Re: REF 1.1b - Checkpoint 1.1 - Requirement for full text script of all movies

>The way 1.1 is currently written, it is not clear whether or not one 
>has to provide a complete text script for every movie.

Transcripts should be suggested purely as a last resort, and for 
short videos only. The correct accommodation for deafness in video is 
captioning. WAI needs to disabuse itself from the notion that some 
separate transcript file has anything other than perfunctory 
relevance as an accessibility measure. I caution against using them, 
except as a last resort, in my book.

>  That is, a complete text transcript of all the audio plus a text 
>description of all the video.

I cannot believe WAI is still using this non-starter of a phrase, 
"text description."

Can someone please give me five real-world examples of "text 
descriptions"? And not from 45-second demo videos, either.

Can somebody please explain how text descriptions are supposed to 
work for blind people? How non-synchronized written words are 
supposed to make a "time-dependent" multimedia presentation 
accessible? Explain *in detail*. WAI always has trouble with detail.

Can somebody please explain, further, how text descriptions, a 
concept that the WAI dreamed up and glibly accepts without following 
its implications through, are anything but a laughingstock of an 
accessibility technique compared to audio description? (Or, as WAI 
has only recently ceased calling it, auditory description?)

>We need to either decide that this is required for all movies, in 
>which case it should be listed as one of the excellent list of 
>examples for 1.1. Or we need to decide that it is not required, in 
>which case it should be explicitly stated (along with the rationale).

The entire multimedia section needs to be rewritten from scratch. 
WAI's non-experts continue to muff it.

If you think I'm being too harsh here, my reaction is, as always, 
"Write better guidelines." Every time I think some coelecanth from 
the deeps has been put back where it belongs, WAI keeps dragging it 
back to the surface.

Do any of you even *watch* captioned and described television, film, 
and video? (Apart from John Slatin?) Why are these time-tested 
accessibility provisions merely words to you-- and you can't even get 
the words right?

The last time I followed an off-list request to provide a 
constructive rewrite of one section of these guidelines, I had 
non-expert Chaals (de)riding me within hours.

I don't know how to go about fixing the multimedia section when WAI 
insists on clinging to everything that is beside the point, 
ineffective, and flat-out wrong.


-- 

     Joe Clark | joeclark@joeclark.org
     Accessibility <http://joeclark.org/access/>
     Weblogs and articles <http://joeclark.org/weblogs/>
     <http://joeclark.org/writing/> | <http://fawny.org/>

Received on Friday, 11 July 2003 14:17:18 UTC