Re: Clear and simple writing

"Lisa Seeman":
> Firstly I would be surprised if I misunderstood Will  - Will your
comments
> please. - maybe better not.
>
> Secondly you do not need  alternate content. I do not know who is
distracted
> by non animated, relevant, illustrative pictures.

I am, I have distinct problems with illustrations, they make content
(which can be explained clearly in text) difficult to understand, at the
same time I appreciate images so cannot disable all images, cartoon like
"descriptive" images that are all I see are especially distractive. (I
have a similar problem with music, I can only understand words..)


>. It does not distract from
> text but illustrates it. If text works for you, great ignore the
> illustrations.

They're distracting, I'm not saying don't include them, but I'd like them
to be included in a manner which leaves the content accessible to me
(especially as I'm more of the audience for WCAG guidelines for example
than the cognitively disabled.)

> Accessibility does not mean removing or minimizing pictorial content.

Nope, of course not, it means providing multiple alternative
representations for content so that different groups with differing needs
can access the content, that means whilst pictorial content works well for
some it distracts some - just like animations work well for some (maximise
understanding) are a limitation for others, you can't say that having
images always shown yet are nothing but alternate content to the text -
remember we don't insist images alternate text content be permanently
shown, so why do you say that text's alternate content is permanently
shown - why are one group made special by having their needs have a
negative impact on anothers group?

> However If I am wrong on that, feel free to actually read Charles email
from
> a few hours ago on what we did in Melbourne and you will see a nice
example
> of a code snippet of Ruby used for just these type of problems.

Ruby can be used to hide images - in which user agents, can you describe
exactly how a user agent should control this (I'm happy to author a user
agent to do it, I do need though there to be some mechanism recommended
that users can use for providing alternate non text content for text.)

Jim.

Received on Saturday, 24 November 2001 14:21:55 UTC