- From: Simon Harper <simon.harper@manchester.ac.uk>
- Date: Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:32:07 +0000
- To: UAWG list <w3c-wai-ua@w3.org>
Hi there guys, Sorry for not being very talkative on the Telecon yesterday, and for confining myself to listening to the discussion. However, as the discussion unfolded, and this is not in relation to action item 263, I started to become a little worried about what we are actually expecting user agent manufacturers to do with regard to the accessibility of their technology. From a brief analysis of guidelines as they stand in draft at present we seem to be reasonably focused on specific key disability such as blindness and hearing loss. I became more concerned with regard to how these guidelines would be implemented with regard to cognitive disability and learning impairments as in some cases it seems to me that the guidelines have an implicit idea about, and address, a specific disability. That said I may be completely wrong on this point, so to allay my fears I wonder if somebody from the group could answer me a couple of questions. I think if we can't answer these questions we need to think again about some of the guidelines and indeed our ideas about user agent accessibility. 1) How does principle three 'PRINCIPLE 3: Perceivable - The user interface and rendered content must be presented to users in ways they can perceive.' and the guidelines that are within it relate to cognitive disability and learning impairments, 'content must be presented to users in ways they can perceive' suggests to me that the content must be translated into pictograms for this particular user group. Are we really expecting this to occur? 2) In the case of guideline 4.9 'Guideline 4.9 Provide control of content that may reduce accessibility.' Content that may reduce accessibility is text with regard to cognitive disability learning impairment. How can this be addressed in such a case? 3) Finally, 'Principle 5: Ensure that user interface is understandable', How will this understandability be ensured with regard to cognitive disability and learning impairment? Are we expecting user agent manufacturers to provide pictorial representations of the textual aspects. Based on responses from the working group I have some additional questions, but I don't want to labour the point here, and indeed your answers may negate some of those questions I already have. Cheers Si. ======================= Simon Harper University of Manchester (UK) Human Centred Web Lab: http://hcw.cs.manchester.ac.uk My Site: http://hcw.cs.manchester.ac.uk/people/harper/ My Diary (Web): http://hcw.cs.manchester.ac.uk/people/harper/phpicalendar/week.php My Diary (Subscribe): http://hcw.cs.manchester.ac.uk/diaries/harper/SimonHarper.ics
Received on Friday, 5 February 2010 10:32:36 UTC