- From: Anne Pemberton <apembert@crosslink.net>
- Date: Wed, 09 Jun 1999 18:26:11 -0400
- To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
At 11:28 AM 6/9/1999 -0700, Kelly Ford wrote: > Anne, > >Exactly what part of the web would you apply this sort of rewrite for the >population you are talking about? What guidelines and such would you >propose to help those creating the web pages to know how to make the pages >accessible to the population you are talking about? Any part of the web that contains information that would be of interest to people with cognitive differences. And that is as broad a category as the part of the web which needs accessibility for those with visual differences. Making home pages for government agencies, newspapers, and stores which contain maximum accessibility to non-readers would be an important beginning. Sites which provide services useful to ordinary folks, including bus, train or plane tickets, or basic instructions to use services (government, etc.) or sites, should provide maximum accessibility to those with cognitive differences. Suppose I am the head >of the web department for the LA Times, how would you suggest I make my web >site accessible to comply with your standards? I'm asking these questions >not to dismiss your concerns but to learn how you imagine them working in >action. If head of the web department for the LA Times, I'd tell the editors of the various departments that I wanted "meaningful graphics" with each and every story, including charts, graphs and tables as well as photos, sound clips, and video clips. Whoever supplies the editor/s with stories for inclusion in each day's issue would be told that the story must be in multi-media as well as text, and writers would be teamed with the appropriate technicians (photographers, sound men, photographers, number crunchers, etc.) CNN would find it easier to meet the guidelines because they already have staff doing video clips and sound bites ... USA Today is also improving their use of graphics - even in its short "Nationline" stories, graphics of the person/s, places, things accompany many stories. Not yet every story. I've never been to the LA Times site, so I don't know how graphically inclined their pages are - some newspaper sites do more than others with graphics, just as print papers vary in their presentations. Print papers are often driven by advertisers to keep the paper to as low a readability as possible. When the Blackstone weekly ran stories of what I was doing with special ed kids on the Internet back in the late eighties, the editor zapped out whole paragraphs I'd suggested explaining what we were doing because the general population of the community would have no clue. That paper is working on its web site now! Newspapers will likely rise to the occasion ... but the government agencies???? Anne Anne L. Pemberton http://www.pen.k12.va.us/Pav/Academy1 http://www.erols.com/stevepem/apembert apembert@crosslink.net Enabling Support Foundation http://www.enabling.org
Received on Wednesday, 9 June 1999 21:20:56 UTC