RE: Survey: Emoticons for screen readers

To answer the question about the purpose of this survey - we want to find
out if emoticons pose significant access barriers or not. If they do, we
need to write techniques about them. If they are merely annoying and
unprofessional, we don't need techniques (they'd be outside the
accessibility scope). It is a spin-off of a discussion of ASCII art, which,
though less commonly used these days, can be quite problematic if a screen
reader encounteres it and starts reading a whole bunch of nonsense. We
wanted to see if emoticons fell into that category or if, as short as they
are, they're not such a big problem.

Michael

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jens Meiert [mailto:jens.meiert@erde3.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2003 11:49 AM
> To: David MacDonald
> Cc: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Survey: Emoticons for screen readers
> 
> 
> 
> First of all -- what's the purpose of this survey? For me 
> this nearly sounds
> like asking car drivers if stickers or colored fog lamps are 
> nice gimmicks
> for their cars -- that sounds really exciting, but it ain't 
> important, and of
> course not in relation to car driving (and roadworthiness).
> 
> In general, emoticons are a) a matter of taste, and b) dubious and
> nonserious, above all related to business sites and 
> correspondence (here in Germany
> it's very nonprofessional, I don't know how this is handled 
> in US). So I can
> only question this survey again.
> 
> 
> Some feedback:
> 
> > 1.	Do emoticons you have any trouble understanding 
> emoticons such as
> > :-) and ;-)     ?
> 
> No. Note: One problem might be a different syntax -- so :) and :-) are
> equivalent, ;) and ;-), too. There are several other examples.
> 
> > 2.	Do they bother you? 
> 
> Yes.
> 
> > 3.	Do you have trouble with emoticons in tools such as MS 
> Messenger and
> > various Bloggers which are graphical?
> 
> N/A
> 
> > 4.	Do you have any other comments on emoticons.  How would 
> you like to
> > see them treated in TECH 2.0?
> 
> See above. I don't like them treated all, either don't bring 
> them up, or say
> 'Use at own risk, because not everybody knows, understands or 
> likes them,
> and they might be unserious'.
> 
> 
> 
> Regards,
>  Jens.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Jens Meiert
> Interface Architect
> 
> http://meiert.com
>

Received on Wednesday, 27 August 2003 14:21:49 UTC