Re: Censorship by laziness

Len and Charles,

I have read that fully thirty percent of all users run without graphics for
one reason or another.  That is a significant amount.  If I can remember
where I read it I will document the source.  But that sounds about right.
Many users who access through the library use Lynx, and lots of people are
just too impatient to wait, some can t see them and others use screen
readers.  However before you write off graphics completely, remember people
with dyslexia, even though they may use a screen reader need the graphics.
Also carefully placed graphics reinforce and compliment text.  Both are
important.

Another thing that should be noted, as the web matures, and becomes more
commercial, the possibility of losing customers because a site is not
accessible will drive more and more webmasters towards producing accessible
sites as a matter of course.

Lastly as things such as accessing the Internet by phone, and using screen
reader type technology on computers in such places as automobiles becomes
more popular, accessibility will be a matter of course.  I have seen
estimates that 650 million  people will be accessing the Internet by hand
held device by the year 2004.  Many of these people will be using audio to
get the material they are interested.  The techniques we are working on
today will be critical to those who design and implement web pages when this
happens.  I think we will also find that being able to switch from audio
mode  to video  mode and back again will also have become a critical part of
the requirements for web pages.

Just some things to think about.


Mike Burks
-----Original Message-----
From: Kasday, Leonard <kasday@att.com>
To: Chris Hasser <chasser@immerse.com>; 'Charles McCathieNevile'
<charlesn@sunrise.srl.rmit.edu.au>; 'wai-interest-group-post'
<w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Date: Wednesday, January 21, 1998 10:49 AM
Subject: RE: Censorship by laziness


>
>Charles,
>
>
>This statistic of yours,
> >An interesting fact I obtained when working as the webmaster
>for RMIT
> >University, one of Australia's largest (42 000 students): Of
>All people
> >who viewed our front page, approximately _half_ did not bother
>viewing
> >the pictures. (Based on a study of the log files. Not perfect
>but not
> > bad. Around 100 000 hits in the period in question)
>
>This is very interesting.  Were these students using graphical browsers
>or something like Lynx?
>
>I'd readily believe that this many people would ignore images even if
>they had graphical browsers, especially if the site was usable without
>the images.
>
>Do other people on the list here know of similar statistics?
>
>
> Len
>
>
>
>All opinions expressed here are my own, not necessarily those of my
>employer.
>=============================================================
>kasday@att.com         phone 732 949 2693
>
>Leonard R. Kasday
>Room 1J-316A
>AT&T Laboratories
>101 Crawfords Corner Rd.
>Holmdel NJ 07733
>

Received on Wednesday, 21 January 1998 18:45:47 UTC