RE: a question of scripts (this time completed)

RE: a question of scripts (this time completed)Java of course presents its
own problems of Accessibility.  There are a set of Accessibility Classes
which expose the objects to Adaptive Technology but I do not know of them
being used by any developers.  In addition to this these only help if the
required Adaptive Technology is used., they do not help users with moderate
levels of disability who are confronted with pictorial display of text in a
fixed size in the wrong colour on the wrong background.

Java is available for a variety of machines however it is still an extra
download which may or may not be permitted and involves large volume
downloads which can be a problem for many.

At least applications such as Flash and Real do provide closed captioning
but still of course present compatibility problems.


Harry Woodrow
  -----Original Message-----
  From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]On
Behalf Of Denise Wood
  Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2001 11:16 PM
  To: 'David Woolley'; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
  Subject: RE: a question of scripts (this time completed)


  Thanks for this info David. I will discuss further with our programmers
and we will investigate some of the tools you have mentioned. Some of the
requests we have received appear to be very specific and we will probably
end up resorting back to JAVA. The real challenge though is how to translate
what is happening on screen into textual information.

  Steven - thanks for your suggestion to refer to the NBA Tape Recording
Manual for some general principles about providing text alternatives to
visual material.

  Some useful leads for me to now follow through on. Much obliged to
everyone who responded to my plea for guidance :-)

  Denise

  Dr Denise L Wood
  Lecturer: Professional Development (online teaching and learning)
  University of South Australia
  CE Campus, North Terrace, Adelaide SA 5000
  Ph:    (61 8) 8302 2172 / (61 8) 8302 4472 (Tuesdays & Thursdays)
  Fax:  (61 8) 8302 2363 / (61 8) 8302 4390
  Mob: (0413 648 260)

  Email:  Denise.Wood@unisa.edu.au
  WWW:
http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/staff/homepage.asp?Name=Denise.Wood




  -----Original Message-----
  From: David Woolley [mailto:david@djwhome.demon.co.uk]
  Sent: Wednesday, 24 October 2001 4:36 AM
  To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
  Subject: Re: a question of scripts (this time completed)



  > JAVA or other scripting (could be Flash etc) that are designed to either
test
  > students' understanding of the impact that changes in variables have on
what is
  > essentially graphic information, or that allow them to explore these
concepts
  > by changing variables themselves and viewing the results. We have many
requests
  > like these - particularly in the engineering, satellite communications
and

  If the models can be expressed as closed form equations, I'd suggest
  that a general equation plotting tool, like gnuplot, rather than any web
  based approach, would be best.  That way the students learn some of the
  maths and general principles, and can solve their own problems without
having
  general programming skills.

  If you cannot get simple closed form equations, you need a general
  programming language, and I'd say that Java was the most portable
  current choice.  In my view, it introduces less security problems than
  the common scripting languages.  (There are tools that may be able
  to graph non-closed form equations.)

  SVG might be a better way of providing the visual interface in the near
  future, but, for cases that aren't suitable for gnuplot, I think you
should
  wait for Java language bindings to be implemented.  (You can probably do
it
  now using plugins for the SVG and JavaScript.

  To maximise browser coverage, you should have an alternative of generating
  a bitmapped image on the server side.

  There are certainly specialised tools, like SPICE, for dealing with
  specialised modelling areas, and I think you should consider using
  the established tools, rather than trying to create your own subsets,
  unless you can greatly enhance the accessibility, which seems unlikely.

  I'd also note that "data visualisation" is a highly commercial area
  and lots of companies would claim that their high priced products
  significantly aid people in understanding complex mathematical models.

  All of these require that it is possible to learn the same information
from
  a textual equivalent that is provided, if you are going to comply with the
  various accessibilty guidelines; the animations should be considered
  comprehension aids for those with good eyesight and easy interaction with
  the computer.

  I don't know how you cater for those with "learning difficulties".