- From: Charles F. Munat <chas@munat.com>
- Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 17:10:40 -0800
- To: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
I agree that relating any kind of injustice to real people instead of to abstract ideals is a better idea. But just to reiterate - as Kynn acknowledges - that was not what I was referring to. Adding in the unspoken part, what I said was "accessible to my friends and me (without regard for anyone else)." My point was that if we redefine valid to mean valid only in the context of our own needs or wants, we have no grounds for complaint when others redefine accessibility in the same manner. Chas. -----Original Message----- From: Kynn Bartlett [mailto:kynn-edapta@idyllmtn.com] Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 12:29 PM To: Charles F. Munat Cc: 'Anne Pemberton'; 'Bailey, Bruce'; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org Subject: Accessible _By_ I'm using Charles' words to launch off on a tangent, not to directly disagree with anything he's said: At 07:41 PM 1/17/2001 , Charles F. Munat wrote: >If we're going to start redefining words, why not redefine accessibility to >mean "accessible to my friends and me"? Actually, that's not a half bad idea, because it puts the person back in accessibility. Saying "accessible" without saying -to whom- something is accessible is like saying something is "nearby". I'd rather see definitions of accessibility which state "this can be used by identifiable groups of people" than definitions which equate accessibility with "meeting a published DTD." E.g., "this page is accessible _by_ people who can't see" retains the people aspect better than "this page is accessible, because it follows the XHTML 1.0 specification." There's no such thing as absolute accessibility -- the only way to reasonably speak of accessibility is to say who can access given content or functionality. It doesn't matter if your validator or Bobby button insistently _tells_ me something is accessible; if I _can't_ access it, then it is inaccessible by me, flat out, full stop. This is one of my pet peeves, people who speak of accessibility in a vacuum or in terms of XML specs or whatever. Let's not lose sight of the human element here. --Kynn -- Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com> http://kynn.com/ Technical Developer Relations, Reef http://www.reef.com/ Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain Internet http://idyllmtn.com/ Contributor, Special Ed. Using XHTML http://kynn.com/+seuxhtml Unofficial Section 508 Checklist http://kynn.com/+section508
Received on Thursday, 18 January 2001 22:12:49 UTC