- From: david poehlman <poehlman1@comcast.net>
- Date: Sun, 30 May 2004 09:33:35 -0400
- To: <sdale@stevendale.com>, <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
well, if they can talk, they should allow for voice input with correction of course. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steven Dale" <sdale@stevendale.com> To: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org> Sent: Sunday, May 30, 2004 2:44 AM Subject: A another thought on accessibility This weekend I had the pleasure of going to the WWII Memorial Dedication here in Washington DC. There was a tent where those veterans could tell there story on the computer. Presumably to be entered into a database eventually. Well, I took note of those telling their stories. I was particularly interested in the veterans who had disablities because that is where I see myself working. Working with the senior citizens. Anyway, of those that came and told their stories, most were in wheelchairs, very limited dexterity in the arms/legs and had low vision. I noticed a whopping TWO that were blind. Now this is not a statement on blind users because it was only for veterans. Those like me with low vision or blindness were probably not in the services. There were no assistive technology in play here because it was dictated to volunteers to enter into the PCs. I believe this was a smart move as they could get the faster data entry people to enter the stories. There were over 200,000 veterans there and speed was essential. But what about their homes? I think we need to focus some attention on input/output as a general area for accessibility. And work towards improving the content for those with cognitive disabilities. This area is definitely very weak in accessibility. There needs to be more work on lowering the average reading level on the web. The newspapers are generally written to those with a 5th grade (US) reading level. Then there are the senior citizens who may not have the "typical" learning disability but have not grown up with computers. There are an awful lot of web page designers that like the flashy, yet not obvious to those learning to surf the web, webpages. Does this mean the website has to be boring? NO, but why hide areas of text/images/links only to pop up if the mouse is on a particular, random looking for those new to surfing, pixel. Other accessibility problems with this aside, my point is not about the flashyness, its about being obvious on what the user should do to get to the information the user wishes to retrieve and understand. Seeing these vets telling their stories, many were fascinated with the technology but I doubt they would be able to effectively tell their stories on their own. -Steve
Received on Sunday, 30 May 2004 09:34:11 UTC