Aie it's HUGE

Good lord, I just printed out the latest Page Author Guidelines
and it's 15 pages of (relatively small) print for the guidelines,
and 36 (!) for the "techniques".

I'm all for being complete and what -- but good gravy, do we
really expect the average web designer to sit down and digest
51 pages of dense, sometimes very technical information before
they can make accessible pages?

Sometimes I think it would be easier if our only message was:

     0.  Use ALT attributes for images.

Sure, that's incomplete and leaves a lot of good stuff out --
but it's easier to get THAT message out, and it's more likely
to be heard and read.  I believe the accessibility of the web
would at least double or triple just from regular use of ALT
text alone; to me it seems a given that more people could pick
up on an easy, short message than a lengthy document.

Mind you, this isn't criticism of the guidelines themselves --
they're wonderful, I love them, they're complete, correct, and
a lot of other adjectives which basically mean "the techie
web geek in me really grooves on these."  I'm just at a loss,
though, when I speak to people or teach a class and say, "Uhm,
yes, it's not hard to design an accessible page -- in fact,
here's 51 pages of dense technical instructions to tell you
how!"

The people who have worked on the guidelines did a great job,
I just am worried that the guidelines continue to grow and
grow in size, and that can turn off many of the very people
who need to this information the most -- the casual or beginning
web author.

--Kynn

--
Kynn Bartlett  <kynn@idyllmtn.com>             http://www.idyllmtn.com/~kynn/
Chief Technologist & Co-Owner, Idyll Mountain Internet; Fullerton, California
Enroll now for web accessibility with HTML 4.0!   http://www.hwg.org/classes/
The voice of the future?   http://www.hwg.org/opcenter/w3c/voicebrowsers.html

Received on Sunday, 6 December 1998 03:11:08 UTC