Re: A little back to basics (Re: Users should have (Re: Fresh start? Re: Minimal Browser Capabilities))

I wasn't thinking I suggested something totally new. Just tried to 
verbalize what we do in another way. For instance, I think that adding alt 
text for the images of a Web page is one way to make in transformable to 
text and from that it can be transformed to audio with the help of proper 
devices. If the page has enough equivalent information we can do it. When 
the end result from the transformation is usable for users with different 
disabilities the page is accessible. The transformation itself can be done 
in many several ways e.g. with one user agent or by using specialized user 
agents or with some filters etc.

I do agree that there is a need to think of what are the most needed 
transformations and if  some additional equivalents would be beneficial 
e.g. different length abstracts of the text may would be beneficial to be 
able to quickly glance a page while browsing with voice or show the page on 
a small screen.

Marja

At 12:56 PM 12/30/2001 -0800, Scott Luebking wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I think there's a little difference between theory and practice.
>Achievability is often not a concern in theory.  However, I believe that
>the disabled world needs to be invested in making choices which are
>readily achievable by other people.  In the long run, the disabled world
>benefits when goals are readily achievable.
>
>One of the aspects of readily achievable is how much resources are
>needed to reach a goal.  Some disabled people do not believe that the
>issue of resources should be a criteria for making choices.  However, in
>the real world, there is competition for resources.  In general, the
>more resources that are needed to achieve a goal, the lesser the chance
>of its being achieved.  Since the issue of disability access often has
>not a very high priority, a useful approach will be to look at ways to
>reduce the amount of resources needed to achieve accessibility.
>
>Within the product world the concept of designing for manufacturing
>(DFM) has developed.  Basically, when a product is designed, the design
>takes in consideration not only the end results for the product, but
>also how much work is needed in the manufacturing process to achieve the
>end results.  Before  this concept evolved, designers didn't worry as
>much about what the manufacturers had to do since that was as the the
>manufacturer's problem.
>
>A similar concept can be applied to creating guidelines, e.g. designing
>for implementation (DFI) where the choices made take in consideration
>how much work needs to occur for implementing the guidelines.
>
>Theoretically, transformation is an interesting idea.  However, looking
>at the issue from the wed page developer's point of view, how much
>resources need to be used to achieve transformation?  First, work needs
>to be done to learn what transformation means in various situations.
>Second, there's applying what is believed to be needed for
>transformation to a web page.  The next step is one which can require
>significant resources.  The transformations has to be tested for many
>combinations of browsers and access technology.  People very often want
>to dismiss this step as not being as critical.  However, if some
>transformation doesn't work, it is a rare user who will not have a
>negative reaction.  The next step can also be resource intensive.  The
>web page  developers fixes the transformation problems and then re-tests
>to see what transformations that used to work are now having problems.
>
>Scott
>
> > What about the following:
> >
> > An accessible Web page can easily be transformed into equivalent forms
> > suitable for different media, such as text, audio or images. User's not
> > able to access one media because of their disabilities should be able to
> > access the equivalent information in a usable manner. An accessible page
> > also supports the use of different interaction devices.
> >
> > - having shorter or longer versions of the information or abstracts would
> > help too or simpler versions of language but currently there are no exact
> > definitions
> >
> > Marja

Received on Sunday, 30 December 2001 20:31:47 UTC