- From: George Kerscher <kerscher@montana.com>
- Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 08:55:09 -0700
- To: "Kynn Bartlett" <kynn-edapta@idyllmtn.com>, "Terry Brainerd Chadwick" <tbchad@tbchad.com>
- Cc: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Dear Terry and all, While the DAISY Consortium does not focus on 508 issues, there are many aspects of the specifications developed by DAISY that apply to learning differences. The use of SMIL to synchronize text and audio, providing dual reinforcement of content is the key advantage. Also the powerful, logical navigation model organizes information in a way that helps every user. To learn more about this, visit http://www.daisy.org Best George -----Original Message----- From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Kynn Bartlett Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2001 10:24 PM To: Terry Brainerd Chadwick Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org Subject: Re: Accessibility and learning/cognitive disabilities At 09:17 PM 10/31/2001 , Terry Brainerd Chadwick wrote: >Last week's discussion on inclusion, and the lack thereof for people with learning disabilities, along with Kynn's statement today that all-text sites aren't accessible to people with reading difficulties, has piqued my interest in the subject. Hi, Terry, There is not a lot of information about this within the general realm of web accessibility, but there is plenty of information if you look outside of WAI and web-specific information. You have been told correctly that 508 does not provide for the needs of people with cognitive disabilities. WCAG itself is also weak in this area, a problem which will hopefully be fixed in WCAG 2.0 (but don't wait for that to make improvements). Within WAI reading, you should pretty much read everything which has been written by Jonathan Chetwynd and Anne Pemberton on the WAI-IG and WAI-GL mailing lists. ;) They are the ones who have spoken up the most on this, and although they are often controversial they challenge us to think and not forget about this population which, honestly, has trouble articulating their own needs in a forum such as this. Also of value are Al Gilman's posts on this topic, although Al tends to talk about a wider variety of things. :) The body of knowledge that has been brought into the WAI continuum is still very limited. There's not been enough digestion and synthesis of ideas so far, which means that when we talk about web accessibility for people with disabilities we still have very vague notions -- such as "use plain and simple language" and "use illustrations." We don't have, as web developers, enough experience to know the full parameters of the equation, because it has been an ignored issue for quite a while. --Kynn -- Kynn Bartlett <kynn@reef.com> Technical Developer Liaison Reef North America Accessibility - W3C - Integrator Network ________________________________________ BUSINESS IS DYNAMIC. TAKE CONTROL. ________________________________________ http://www.reef.com
Received on Thursday, 1 November 2001 10:54:25 UTC