encapsulating knowledge Vs providing an alternate access method

I sent this email to PF -who are discussing access keys.

I think this approach to accessibility may be interesting, and solve the
dilemma of how to get accessibility for Learning related disabilities
adopted.

Note- the lag between AT adoption and coding capabilities can be solved
by server side transcoding services. 

 

.....

A case for knowledge representation?

 

Summary

This is an example of the conflict of encapsulating knowledge Vs
providing an alternate access method. 

 

 

Background to semantic based accessibility.

Semantic based Web accessibility is about encapsulating and capture of
information about a page, that can then be interpreted to create better
accessibility.

 

 A semantic layer of meaning to the site can be added using  Semantic
Web annotations or can be incorporated into the page markup itself.
Either way this semantic information is then interpreted by a  server
program or the user agent to create any number of  accessible
presentational layers or renderings of the page -- so that users can
view the web site and content though a presentation that works with
their scenario.

 

An example - Access keys

 

Usercase

 

 

Current usecase

 

The author can associate an access key in place of an alternate access
method in place of a mouse event.

The author needs to do

*	Chouse which links and controls are important enough to receive
a designated access key
*	Decide on what that access key should be
*	Ensure that there are not conflicts of access keys (as often
happens with content management systems.)

 

What the user gets:

The user can now access a control easily using the author designated
keyboard accesskey

 

Sometimes the access key may already be designated by the assistive
technology or user system

Access keys may not always be intuitive.

 

User example:

The  contact us  link is designated  the access key designated of  "s"

The site map link, which was considered less important to the _author_
did not get a designated link

The products page is designated   an access key of  "C"

 

Proposed usecase

 

The author can associate the role of the link or control

 

The author needs to

*	Associate a resource with a role OR associate a control with a
role
*	If no known role exists, a new definition can be created in a
central repository of content types. 

 

For example a single RDF statement that associated a page with the
definition of a site map

 

What the user gets:

The user can now access a control easily using the user designated
keyboard accesskey that is preferred for links or controls of this role 

 

User examples:

Jon has the following user preferences:

*	All   contact us  links are  designated  the access key "c"
*	The site map links are  designated  the access key of "s"
*	Any main menu items get numeric access keys so he can easily
jump to them -in this case the products page is designated   an access
key of "3"
*	Alt M always takes Jon to the start of the main content

 

Anna also has user preference for access keys

For her  the site map links are  designated  the access key of "k"
-which is the first letter of site map in Russian (karta saita) That is
because her first language  is not English but Russian

 

Tom scenario is very different.

*	Tom prefers symbols to text when possible. He does not use
access keys
*	All contact us links are represented by the same picture of an
email/letter
*	All site map links are rendered as a picture of a map
*	All main menu items are buttons on the top of the page, and side
menu items that do not have any extra role are simply not shown, unless
he select a "show me more" button

 

Issue:

Should the role information be incorporated into the page or, simply,
attached to the linked to page or resource?

With RDF it can be viewed as both with flexibility for page specific
alterations of the role.

 

For example - what if there were no alt tags or long desc -but every
recourse and picture file came with a meta data title and description..

 

 

 

Conclusion

Some accessibility is more popular then others - access keys is more
accepted, then adding role information for learning disabilities. Basic
accessibility for physical disabilities is far more important then user
preferences and making 

 

 However with a different approach to capturing the basic accessibility,
for the same amount of work, more accessibility for more user groups can
be made available 

In the discussion on how to approach accessibility,  

 

 

All the best

Lisa Seeman

 

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