RE: Accessibility of this font to people with varying disabilities

My apologies for everyone in this group.  I've already gotten several
responses.

What:
After your responses, though, I realized that I may have been submitting
this inquiry to the wrong group, because the font itself will not be used
for the web.  Instead, it will be used in offline collateral materials, like
a corporate brochure.

Who:
We were primarily concerned with those with learning disabilities,
particularly dyslexia.

If you happen to have dyslexia and I would appreciate your input.
Otherwise, please forgive me for not putting the listserv into context
before I submitted my request.

Thank you,
Tai

-----Original Message-----
From: Kynn Bartlett [mailto:kynn-edapta@idyllmtn.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2000 1:22 PM
To: tdu@halftheplanet.com; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: Accessibility of this font to people with varying
disabilities


At 12:54 PM -0400 9/26/00, Tai Du wrote:
>If you have the time, please review the attachment and give me feedback on
>whether you think the font is accessible or any other thoughts...
>Thank you for your consideration!

What exactly does "accessible" mean to you in terms of a font?  Fonts
are not, in and of themselves, "accessible" or "inaccessible" to
various user populations.  That's like saying "is this color
accessible?"  Colors are not inherently accessible or inaccessible
either.

When we talk about accessibility we are talking about two things:
we are concerned with the _what_ and the _who_.  _What_ is
accessible and to _whom_ is it accessible?  We are talking about
the content and the audience.  Can your audience access your
content?

A font, in a vacuum, is typically not content.  Thus I can't
answer your question about your font -- it all depends on how you
use it, and who you are hoping to have access the content.

* You might be asking, "If I present this specific content as
   a jpeg, who will be able to access it?"  The answer, of course,
   is that anyone who cannot comprehend text in jpegs will not
   be able to use the font -- but if you present an textual
   alternative, you can make the use of that jpeg accessible.

* You might be asking, "If I use this font on my page, will it
   be readable by visual users including those with low vision?"
   And that is not an easy question to ask; there are multiple
   degrees of readability and for any specific font type and font
   size you can find someone for whom the text will not be
   readable under certain conditions.  Readability is not
   strictly tied to the user's disabilities (except at a few
   key points), and so it's very hard to generalize whether this
   is "accessible."  (A comparison, however, may be useful -- do
   some user testing?)

* You may be asking something entirely different, which I have
   yet to discern.

So what would you like to know about your font? :)

--Kynn
--
--
Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com>
http://www.kynn.com/

Received on Tuesday, 26 September 2000 13:58:20 UTC