RE: Why use a text-based browser?

Well bandwidth may be a problem for some people using non mobile devices.
Until last year the Perth Observatory int he hills outside perth about 20 km
from the city centre op Perth Western Australia could only get about 5000
baud connections due to the old exchange.  The introduction of satelite
could have improved this now but as satelite requires an uplink by modem I
dont know if it applies anywhere else.

Harry WOodrow

-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]On
Behalf Of Charles McCathieNevile
Sent: Wednesday, 26 December 2001 9:57 PM
To: Vadim Plessky
Cc: WAI IG
Subject: Re: Why use a text-based browser?


On Wed, 26 Dec 2001, Vadim Plessky wrote:

  Charles, thanks a lot for clarification!
  Of course, blind people do not need graphics being send over internet
  connection, it's just waste of time and bandwidth.
  My point was that you can always disable images (via menu or via
  CSS: img { display: none !important } ) when you don't need them.

Sure. But that should also disable rendering of the text alternatives, and
very often I do need those. Lynx and links and emacs/W3 hhave good ways of
getting at the text altternative content, compared to graphical browsers.

  Now let's think about somebody who has visual disability (say, miopia, in
  -10..-5 range) and wants to use web.
  It will be quite logical to use *graphical* browser for a such person, and
in
  addition *to increase font size* for all pages.

Absolutely true. For most people it is important to have a graphical
capability. Even when I use a text browser, I have it configured to be able
to show images if I think I need them. (Again, lynx is the best interface I
know of for only showing particular images and at the same time getting good
text alternatives).

This is getting a bit out of the topic, but...
  |   For some people it is also a restriction of their device, or
effectively
  |   required for speed. When I am not able to connect with a line faster
than
  |   9600 baud I tend not to be interested in downloading graphics content.
I

  But does it makes sense to use such lines (9600 baud) nowdays?
  For example, I use PPP (dial-up), and if I can't connect faster than 19200
  (say, at least 28800) - I just make a break, drink a cup of tea (as I
prefer
  tea to cofee :-) and try later.

Well, my mobile phone only has connections at 9600 baud. So if I am on a
train all day and need to work (this happens to me about 5 days a year)
that's as much as I get for now. Also, it is still the case that I get a
connection at something very slow on a PPP (which I use a lot) for several
days in a row - too long to have a break and try again. (Maybe I just need
to
increase my coffee capacity <grin/>)

  WAP: yes, I know also about WAP and mobile phones. But WAP just sucks,
  it's dead format. I interviewed a lot of people about mobile
  communication (mostly - General Managers or other top-level managers),
  and most of them replied that they do not need it [ "I use phone to make
  calls, that's it"]. I know that this can sound very different from, say,
  Gartner reports - but I prefer to trust to real-world reports, not to
  synthetic ones. So, WAP is not excuse here at all.

I don't think the issue of whether WAP as a format is any good is the same
as
the issue of whether people use mobile devices - many people I know use
mobile devices to get access for their normal services, and it is slow.

I don't think we can force "them" to adopt SVG in any area, but I think it
is
happening anyway. And other than mobile devices I don't think there is a big
bandwidth problem. The other intersting problem is high-latency connections,
and that is still only research for people doing space travel planning.

cheers

Chaals

Received on Wednesday, 26 December 2001 09:19:29 UTC