Re: 1.4 recommeded additions to wording

>In terms of classroom signal-to-noise ratios (SNR), there is 
>research and standards that would support WCAG's 20 dB difference. 
>According to the American National Standards Institute's (ANSI) 
>published "ANSI S12.60-2002, Acoustical Performance Criteria, Design 
>Requirements and Guidelines for Schools" they state: ... a SNR of + 
>15 dB. Based on these findings and standards which were also 
>replicated via an earlier study by the American Speech-Language 
>Hearing Association, it seems (at least to me) that some ratio 
>between background and foreground sound ought to be expressed as at 
>least a starting point.

I welcome this reference to empirical research. However, 20 dB is 
hugely greater than 15 dB, hence the cited standards would not, in 
fact, "support WCAG's 20 dB difference."

More importantly, Web sites are not experienced in classrooms save 
for rare edge cases. The acoustic properties of lecture halls are 
unrelated to those of Web viewing on personal computers or other 
devices. The specs, while no doubt appropriate for their intended 
environments, are inapplicable to WCAG 2.

>Realizing this research and standards approach is based upon 
>classrooms, I feel it is still worthy of presenting a message that 
>signal to noise ratio in terms of multimedia is vitally important. 
>There needs to be some starting place and "any" standard will leave 
>out some but hopefully we'll accommodate the majority.

No. That's the very problem I keep talking about. WCAG WG is pulling 
a standard out of the air just so they can say they're doing 
*something*. Don't just do *something* if it won't do any good.

Sound contrast *is not* like light contrast, and no one has 
demonstrated that this is an actual problem. There is no evidence 
whatsoever that WCAG WG's plan will "accommodate the majority" of 
what is already a joke of a Venn diagram of minorities: Web sites 
[union] with multimedia [union] with sound [union] with 
hard-of-hearing vieweer [union] with problems in 
foreground/background discrimination.

>In my efforts to address color deficiency, I personally have found 
>NUMEROUS web pages that have used confusable combinations of colors.

Bookmarks, please. I'm sure "numerous" might be in the 10 to 20 range 
if we're unlucky. Even a hundred pages are a drop in the bucket 
compared to the true breadth of the Web.

Cf. <http://www.fawny.org/webstandards/bookmarks/bookmarks-040526.html>.

>On 11/3/04 8:05 AM, "Joe Clark" <joeclark@joeclark.org> wrote:

Let's not interleave *and* top-post.

-- 

     Joe Clark | joeclark@joeclark.org
     Accessibility <http://joeclark.org/access/>
     Expect criticism if you top-post

Received on Thursday, 4 November 2004 19:22:36 UTC