- From: Anne Pemberton <apembert@erols.com>
- Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 11:08:01 -0500
- To: Wendy A Chisholm <wendy@w3.org>, w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
Wendy, I am not saying that your statement isn't true, it is, but not for a significant portion of the affected population and not nearly so effective as providing illustrations, which with the speech can make a nifty fix, but not without illustrations .... That's why it's wrong and misleading. Wrong, in the sense that it is not the greatest need of non-readers using the web. We need to look into equivalents for text not just text equivalents... If we are presenting four scenarios, at least one should make it clear that text is not always the common denominator ... Anne Anne At 10:28 AM 3/29/01 -0500, Wendy A Chisholm wrote: > >>Wendy, In the "Presentation and Interaction" section of the introduction, >>you listed a few scenarios of how disabled people use the web, but the last >>one is very wrong and misleading. >> >Someone who does not read well may want to hear the information and >see >>words highlighted as they are read. > >Anne, > >Have you ever heard of WYNN [1]? It's a tool created by AccessAbility, >Inc. to help people who have difficulties reading. It provides a variety >of cues and configurations to help people read text. For example, for some >people the letters might bleed together if the letters are too close >together, so with WYNN you can configure how much space appears between >each letter. It will also highlight words as it reads them outloud to you. > >CAST has a similar tool called "eReader" [2]. Here is a statement on their >product web page, "CAST eReader is a software tool designed to support >learners of all ages who may lack the skills needed to read materials >independently. The software can take electronic text content from any >source and read it using synthesized speech and visual highlighting. The >program's universal design features allow it to meet a wide range of needs, >abilities and interests, supporting those who have difficulty reading. " > >Therefore, I don't think it is "wrong." There are a variety of reading >difficulties that one can experience and there are a variety of strategies >to make reading easier or possible depending on the needs of the reader. > >--wendy > >[1] http://www.4access.com/products/wyr.htm >[2] http://www.cast.org/udl/index.cfm?i=197 >-- >wendy a chisholm >world wide web consortium >web accessibility initiative >madison, wi usa >tel: +1 608 663 6346 >/-- > Anne Pemberton apembert@erols.com http://www.erols.com/stevepem http://www.geocities.com/apembert45
Received on Thursday, 29 March 2001 11:02:35 UTC