W3C for Non-Readers

Could someone from the "illiterate/non-cognitive" camp please
post an example of how you would make the front page of the
W3C site accessible to non-readers?  It would help a _lot_.

I find that when I am teaching accessibility classes, people
will not understand something unless they have an example.
Bobby helps tremendously in this regard, to illustrate --
visually, even! -- what's wrong with a given page.  (The
current Bobby incarnation is less than optimal, however, as
it gives solid little blue hats for things that are very
good things, chiefly accessibility features not understood
by common browsers...but that's another issue.)

I can point at a web page and say "this part can't be used
by a blind person."  I can turn off images and show the
big fat [IMAGE] where content should be.  I can give examples
of how to correct it, and come back later and say, "see, it's
fixed now!"

I would really like it if those advocating this form of
"accessibility" (which I would argue, as several others have
done, is of a different shade entirely) could provide concrete
examples how to adapt an existing site -- the W3C's, since that
has been publically challenged here -- to meet the needs of
this group of users we're talking about.

If there's no way to explain that to _me_, then your cause is
likely a lost one.  I'm all _for_ compassion and helping these
people, but you need to lay it out for me what's wrong with
current sites and explain how to fix it, if you're going to
be making accusations of inaccessibility.  That goes for _any_
claims of inaccessibility, by the way.

--
Kynn Bartlett  <kynn@idyllmtn.com>                   http://www.kynn.com/
Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain Internet      http://www.idyllmtn.com/
Become AWARE of Web Accessibility!                  http://aware.hwg.org/
Selfish Reasons For An Accessible Website    http://www.kynn.com/+selfish

Received on Tuesday, 8 June 1999 13:30:46 UTC