Re: Issues: Part 2 - #16 through #43

10:54 AM 24-11-99 -0500 Madeleine Rothberg <Madeleine_Rothberg@wgbh.org> wrote:
>Here are some comments on a variety of issues raised by Eric Hansen,
>snipped from Ian's recent reply. 
>>EH: > Issue #37. Reconsider the use of the term "visual impairment".
>> In our organization, the term is considered insensitive (unfair). Use
>> "visual disability". The preferred terms can change, but keeping up with
>> the preferred terms is important.

>MR: my organization does use the term visually impaired, but
>if others feel it is out of date WAI could decide to drop it.

Hiya!
I'm a person whose disabled with Cerebral Palsy so I deal with significant
motor impairment. Disabled or disability seems to deal with the general
instance while impairment describes a somewhat specific diminution of
ability, both words are useful. Moreover, context can make anything
insensitive & is best dealt at that time. Most vital here is that we give as
much information as we can to harried developers so they produce very usable
programs. To that end everyone should read "First Principles of Design"
http://www.asktog.com/basics/firstPrinciples.html

2 musts are: {Quote "Effective interfaces do not concern the user with the
inner workings of the system. Work is carefully and continuously saved, with
full option for the user to undo any activity at any time.

Effective applications and services perform a maximum of work, while
requiring a minimum of information from users." Unquote}

It maybe that mainstream UAs aren't asked to do enough in particular regards
Guildlines 4 & 10 while the section of the page named "Efficiency of the
user" suggests searching for links is too much work for folks

[snip]
>MR: I can't locate the first mention of the "captions vs closed captions"
issue.
>I'd like to weigh in that I think the term "closed captions" is useful in
>distinuishing between information intended to replace audio tracks, and 
>typically intended for use by people who are deaf, and any other thing called
>a caption, such as a photo caption or table caption. Because closed captioning
>is quite well known, I think it is helpful to continue using that term in that
>context
[snip]
>Madeleine Rothberg
>The CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media

When the group has input from someone in a given field it should follow her
lead. That ensures the Guildline are understood in general, public terms
beyond the Accessibility realm. Ms Rothberg makes the excellent point
"closed captions" are understood as a means of also having a moving text
display of audio output. The option has been on every TV set sold for many
years while many Web pages offer display of a photo or caption that is a
text description of 1 photo analogous a to newspaper caption of a photo. The
timing of Ms Rothberg's note shouldn't affect it usefulness

Regards,
Bryan

->"It has been said the pebbles can't stop the avalanche, guess the pebbles
didn't have access to the Web!"

Received on Wednesday, 24 November 1999 18:40:15 UTC