Re: FW: JSTOR and accessibility

On Tue, 28 May 2002, Access Systems wrote:

  On Tue, 28 May 2002, Charles McCathieNevile wrote:

  > Presumably OCR works on a TIFF document to an accuracy of up to 99.95% - this
  >
  > The real questions are two - should they be commended for their approach to
  > providing a more accessible option, and could they easily do even better?
  >
  > Providing a ramp to cover access to two out of three steps is enough for a
  > wheelchair to be lifted by a couple of large friends over the final one, so
  > it does increase acces, in the sense that some poeple who were completely

  I think I see the problem, building a ramp over 2 of 3 steps is adding
  insult to injury...it is worse than no access at all.

Well, it isn't a good way to impress people. But it might be enough to help
some people - I have often been to a place with someone whose chair could be
got over one step, but not over three.

There is a philosophical tension here. On the one hand it is important not to
let perfection become our enemy by making us avoid improving things only
somewhat. On the other hand if we stop seriously trying to achieve perfection
then we are wasting our time and can go home now.

  > excluded are no longer completely excluded. The analogy is that not everyone

  sure, exclusion is exclusion,  having to have someone lift someone in a
  wheelchair is the same as a visually impaired person requiring someone
  else to read their monitor to them.

Right. To some extent there is software available that can do that. It
doesn't do a great job, so providing more useful content to start with is
better.

chaals

Received on Wednesday, 29 May 2002 04:41:37 UTC