Re: Bobby Limitatation - Workaround Sought

david wrote:
> ...but I still believe that the designers of HTML
> intended it should fail by graceful degradation
> rather than machine and software upgrades.

David, unfortunately (or fortunately depending how one looks at it) the Web
and especially the Internet have a lot more than just HTML.  Plain old HTML
does as you desire fail by graceful degradation rather than machine
and software upgrades.  It's the style sheets, scripting, and plug-ins that
were created to solve other problems, but brought with them new challenges
for accessibility.  Demanding that old adaptive technology work with new
technology is not going to get us anywhere.

> Whilst one may be able to argue that JAWS/IE allows access to a site,
> I've had correspondence from blind web users who have ruled JAWS out
> as well beyond their means.  Generally people who are neither young,
> with a reasonable disposable income, nor with a strong professional
> need to access the internet, are likely to have old machines running
> old browsers.  If this were not the case, there would be no market for
> WebTV type systems.

A single copy of IBM Home Page Reader 3.0 (HPR) can be purchased
electronically for only $79 ($129- $50 rebate), find more at
http://www-3.ibm.com/able/hpr.html  which has to rival the costs of WebTV.
In my opinion it handles more of the Web than any browser + screen reader
combination out there, including some JavaScript, style sheets, and
plug-ins. But HPR *is* only for the web, with built in e-mailer and
software text to speech, and it's both available in and speaks many
languages, including British English.

I don't believe it is possible nor productive to lobby the developers of
the world to stop inventing new technology or to stop trying to solve new
problems.  All I'm trying to do is make those new technologies as
accessible [and as inexpensive as possible] to more individuals that have a
right to use them.

Sorry to the rest of the list for having gotten off topic on this thread.

Regards,
Phill

Received on Thursday, 12 April 2001 10:12:11 UTC