RE: "commercial websites that have adopted symbolic based accessibility"

I would find it very helpful if someone would describe at least some of the icons used on the Disney site or Yahooligans, etc. I'm familiar with icons like those for Home and Mail, etc., and with many international road signs, but I have no way to tell which ones may be used on the Disney site.

The Disney page is now almost entirely Flash. Audio plays automatically, which overwhelms my screen reader, but if I listen really really hard while I use the downArrow to go down the page one line at a time, I hear what I've transcribed in the JAWS transcript below. Note that JAWS puts the word "button" befor each of the numbers below. But I can't access them and I don't know what they are.

Jonathan, you said we shouldn't talk about these sites in terms of full WAI accessibility.

I disagree. That is exactly what we have to do. 

<JAWS transcript>
Disney.com | The Official Home Page For All Things Disney -

hit frame

hit frame end

ads frame

ads frame end

Flash movie start
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Disney For You
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Search Disney.com
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Find Disney Movies, TV, Games, and more!
Preschool
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Boys
You're Watching
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Girls
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Caffeine Patch Exclusive
Kids & Teens
Hot Games
50
Families
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Visit the site
Disney Fans
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62
What's New in Games
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Playlist
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Caffeine Patch Exclusive
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Check out this exclusive scene from Meet The Robinsons!
Find More Games
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What's New in Music
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Make Us Your Homepage  |   Switch to Disney Online Lite   Site Map  |  FAQ/Help  |  Your Account  |  Guest Services   Privacy Policy/Your California Privacy Rights  |  Terms of Use  |  Internet Safety   International Sites  |  Corporate Info  |  Legal Notices  |  More Disney Sites   © Disney. All rights reserved.
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Flash movie end
</JAWS transcript>


"Good design is accessible design."

Dr. John M. Slatin, Director 
Accessibility Institute
University of Texas at Austin 
FAC 248C 
1 University Station G9600 
Austin, TX 78712 
ph 512-495-4288, fax 512-495-4524 
email john_slatin@austin.utexas.edu
Web http://www.utexas.edu/research/accessibility 



-----Original Message-----
From: j.chetwynd@btinternet.com [mailto:j.chetwynd@btinternet.com] 
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 6:04 AM
To: lisa
Cc: 'David MacDonald'; 'Bailey, Bruce'; 'Loretta Guarino Reid'; 'Sofia Celic'; 'Jan Dekelver'; 'Chuck Hitchcock'; 'Hiroshi Kawamura'; 'Gez Lemon'; 'Clayton Lewis'; 'Gian Sampson-Wild'; 'Keith Smith'; 'Roberto Scano'; 'Stephen Shore'; 'Nancy Ward'; 'Paul Bowman'; 'John Slatin'; 'Elbert Johns'; 'Gregg Vanderheiden'; 'Michael Cooper'; 'Judy Brewer'; 'WCAG'
Subject: "commercial websites that have adopted symbolic based accessibility"


"commercial websites that have adopted symbolic based accessibility"

Lisa,

many symbols work across all known languages, eg toilet signs, miming  
thirsty, or hungry etc

symbols as used for web navigation, apart from peepo on commercial  
websites:

well apart from the obvious and ubiquitous home, email, video and  
other icons...

disney, bbc, yahoo and slashdot enough?
there are plenty more and better examples....
won't comment on their WAI accessibility, as that could embarrass  
both parties ~:"

http://home.disney.go.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/cartoons/
  yahooligans.com for many years was a fully iconised portal http://kids.yahoo.com/news is their current beta for the news slashdot.org was another. icons are still used, but no longer on the  
navigation bar...

best wishes

Jonathan Chetwynd



On 15 Mar 2007, at 08:55, lisa wrote:


Hi David

This discussion has proved my point. That it is not a lack of  
research that
is the primary problem for accessibility for cognitive disabilities, but other factors - such as adoptability, interest "appropriateness" etc..

It is essential that people do not think that following WCAG is the best they can do for these communities.

Look  at the work of WAACI  and http://www.handicom.nl/  and http://peepo.com/  and ld-web.org. That will help you get an idea of  
what is
doable - today.

  WCAG does not contain guidelines that will help you achieve this  
type of
accessibility.

In terms of commercial websites that have adopted symbolic based accessibility - no I do not know of any. There is no legislation to  
drive
them, and the discrimination against these groups are huge.

BY the way, the 2001 email was just a sample. I spent years writing and writing test criteria's and guidelines for accessibility for cognitive disabilities. I wrote a CSS techniques, and an RDF techniques  
document and
rewrote the success criteria a bunch of times. We need to view the  
archives
to glean the different approaches and suggestions from over the years, Research existing successes and methodologies, perform a gap analysis etc.....

A few sticky plasters is not what is needed. We as standard writers know that. We need a consistent integrated roadmap for access for cognitive disabilities. We have had years to do it but we decided to make it low priority, and these techniques came of the to do list until after  
last call.
We can not now claim that we did the best we could.

All the best
Lisa




-----Original Message-----
From: David MacDonald [mailto:befree@magma.ca]
Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 6:04 PM
To: 'Bailey, Bruce'; 'lisa'; 'j.chetwynd'
Cc: 'Loretta Guarino Reid'; 'Sofia Celic'; 'Jan Dekelver'; 'Chuck Hitchcock'; 'Hiroshi Kawamura'; 'Gez Lemon'; 'Clayton Lewis'; 'Gian Sampson-Wild'; 'Keith Smith'; 'Roberto Scano'; 'Stephen Shore'; 'Nancy Ward'; 'Paul Bowman'; 'John Slatin'; 'Elbert Johns'; 'Gregg  
Vanderheiden';
'Michael Cooper'; 'Judy Brewer'; 'WCAG'
Subject: RE: Report on WCAG2 comments relating to cognitive,  
learning, and
language disabilities

>>> For an example of a government site that is oriented towards people 
>>> with
cognitive disabilities:The Medicaid Reference Desk http://thedesk.info/

A prime feature for a cognitive person would be to be able to ask a question, I would say. But the link to the "ask question" page gives  
a 404
link error. And it appears to have been like that since 2002.

On the home page, the additional info summaries above the link list  
do not
work for keyboard users, only for mouse users.

Any page that is accessed from the home page comes up in a tiny  
window with
all the Chrome from the browser. A cognitive person can't find the back button. Having the opened window tiny like that means that there are  
other
visible windows on the computer screen, which would be confusing for  
many
people with cognitive disabilities.

David MacDonald

access empowers people...
         ...barriers disable them...

www.eramp.com

-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On  
Behalf
Of Bailey, Bruce
Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 10:56 AM
To: David MacDonald; lisa; j.chetwynd
Cc: Loretta Guarino Reid; Sofia Celic; Jan Dekelver; Chuck Hitchcock; Hiroshi Kawamura; Gez Lemon; Clayton Lewis; Gian Sampson-Wild; Keith  
Smith;
Roberto Scano; Stephen Shore; Nancy Ward; Paul Bowman; John Slatin;  
Elbert
Johns; Gregg Vanderheiden; Michael Cooper; Judy Brewer; WCAG
Subject: RE: Report on WCAG2 comments relating to cognitive,  
learning, and
language disabilities


For an example of a government site that is oriented towards people with cognitive disabilities: The Medicaid Reference Desk http://thedesk.info/

Nancy Ward and Clayton Lewis have been particularly involved with that project.  I did not find concept maps however.

The claim to Triple A status (with a link to CAST no less) is troubling.

P.S.:  Follows is a link to the HTML version of the PDF mentioned in  
Lisa's
post from 2001.
Telecommunications Problems and Design Strategies for People with  
Cognitive
Disabilities http://www.wid.org/archives/telecom/


> -----Original Message-----
> From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org]On 
> Behalf Of David MacDonald
> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 10:23 AM
> To: 'lisa'; '"~:'' ????????????"'
> Cc: 'Loretta Guarino Reid'; 'Sofia Celic'; 'Jan Dekelver'; 'Chuck 
> Hitchcock'; 'Hiroshi Kawamura'; 'Gez Lemon'; 'Clayton Lewis'; 'Gian 
> Sampson-Wild'; 'Keith Smith'; 'Roberto Scano'; 'Stephen Shore'; 'Nancy 
> Ward'; 'Paul Bowman'; 'John Slatin'; 'Elbert Johns'; 'Gregg 
> Vanderheiden'; 'Michael Cooper'; 'Judy Brewer'; 'WCAG'
> Subject: RE: Report on WCAG2 comments relating to cognitive, learning, 
> and language disabilities
>
> Hi Lisa
>
> Can you provide a link to a successfully implemented concept map on a 
> commercial (or private site)? I would like to see one in use. Thanks.

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Received on Thursday, 15 March 2007 16:08:38 UTC