Re: guideline 7.1 about screen flickering (fwd)

Matt,

         If I understood what you said, you are saying that the final 
holdup on using animations and graphics isn't in 3.4 but in 4.4 ... I never 
did understand what was being said in 4.4 so your comments are helpful, if 
worrisome.

>Now, either these additions are media equivalents, in which case they should
>be communicating little more than the same information as the textual
>content; or they're new content, and need to be treated as such. I think
>it's clear that the media called for in the current 3.4 is new content, and
>telling users who could benefit from that content to turn it off is a large
>accessibility problem of its own.

If 3.4 used the term "illustrate", as I have suggested in the past, it 
would be clear that 3.4 is NOT new content but equivalent content. And, I 
am not telling users who could benefit from the content to turn it off, 
only those for whom it is any type of a distraction, annoyance, bother, 
nuisance, etc. Those who benefit from such content are not going to turn it 
off, but they cannot turn on what isn't there.

>AP
>Minimum is one image per page, preferably a topical illustration or logo.
>Every image more enhances the graphical usefulness of a page. Too many
>doesn't exist.
>
>MM
>I find this absurd as a statement of fact.
>I can't state this often enough, apparently: quantity does not indicate
>quality. Quality of alternate media is the factor that will make sites more
>accessible to all, and that isn't going to be helped by simply demanding
>more images. I'll go so far as to say the presence of a logo is beneficial
>to establish context, though it will generally communicate little about a
>document's actual content, and as such is an incidental benefit. But just as
>we can't formulate generalized technical criteria for satisfying 3.3, we
>can't do it for 3.4.

We cannot mandate quality in text or in illustrations. We can mandate 
"clear and simple language", but that does not in and of itself insure 
quality in any direction. We cannot mandate the quality of illustrations, 
we can only state what the minimum sufficiency is. And the minimum, is one 
per page. A minimum of zero per page doesn't serve the checkpoint, and 
stating a sufficiency criteria in other than normative quantities seems to 
cause problems.

>And when we can't do that, we have to work with the authors, not construct
>artificial barriers for them when they can use their own knowledge of their
>subject matter to make better decisions.

Matt, according to the above, 4.4 as you have described it's application, 
is clearly "an artificial barrier that keeps authors from using their own 
knowledge of their subject matter to make better decisions". The decision 
you give authors now with 4.4 is either do the website so it suits your 
available content and intended audience, or make it "accessible" to 
everyone but your intended audience.

                                                 Anne 



Anne Pemberton
apembert@erols.com

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

Received on Friday, 10 August 2001 15:37:51 UTC