- From: Gregory J. Rosmaita <unagi69@concentric.net>
- Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1999 02:13:42 -0500
- To: "webmaster@dors.sailorsite.net" <webmaster@dors.sailorsite.net>
- Cc: WAI Interest Group Emailing List <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
aloha, bruce! to address some of your comments upon my comments... 1) you observed: quote Yep, it is not fair that blind/vi users have to buy expensive screen readers/magnification. I also agree that issues of economic disadvantage ARE appropriate for discussion list. But we can't do much at all about how expensive speech synthesis is. It's not fair that some people are blind. unquote there are several things that could potentially be done to lower the cost of speech synthesis, but i think that that topic would be better addressed on some of the more technically oriented blindness-related lists, an index of which can be found at: http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/blist.html in particular, i'd recommend BLIND-DEV, a list dedicated to the development of hardware and software for the blind/VI, more info about which can be found at: http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/blist.html#blind-d or a brand new list, called SYNTHLIST, dedicated to the discussion of text-to-speech synthesizers of every type and description, more information about which can be found at: http://www.onelist.com/community/synthlist 2) as regards the internationalization issues that i raised, in particular the lag time that it takes between the introduction of a feature into the U.S. English version of an application and international versions, you observed: quote Well, its been over a year now since most screen readers learned to deal with tables used for layout. unquote yes, but how many of those screen readers currently have that functionality built into their non-English versions? this is currently a topic of discussion and research being conducted by the Education and Outreach Working Group of the WAI -- consult, for example, the minutes of the last EO teleconference, which are available at: http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/1999/1112-EOWG-min.html in particular the section on "Outreach Updates", accessible using the following URI: http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/1999/1112-EOWG-min.html#ai1 3) as for the issue of antiquated technology and shell accounts with outdated versions of Lynx, you observed: quote Lynx (even a few revs. back) deals very well with tables (and frames). (Better even than many current browser/screen reader combinations.) If the version of Lynx native to a persons shell account does not cut it, there are many free current versions available by free with telnet. unquote agreed, and i maintain a list of publicly accessible Lynxes at: http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/weave.html#telnet but there are limitations on the functionality of Lynx when you telnet to a current version (you may not be able to save or download files, you are unable to tweak the lynx.cfg file, access to certain sites may be disabled, etc.) i agree, as well, that use of Bill Schiavo's Blynx386 distribution, Rene Ludwig's Lynx_Kit, and the Blynx32 distributions (all of which can be downloaded using links contained in the last-listed URI) alleviate a lot of the problems i detailed, but it takes a certain level of sophistication to install and configure them -- especially the DOS/386 versions, which require the setting up of DOS PPP driver, as well as news and mail clients... 4) you also observed, quote: Hardware speech synthesizers are still expensive, but recycled units can be found if one looks hard enough. The Disk Operating System is free or very inexpensive (if you can even find it for sale) and the LATEST release of JAWS for DOS is FREE! One can find 386 computers for free too. There is plenty of good freeware, including the DOS version of Lynx. Now, people who have the skills to put all this together into a workable system are rare. Let me make it clear that I don't believe that just because someone is poor and/or disabled they deserve a second (or third) rate computer. But I do want to make the point that lack of money is not (strictly speaking) a barrier to web access. (It is a barrier to fun, fast, multimedia, modern access to the Internet, but that is a different argument.) unquote and how is one supposed to know all of this information which you and i know because we are already online? not everyone is online, not everyone can get online, not everyone has the time or patience to put up with the crap that often makes me think that the real expansion of the acronym WWW is "World Wide Waste'o'Time", and not everybody knows somebody who is online... and for those that don't what's needed is a cadre of volunteers who would configure their DOS-based systems so that they can get online and use Lynx386... if you or anyone else would like to volunteer, let me know -- i've been trying to organize something along those lines since '95, the year i first got online, after 3 years of frustration and hearing "i don't know why it doesn't work -- must be all that funky software you're running"... and what about those persons still using 286 and earlier iterations of the PC? there are a hell of a lot more of them than most of the subscribers to this list seem to want to believe... as a leader of a Visually Impaired Computer Users' Group, i field innumerable requests for assistance every week, and there are a hell of a lot of users out there who would kill for a 386 with a math coprocessor (which, incidentally, is needed to run Lynx386 and the utilities bundled in Rene's Lynx_Kit) how is a blind individual (or anyone else with a disability that precludes access to traditional media) supposed to learn of these developments? i went blind at the age of 20, but it wasn't until five or six years after i became blind that i was first exposed to the technologies to which i am now umbillically connected... to put it plainly, bruce, it ain't as easy as you make it sound... 5) you also observed quote Given these two reasonable alternatives (low-cost-but-old, or public accommodation) I have a hard time with either plan that we (1) give away modern computers to everyone; or (2) dumb-down everything to the lowest common denominator (html 2.0)! unquote who asked for dumbing down? who asked for a free bleeding edge system? not i, nor anyone else who's yet participated in this thread... 6) you also commented, upon my ramblings on interoperability and my contention that using tables for layout is just plain wrong: quote It IS wrong, but this is only a Priority 3 impediment. As people have repeatedly pointed out, the positioning functions (and other features) of Style Sheets is STILL not supported by Netscape Navigator 4.7! Until CSS is widely supported, authors have little PRACTICAL choice but to continue to use tables for layout. So lets function on the Priority 1 and 2 goals of urging authors to use headers and summaries and make sure the table is intelligible when decolumnized. unquote there are several things in WCAG that were accorded a priority 3 that should have been accorded a much higher priority -- this is one of them -- a few others include ACCESSKEY and TABINDEX; ACRONYM and ABBR but to return to the point, stating quote let's table discussion on the use of tables for layout because Navigator doesn't support them unquote is akin to having said in the aftermath of Brown versus Board of Education quote let's not worry about desegregating our schools until all of the other states (not to mention the District of Columbia) desegregate theirs unquote why shouldn't Netscape be called on the carpet and read the riot act for failing to fully implement CSS? why shouldn't other browser manufacturers also be similarly harangued until they fully implement CSS and provide for the exposition and rendering of the accessibility features that were built into HTML 4? in any event, if browser manufacturers do want to comply with the User Agent Guidelines, even if only to get an edge in federal purchasing or to stick a compliance claim on their product, the easiest way to get the biggest bang for their developers' buck will be to implement CSS, as robust support for CSS will go a long way towards satisfying a great many of the UAGL's checkpoints gregory. -------------------------------------------------------- He that lives on Hope, dies farting -- Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1763 -------------------------------------------------------- Gregory J. Rosmaita <unagi69@concentric.net> WebMaster and Minister of Propaganda, VICUG NYC <http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/vicug/index.html> --------------------------------------------------------
Received on Thursday, 18 November 1999 02:10:07 UTC