- From: Ann Navarro <ann@webgeek.com>
- Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1999 10:10:19 -0400
- To: Charles McCathieNevile <charles@w3.org>, WAI <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
At 03:22 AM 6/14/99 -0400, Charles McCathieNevile wrote: >If we issued guidelines that said when discussing the Packers you need an >image of a football, a cheesehead and a field, then we would be overly >restrrictive about what we are doing. But those things are appropriate >illustrations. But are they *necessary*? We seem to be crossing a line here from saying "use appropirate <foo>" to "we have decided that appropriate means <bar>". > But just as words can help >someone who cannot see make some sense of a picasso or the construction of a >jet engine, images and sounds can enable someone who cannot read to make >sense of formal symbolisms While it might be nice that that person could make sense of formal symbolisms after seeing them in pictures -- if they can never *use* those symbolisms for their intended purposes specifically because they can't read -- why should we mandate or even "guide" a web author to accomodate that? note to the quick to react: this should not be ill-equated to an assumption that I think blind people shouldn't have access to ALT text -- intelligently appreciating a description of an artistic work is still using the work. Someone who can't read might "enjoy" the visual representation of a formal symbolism, but that's not the symbolisms purpose, as is the visual enjoyment of an artistic work. Ann --- Author of Effective Web Design: Master the Essentials Buy it Online - http://www.webgeek.com/about.html Coming this summer! --- Mastering XML Founder, WebGeek Communications http://www.webgeek.com Vice President-Finance, HTML Writers Guild http://www.hwg.org Director, HWG Online Education http://www.hwg.org/classes
Received on Monday, 14 June 1999 10:10:38 UTC