- From: Charles McCathieNevile <charles@sidar.org>
- Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 07:57:28 +1100
- To: Christophe Strobbe <christophe.strobbe@esat.kuleuven.ac.be>
- Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Hi Christophe, summary: The first article you mention sounds more good than bad, but not very good. The second article you mention sounds more bad than good. I haven't read them, so that's as much as I have to go on. Some more detailed thoughts: I think giving people the idea that it is good to make a text-only version of a site, in any introduction to accessibility, is a bad idea. I normally like the work that UsableNet do, but I am perturbed by the advertising that goes with their product for making a text-only site - just as I have been worried about how similar products are used. It isn't that a text-only site is an inherent bad thing, it is just that it only improves accessibility for a very small minority of people with disabilities, and it is in my opinion generally a poor choice for where to put effort. On the one hand, "no publicity is bad publicity", and anything that raises people's awareness of accessibility as an issue can be helpful. On the other hand I think the time has passed when that was the primary goal. Sure, there are people who still don't really understand why it might be an issue. What is important is a reasonable explanation of how to make things accessible, along with a recognition that this is a field in development. Some things are clear, some things are under discussion. Anything that gives a set of instructions should note which is which, or at least that the discussion exists. This is important. I suspect we all agree that alt attributes on images are a good thing for accessibility. I am certain we disagree on how important they are compared to other accessibility features - in part because we each tend to start with a particular target audience in mind, whether that is people with intellectual disabilities, people who have very low vision (what some people call "legally blind"), people who are deaf, or people who are all three. Prioritising for the universe isn't an easy task. Yet there is broad agreement on a number of important accessibility features that should be included in the Web. There is disagreement on whether some things are accessibility features or just useful in general (which has an impact because of the political nature of accessibility requirements in many places) and there are plenty of topics still under discussion. cheers Chaals On 19 Mar 2004, at 00:24, Christophe Strobbe wrote: > A while ago I came across issue 36 of the British magazine Web Pages > Made Easy, which contained an anonymous article on "Building > Accessible Web Sites" (pages 16-21). The first page is filled with a > wheelchair symbol, so I hoped that, at last, mainstream computer > magazines were beginning to devote some attention to web > accessibility. However, the article discusses only usability and > hardly mentions any guidelines or techniques for making web sites > accessible for people with disabilities. [snip] > Issue 37 of the same magazine contains an article on "Make an > accessible site" [snip] > The article also contains the following tip: "If you are creating > pages where you need to include graphical content, it is always a good > idea to create a 'text only' version of the same document, with a link > to it from your main site. This at least then gives the visitor an > option to view this more accessible page." > I think this kind of articles doesn't do a good service to web > accessibility. What do you think? -- Charles McCathieNevile Fundación Sidar charles@sidar.org http://www.sidar.org
Received on Monday, 22 March 2004 16:01:52 UTC