Re: Survey: Emoticons for screen readers

This is a real sensitive topic, ain't it?

I definitely see the must to deliver accessible content, so it seems like
censorship if you (the WAI) would decide to say 'this needs to be accessible,
and that doesn't' (that's IMO really dangerous), although this is
contradictory in comparison to my answer to the original post.

In general, the WAI should play it safe making everything accessible -- but
in some cases, it runs the risk of either censoring content (by deciding
anything's not worth being accessible for all), being careless by not attending
to all (here: disabled) users, or being inconsequent (and maybe not competent
enough) by mixing up Accessibility with Usability (and partially, with
Discoverability).

As a matter of principle, the WAI should publish a set of rules which
demonstrates the principles the WAI acts (I don't know any paper e.g. pronouncing
the ethical topics such a WG has to deal with), and it should clearly say it
e.g. won't handle Usability problems (as I said some hundred mails ago, I
think Usability is something related to Accessibility, but demanding other
knowledge and some other specialization; maybe the W3C should found an UWG).

I hope you see my point(s). Due to historical reasons and when seeing some
censorship measures (and 'a nice list of "annoying and unprofessional" content
that does not need to be made accessible' would IMO comply with censorship),
I've to change my first signalized attitude to get rid of -- for example --
emoticons, above all in WAI recommendations. I never saw that political touch
of technical WG's that clear than today.


All the best,
 Jens.


PS.
A general apology for my not-that-good English, I'd nearly prefer speaking
German when confronted with this serious topic...



> 
> > 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).
> 
> Could the Web Accessibility Initiative give us a nice list of "annoying
> and unprofessional" content that does not need to be made accessible?
> 
> We'lll also be needing proof that such content falls "outside the
> accessibility scope." Did we miss a memo?


-- 
Jens Meiert
Interface Architect

http://meiert.com

Received on Thursday, 4 September 2003 03:41:29 UTC