RE: alt text seen or not?

Phil,

There is one other flaw with your television analogy. All "modern" TVs have
the built-in decoder chip (and therefore accessibility) AND all TVs cost
money. The same is not true of browsers.  Unfortunately, not all of the
modern browsers have the built-in accessibility. Sometimes, the ones that do
have accessibility cost more than other modern browsers (which are free).

dc

-------------------------------------------------------------
David M. Clark
David's Access Page
16 Harcourt Street, #2I, Boston, MA 02116 Phone: 617-859-3069
Email: david@davidsaccess.com  Web: http://www.davidsaccess.com

-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]On Behalf
Of David Poehlman
Sent: Monday, January 17, 2000 5:53 PM
To: pjenkins@us.ibm.com
Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org; kathleen.anderson@po.state.ct.us
Subject: Re: alt text seen or not?

Well stated Phil There two things at odds with this though.  one is that
we are not there yet.  Many of the people/entities being asked to "do
their part" haven't got the resources to do it.  I'm not talking here
about free.  I'm talking about time and platform.  For instance, running
an old machine and don't have the money to get one that supports the
latest and greatest or bedause of other considerations in this case
cannot downgrade to a lower browser which might not support the code
anyway of a lot of other sites.  We need a better mix and the
application of <untill> works well here.  The other element here is that
we don't govern the world and even if we ask our agencies and
constituants to get the right stuff and they do, the internet is world
in scope and we could be in that sense leaving out a large segmentation
of the internet population as we already do with english only stuff.
More and more tranlation solutions are being developped though and it is
hoped that these will aid the process.

pjenkins@us.ibm.com wrote:
>
> Kathleen wrote:
> >... Granted, there are other browsers that people in this situation can
> use,
> >however, as a state government, we are not in a position to make these
> >browser choices or mandates for our constituents. We need to to
> >accommodate their browser of choice, and their connection by necessity.
> >...
>
> Why not?  Don't users and agencies that support users also have a role or
> responsibility?  Why is it O.K. to mandate the web authors and browser
> manufactures to follow guidelines, but not require users to upgrade?  No
> government agency [as far as I know] is forcing anyone to use the Web to
> access the services.  There is still some phone access and snail-mail hard
> copy version of the service.  But the agency is saying or at least
implying
> that to use the Web services you need a browser and web connection.  Why
> not specify a compliant spec for such "browsers of choice"?
>
> Many on this list that know me know I'm playing a little devils advocate
> here.  But I do believe that the notion of "requiring a certain browser"
> could be re-stated in a more "accessible-friendly request" such as
> "requiring a user agent that can handle the level 4.1 HTML spec".   No one
> should be requiring a "certain browser", but shouldn't it be OK to say
that
> the "browser of choice" should support some level of HTML - such as HTML
> 4.1.  The problem is that there is not a single browser that supports the
> needs of all users. Many have incorrectly used the short hand of "browser
x
> level y" to signify the level of HTML and all the "rendering" capabilities
> needed by some majority of users.  It's that "short hand" that leaves out
> what is or should really be stated.  So agencies, libraries facilities,
> etc., and many times the constituents themselves need to be requested to
> take part in the solution.
>
> An example:
> If one wants to utilize the closed captions on TV broadcasts, one has to
> purchase the capable TV set.  Sure, all the manufacturers were mandated to
> include the circuitry into the newer TV sets, but the user still had to
buy
> the newer set.
>
> or in other words [replace "TV broadcasts" with "Web content" and replace
> "TV sets" with "user agents" and you get] :
>
> If one wants to utilize the accessible Web content, one has to purchase
the
> capable browser+assistive technology combination.  Sure, all the user
agent
> manufacturers are being requested to include the "software circuitry" into
> the newer user agents, but the user still has to upgrade to the newer or
> add an additional user agent.
>
> Regards,
> Phill Jenkins

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Received on Monday, 17 January 2000 19:22:10 UTC