Re: acceptable fallbacks [was: Re: Is longdesc a good solution? ...]

we aren't far from on the fly realtime transcription though.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Justin James" <j_james@mindspring.com>
To: "'Henri Sivonen'" <hsivonen@iki.fi>; "'David Poehlman'" 
<david.poehlman@handsontechnologeyes.com>
Cc: "'Jim Jewett'" <jimjjewett@gmail.com>; "'HTML WG'" <public-html@w3.org>; 
<wai-xtech@w3.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 10:30 AM
Subject: RE: acceptable fallbacks [was: Re: Is longdesc a good solution? 
...]


> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-html-request@w3.org [mailto:public-html-request@w3.org] On
> Behalf Of Henri Sivonen
> Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 8:41 AM
> To: David Poehlman
> Cc: Jim Jewett; HTML WG; wai-xtech@w3.org
> Subject: Re: acceptable fallbacks [was: Re: Is longdesc a good
> solution? ...]
>
>
> On Sep 10, 2008, at 15:06, David Poehlman wrote:
>
> In any case, full-text transcripts are useful for general audiences,
> so once a full-text transcript has been written, it doesn't make sense
> to hide it in a fallback chain only for deafblind users. Instead, it
> should be available to all users.

I agree 100%. [1] Unfortunately, the vast majority of people providing this
kind of content, like podcasts, simply do not have the time, energy, or
inclination to do it. When I was in college, I participated in an "oral
history" project, where I had to type up something like 8 hours of
interviews. It was positively brutal; I ended up paying a friend to help me
out (which was within the allowed parameters of the course, I may add).

I cannot imagine doing a podcast or some other type of production on a
regular basis and then trying to put together a transcript, without the
benefit of some sort of "speech to text" software combined with some special
software that would let me shuttle through the audio and compare it to the
recognized text, basically a dictation machine in reverse. I am sure such
software exists, I can't imagine how expensive it is.

So while I personally push for transcripts everywhere, I recognize that we
will never get them. I also tell folks that I know that providing
transcripts is a HUGE competitive advantage, because:

* Search engines now pick up all of your content
* You can now get your content in front of people who could not ordinarily
make use of it
* Even non-disabled users who are not able (or don't like to) to turn their
speakers on can now consume your content

The benefits of providing a transcript are endless, but even with all of
that, transcripts on the Web in any capacity are exceedingly rare. :(

J.Ja

[1]: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/programming-and-development/?p=40

Received on Wednesday, 10 September 2008 21:20:16 UTC