- From: jonathan chetwynd <jc@signbrowser.org.uk>
- Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 21:14:44 +0100
- To: "Charles F. Munat" <chas@munat.com>, <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>, "Anne Pemberton" <apembert@crosslink.net>
- Cc: "Al Gilman" <asgilman@iamdigex.net>, "Charles McCathieNevile" <charles@w3.org>, "Wendy A Chisholm" <wendy@w3.org>
Many thanks to Anne for keeping this debate live. I have to apologise for not entering and maintaining the fray, I have been in Edinburgh for a while and offline. The primary issue (as I see it,) is how do we enable non readers with poor comprehension to browse the web and access the content that they seek. To see an example of how and why graphic may be essential, and yet fast to load please visit: http://www.unc.edu/depts/teacch/teacch_e.htm scroll down about half the page of text to: "Examples of visual systems a variety of children follow:" and a series of graphics follows. You will find it very hard to imagine how this information is to be made understood to the intended audience without use of graphics, that is why they are there. These graphics are iconic, and there can be no reason why the bulk of them might not be stored offline. An example of this is http://www.signbrowser.org.uk/2k/testing/jet.html members interested in graphical representations might like to visit: http://www.cricksoft.com and http://www.widgit.com These two products are extensively used within the cognitive disabilities community. They allow users to communicate and share resources via the web, unfortunately they also require the use of proprietary software. These all offer students with limited comprehension the ability to interact with computers, and HTML is by far the best way, and possibly the only way to browse the web. multimedia sites which use microsoft mediaplayer 7, real media or others, offers near real time access to music and near full screen video, Sites such as http://www.atom.com which has numerous links to swf files and flash pages, Currently however they do not aid browsing via the media they advocate. They also generally require reading and writinskills as a minimum to access their resources. Come'on Al, how come you haven't entered the fray and lent Anne a hand... jonathan chetwynd jc@signbrowser.org.uk IT teacher (learning difficulty) & accessibility consultant
Received on Monday, 23 October 2000 16:18:49 UTC