Old values and new technology

Hi,

I've been talking with various people about the issue of dynamically
generated web pages.  Last night, I was initially taken to task by
a blind friend who had this very "gut reaction" of blind people needing
to use the same web pages as sighted.

As we worked through the logic of the issue, we talked about how
with dynamically generated web pages few people actually get the same
web page.  For example, results for her search engine query will
probably be very unique for her.  Since the information changes
from user to user, it is the format of the page that is more likely
to be the same.  Then the question becomes how important is it that
everyone use the same format?  Again, her reaction was that everyone
should use the same format.  I pointed out that dynamically generated web
pages allow the web pages be tailored to each sighted user's needs
and preferences.  So, there is not necessarily one standard format
for all sighted users.

We also went over the demo I have of a web page for blind users.
She agreed that the stream-lined format was very useful for
blind users and did improve accessibility.  I told her from
a sighted person's point of view, that type of web page was
visually quite uninteresting and in fact pretty boring.

We then went over the sighted version of the web page which was
much more interesting visually.  Her argument was that she
believed that there were aspects of the visual page which
could be included in the blind version to make it more interesting.
As we looked at the different parts of the visual web page,
almost each part that made the web page visually interesting added a
"speed bump" to her using the blind version.

The only things we came up with which didn't seriously affect blind users
were background color and font style/color.

Her conclusion was that her "old" values weren't keeping up with
the new technology.

Scott

Received on Wednesday, 1 December 1999 13:26:51 UTC