- From: Charles McCathieNevile <charles@sidar.org>
- Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 15:13:31 +0100
- To: "John Foliot - WATS.ca" <foliot@wats.ca>
- Cc: "WAI Interest Group" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
On 19 Jan 2004, at 03:58, John Foliot - WATS.ca wrote: > An interesting thread, but one which leaves many questions unanswered. > > My greatest concern is that imagery (and iconography) makes assumptions > which very often lack a foundation in reality, or at the very least, > practicality. For example, Chaals, while I *do* know who Michael > Jackson > and Kylie Minogue are, (and I tend to avoid Burger King restaurants > <grin>), > I have absolutely no idea what the Path Train is (let alone have the > capacity to recognize any symbol or image associated to it). Ditto for > White Wings... Quite. But people who live at the mouth of the Hudson often know what the Path is, or at least recognise the funny symbol that marks stations. White Wings is a brand name created by a guy who started marketing frozen food in the 30s (if I recall correctly). Both of them are things that people can recognise if they are important or interesting to them - like the phrase "moi, je m'en fous de ca" > Images alone, while a strong re-enforcer of a concept or idea, cannot > be the > sole means of identifying a concept, be it a link or another > expression of > an idea or concept. Very valid point - images are like words. They are tools for communication, and context is important in interpretation, along with people's experience. > Then there is the issue of text only user agents. While at least one > of my > fellow countrymen (and frequent contributor to this list) will scoff > at this > as a non-issue, another regular contributor to this list (Access Bob) > is a > dyed in the wool text browser user... proving that at least one > internet > user is still using text only browsers... If you *truly* wish to > achieve > Universal Accessibility, developing sites and content "optimized" for > one > user group at the expense of another is hardly the true path (such as > using > images only). And relying on techniques such as JavaScript > MouseOvers and > alt text/title "tool tip popups" is, IMHO not a viable "solution" > either... > these behaviours are neither universal nor 100% reliable. I agree absolutely with this entire paragraph. I also use a text only browser almost every day, have done for 7 years, and don't expect to change (my use recently increased because the browser on my phone is now a viable tool in text-only mode, in addition to attaching Lynx to my main mail client as primary browser). > I don't want to come off here as a ludditte, and in truth we are > continually > seeking new ways of extending both accessibility and usability, but I > can't > help but returning to the fact that, all things being equal, good 'ol > ASCII > text has the broadest and most accessible means of conveying links, > concepts > and other ideas. Re-enforcing the text with imagery is a positive > accessibility "enhancer", but should not be thought of as a > replacement. Neither plain text (note that the only languages I know of that can be written in ASCII are elementary english for beginners, bahasa indonesi and bahasa melayu) nor images are a universal replacement for the other. There are good reasons why Lego sets, cars, video recorders, computers, basic chemistry programs, aircraft repair courses and missile silos don't come with plain-text-only instructions - text is not the most accessible form of conveying many common ideas, except within a small community who use the same written language. I think it is well-understood by the people on this list that some people actually rely on text, and need to have at least one version of their material available in text. The point is there are also many people for whom the text is interesting decoration used by other people. For such people the images aren't an "enhancer", they are critical to accessibility. (I've oversimplified here. On the one hand many blind and deaf-blind people use a sense of touch to determine information, including things like relief diagrams, in preference to text for certain tasks. But not all of those are easily adapted to the Web - although I'd like to point out to anyone who reads french Patrick Roth and to a lesser extent Lori Petrucci's work in this area. On the other hand, many non-readers can make use of text information to augment their understanding of an image, if the text is presented in a comprehensible form - for example read out as audio. I don't think it changes the basic argument). Cheers Chaals
Received on Monday, 19 January 2004 09:27:19 UTC