- From: Al Gilman <asgilman@iamdigex.net>
- Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 11:35:15 -0400
- To: jonathan chetwynd <j.chetwynd@btinternet.com>, John Foliot - bytown internet <foliot@bytowninternet.com>
- Cc: jonathan chetwynd <jonathan@peepo.com>, W3c-Wai-Ig <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Yes the needs of this group are not yet covered by the published profile of practices. But please don't say that W3C/WAI is "failing to grapple with" this gap. Last Thursday, there was a joint meeting of the Web Content Accessibility and Device Independence Working Groups. They are doing this because they really are grappling with the gap. [And yes, we are struggling with the problem, not finding it easy.] User with severe learning disabilities take center stage as the user group who push the envelope of "requirements on capabilities" that motivate scenarios that employ a) persistent personal profiles of presentation preferences b) pre-emptive communication and [quite possibly server-side] action to adapt content to respect these personal characteristics. Some of these users need content to automatically 'snap to' a presentation profile approximating that set out in http://www.learningdisabilities.org.uk/html/content/webdesign.cfm The conventional wisdom about how the web works is that it works by human recognition and machine recall. We have laid down the constraint that human language in the content should be in a form that can be recognized by the machine process performing text-to-speech transformation in a screen reader. What we haven't done is lay the groundwork for the server-side machine process to recognize what the user needs when a one-presentation-works-for-most won't work for that user. In case it isn't obvious, I would advocate that the WAI be at pains to cooperate with the Dublin Core Initiative in the search for the proper terms in which to conduct this dialog so that the tranforming process can be at the server and the transforming process can at the same time recognize what it is that the user needs. In this case the human won't recall a complicated user-protocol to get the content presentation adapted, so there is an opportunity, a market, a gap that could be filled, for the system to recognize the user's need and justDoIt with a presentation that is responsive to the atypical need of the user. Al PS: By the way, let me point out that both in Jonathan's plea to address organization beyond the page, and in the emphasis on the recipe for an SLD-usable website, that there is a great deal of emphasis on "consistent use of a small vocabulary of readily recognized memes (patterns)" in constructing the structure and flow of the experience. Not just that connections shall be connected with URI-references, but that there shall be hyperlinks defined in the roles of 'home, next, exit,..." This is a compatible extension of the Web standards as we know them. We should learn from a compare and contrast of this profile of practices with the practices which are endemic on the Web today. The endemic practices are self-enforcing. What is the minimum profile of interventions to enforce what more is needed? That is the generic problem we face today. And WAI and DC are in that boat together. At 11:08 AM 2002-09-15, jonathan chetwynd wrote: Unfortunately john your argument fails by a rather simple test. you say 'ask don't tell*', but people with severe learning difficulties are in no position to respond. they don't know if they have a T1 line, so asking them, in effect denies them access to the resource. whereas, they more than likely recognise charlie chaplin, _If_ they have an interest in him. (similarly text versions of books are great, but many of our users need abridged versions, and these may not be. The option could confuse. Most cannot read, but none have a screen reader, and there is no 'free'(as in lunch)screen reader designed for their needs..... So don't imagine that your proposed solutions have not been considered, they just aren't very helpful for our users. ) This gap between the ends and the means, is in large part the issue that w3c/wai is failing to grapple with. thanks jonathan *I hope this rather brief synopsis is agreeable.
Received on Sunday, 15 September 2002 11:35:43 UTC