Re: plain/simple/easy language variant subtag

Gregg Vanderheiden <gregg@raisingthefloor.org> wrote on 09/17/2015 
09:50:57 AM:

> From: Gregg Vanderheiden <gregg@raisingthefloor.org>
> To: howard_leicester@btconnect.com
> Cc: Chaals McCathie Nevile <chaals@yandex-team.ru>, Paul Bohman 
> <paul.bohman@deque.com>, Phill Jenkins/Austin/IBM@IBMUS, IG - WAI 
> Interest Group List list <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
> Date: 09/17/2015 09:59 AM
> Subject: Re: plain/simple/easy language variant subtag
> 
> Who?s actually left in ?the pot? of the world?s population with 
> sufficient intelligence etc to understanding anything?
> 
> understand something ? everyone
> understand everything  - no one
> 
> the goal though ? and I think this is Chaals point  ? is that how we
> write things can make more things accessible/ readable/ 
> understandable to more.   And we should make everything as 
> understandable by as many as we can. 

hmm, not sure I agree with that exactly.  I would prefer to say the goal 
as:
We should make "more things" [not everything] as understandable to "more 
people" [not everyone].

 
> the point of others  I think is    ?  most everything can be written
> in easier to understand language ? but making things actually 
> readable/understandable is much more than just better writing.  And 

agree

> once you have done better writing  ? you can?t make things simpler 
> usually without starting to lose information. 

agree

> -  And as soon as you start doing this - you can?t just do it once. 
> You need to have many different versions if you are to be able to 
> have it be understandable by people with different problems 
> understanding it ? without losing more information than that 
> particular person needs to have removed in order for them to understand 
it. 
> - one-size-fits-one.     Not one-size-fits-all.    also not  two-
> sizes-fit-all. 

OK, so how many levels then?  CEFR has six levels: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2, 
do we need more than 6? 

> ----------------------------------
> Gregg Vanderheiden
> gregg@raisingthefloor.org

oh, and CEFR deals more with the text of the language, not so much with 
images, audio/video, structure, layout, and spacing to improve 
comprehensive. 

I also have first hand experience with reading comprehension with one of 
my sons.  It was the visual input processing that was his challenge, not 
the cognitive processing, nor the ability to verbally explain. Images and 
pictures that replaced long paragraphs of text would help improve the 
input processing, but he could understand well complex topics.  Calculus 
was not a challenge, but reading novels was a challenge without some 
techniques like spacing between lines of text, better fonts, adding audio 
read along, more time and reading it out loud himself. 

My point is that there are some "techniques" that benefit some user and 
not other or all users.  And in my opinion we need to remember that some 
or many of these techniques can best be solved by the assistive technology 
and not by the web author/designer/developer. 
____________________________________________
Regards,
Phill Jenkins, 
IBM Accessibility