RE: Wordle worthwhile to accessify?

i'm equally amazed at (and irritated by) the response: 

<quote>
... Such a list would not give the pleasure that a Wordle gives... and ...
Youšre right that itšs a visualizationS which is why therešs no sense in
creating a non-visual representation of it.
<end quote>

Please can someone tell feinberg that accessibility is about providing
equivalent content - nothing more nor less. 

Quite frankly i find feinberg's response arrogant and definitely not in tune
with the world we as accessibility advocates and practitioners are trying to
promote: one where people receive equal treatment. 

I will definitely not be using wordle on any of the websites that i am
directly involved in or have any say in, until feinberg provides an equivalent
content for people who are unable to make sense of the visual version. 

Kind regards
Harry

Mob: +44 7826 926 994

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---------- Original Message -----------
From: "Jim Tobias" <tobias@inclusive.com>
To: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:30:08 -0400
Subject: RE: Wordle worthwhile to accessify?

> This reply pushes my buttons!  Sure, it would be easy to created a 
> list of words ordered by frequency.  (Obviously, Wordle already does 
> this!)  But creating such a "text-only page" approach does nothing 
> to advance accessibility.  It's Wordle's popularity that we're after,
>  not its technology.  If Wordle offered to its users the option of 
> creating a longdesc, accessibility would futhered directly and 
> indirectly (by acquainting users of text alternatives).  Does 
> Feinberg think this invisible added feature would undercut Wordle 
> somehow, or does he believe in the cootie theory?
> 
> Sorry for the intemperance....
> 
> ***
> Jim Tobias
> Inclusive Technologies
> +1.908.907.2387 v/sms
> skype jimtobias
>  
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org 
> > [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Peter Thiessen
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2008 4:25 PM
> > To: Elizabeth J. Pyatt
> > Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> > Subject: Re: Wordle worthwhile to accessify?
> > 
> > 
> > Forwarding a comment from Jonathon Feinberg on my blog (
> > http://blog.overscore.com/?p=14) to you:
> > 
> > "Elizabeth,
> > 
> > The word count would be best displayed as a list in 
> > decreasing order, not as a Wordle. Such a list would not give 
> > the pleasure that a Wordle gives, nor would people be 
> > creating lists of word frequency by the hundreds of 
> > thousands. Youšre right that itšs a visualizationS which is 
> > why therešs no sense in creating a non-visual representation of it.
> > 
> > If someone really wants such a service, it would take all of 
> > 30 minutes to create in PHP!
> > "
> > - Jonathan Feinberg
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > > From: "Elizabeth J. Pyatt" <ejp10@psu.edu>
> > > Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:40:42 -0000
> > > To: Peter Thiessen <peter.thiessen@primalfusion.com>, 
> > > <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
> > > Subject: Re: Wordle worthwhile to accessify?
> > >
> > > I think Jonathan of Wordle is missing the power of his own tool.
> > >
> > > It's NOT just placing random words in a picture, but 
> > extracting words 
> > > from a text and presenting an informational visualization. It's 
> > > telling the user which words are the most frequently used on a Web 
> > > page or text (because bigger = more frequently used) as 
> > well as a list 
> > > of key words.
> > >
> > > For instance, I did a Wordle on an educational technology site and 
> > > discovered that the top word used was "students" and that 
> > "technology" 
> > > was a 3rd tier word at best. I think that any user would be 
> > interested 
> > > in this (in fact I myself wouldn't mind seeing a cleaned up 
> > text based 
> > > version of this list).
> > >
> > > FYI - I just found an option which shows a pop-up list of 
> > the words in 
> > > alphabetical order and the word count.  I think this IS the 
> > > alternative information. I would recommend a simple 
> > non-Java link to 
> > > this list (possibly even an option for sorting by 
> > frequency). I think 
> > > all users would be interested and would benefit.
> > >
> > > I think the "eye candy" part (e.g. colors, fonts, layout) may be 
> > > irrelevant, but definitely not the frequency list.
> > >
> > > Elizabeth
> > >
> > >
> > >> Great points, especially exposing semantics to search engines etc.
> > >>
> > >> I argued point 5 with Jonathan and this proved hard to 
> > convince him 
> > >> of. His argument was: Wordle is not about trivial 
> > activities such as 
> > >> counting or words but all about visually representing 
> > words - its all 
> > >> about the visual eye candy. He then pointed me to a few 
> > text analysis tools:
> > >>
> > >> Perhaps these would be more along the lines you're thinking of?
> > >> http://textalyser.net/
> > >> http://www.textanalysis.com/
> > >> http://www.textanalysis.info/
> > >> http://www.usingenglish.com/resources/text-statistics.php
> > >>
> > >> One response might be that video on the net is all about the eye 
> > >> candy. The audio is important but not nearly as important. People 
> > >> still find value in adding captions that help describe the visual 
> > >> content. I caught myself on this argument though, how the 
> > hell would 
> > >> you "caption" a Wordle and get those funky text effects 
> > meaningfully described?
> > >>
> > >> -peter
> > >>
> > >
> > > --
> > > =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> > > Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Ph.D.
> > > Instructional Designer
> > > Education Technology Services, TLT/ITS Penn State University 
> > > ejp10@psu.edu, (814) 865-0805 or (814) 865-2030 (Main Office)
> > >
> > > 210 Rider Building  (formerly Rider II)
> > > 227 W. Beaver Avenue
> > > State College, PA   16801-4819
> > > http://www.personal.psu.edu/ejp10/psu
> > > http://tlt.psu.edu
> > >
> > 
> >
------- End of Original Message -------

Received on Thursday, 16 October 2008 11:42:57 UTC