Re: Show/Hide browser controls

Rob produced the EIAD browser, which was designed for people with cognitive
impairments. Hre are his comments on customising the interface.

Charles McCN

On Sat, 5 Feb 2000, Rob Seiler wrote:

  Hi Charles,
  
  At 10:36  22/01/00 -0500, you wrote:
  >I am looking for input on the need to change the user agent controls for
  >accessibility. In particular, it seemed to me that the ability to show or
  >hide controls (for example Netscape lets me hide each of the location bar,
  >the main toolbar, and the little "what's hot" etc buttons. Can you
  >characterise this as a feature that is vaguely useful, or fairly important,
  >or essential, for some group of users?
  
  Sorry to have been slow in getting to this.
  
  The point you raise I think is very important. For both issues of dexterity
  and "cognitive overload" for some users, most GUI program interfaces are
  too "full". Not just browsers, but in a browser there's the additional
  complication of cluttered, overburdened content as well.
  
  I'd like to see all general software, especially word processors and the
  like, have several easily accessed interface levels. The "lowest" being all
  but essential operations turned off. eg file open, save, print & thats's
  about it, working up from there. Although most programs now have a
  "customise" option, that area often relates to addition of even more
  options, rather than simplification.
  
  The above may be hard to sell to sw companies just for disability support,
  but as a standard way to implement training .... ???. When teaching wordpro
  to (often elderly) novice computer users I like to just have them type,
  move with arrows, delete by character and save. When they're confident
  enough to want to do a bold, center etc that's the time I introduce it. I'm
  sure many other teachers operate the same way. But the massive interface
  bloat scares the bjs out of many. 
  
  Back to your question - yes let's have browsers with a simple way to switch
  out any amount of the interface. Very important. Good luck in selling the
  mesage. 
  
  Bye
  Rob
  
  PS - my time has been heavily occupied in the eLr site (below). It's poor
  on universal accessability I'm afraid, but we set out to make a tool that
  worked in the context it's needed, and access would usually be supervised &
  supported by teachers, clinicians etc.
  
  Best regards,
  Rob Seiler
  Extra Language Resources
  "Speech and Language Resources for the World"
  
  ... Web: http://www.elr.com.au
  ... e-mail: info@elr.com.au
  ... voice: +61 (3) 5156 8309
  ... fax: +61 (3) 5156 8609
  
  ELR Software Pty Ltd
  PO Box 1456
  Bairnsdale VIC 3875
  Australia
  

--
Charles McCathieNevile    mailto:charles@w3.org    phone: +61 (0) 409 134 136
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative                      http://www.w3.org/WAI
21 Mitchell Street, Footscray, VIC 3011,  Australia

Received on Sunday, 6 February 2000 01:05:52 UTC