our graphics in PNG or SVG format.  Should we take the high
road and insist on SVG only?

Thanks.

-- Bruce

[*]  For the record, using more the 16 colors actually requires a display
that can exceeds the specification standards for "plain vanilla" VGA.  Even
people with older computers, however, almost always have systems capable of
256 colors (this is especially true since they, by definition, are using a
computer capable of browsing.  Using colors outside of the browser safe
palette is extremely likely to require a computer capable of "thousands of
colors" which is two discrete technology levels beyond VGA.  We should
respect the needs of persons with older computers for all the usual reason,
not the least of which is that people with disabilities have a
disproportionate incidence of being economically disadvantaged.  This
problem also highly correlates with the reasons for cringing anytime a
content author tells their visitors to set their resolution to 800x600 (or
higher).

> ----------
> From: 	Wendy A Chisholm
> Sent: 	Monday, May 21, 2001 5:11 PM
> To: 	w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
> Subject: 	Graphic Designers work - potential for WCAG?
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> As I mentioned a few weeks ago at a teleconference, I've been looking for
> a 
> graphic designer to help us illustrate the working draft of WCAG 2.0.  I 
> began discussing possibilities with one person last week, Meg.
> 
> She put together a page that shows icons and screen shots she has designed
> 
> for other clients.  This gives an idea of her style.  It is at: 
> http://www.digitalmeg.com/wcag/
> 
> I was thinking she could create icons for each checkpoint and guideline to
> 
> help illustrate the concepts.  If someone clicked on the icon they would 
> get a larger image of it, more detailed.  I sent her Anne's work, but we 
> haven't had a chance to discuss it yet.
> 
> I'll be talking with her again this week, any questions you would like me 
> to ask her?
> 
> My proposal:
> I'll ask her to illustrate checkpoint 1.1 to see what she comes up 
> with.  We can then talk about it.
> 
> Thoughts?
> --w
> --
> wendy a chisholm
> world wide web consortium
> web accessibility initiative
> seattle, wa usa
> tel: +1 206.706.5263
> /--
> 
>