Re: plotting accessibility

On Wed, Jun 09, 2004 at 10:25:15AM +0100, Rotan Hanrahan wrote:
> put it into the field of usability, since further scaling (under the
> control of the end user) can convert a merely accessible form of
> content into something that the user would actually use. If you take

Can you give me an example here? How can an accessible piece of text
say, become usable?

Could you resize/scale an accessible piece of text to compensate for an
adjustment in say reading distance, and call it usability? I would like
to think resizing text is an accessibility feature that should have been
there in the first place.

> usability to the extreme, as would be the case when faced with a
> user who has specific extraordinary needs, then it falls under the
> umbrella of accessiblity as defined by WAI.

Usability to the extreme. Hehe.

> I don't think a hierarchy is plausable. I prefer to use Venn Diagrams
> when describing DI, accessibility, usability and malleability. The
> last one shouldn't be overlooked, as this characteristic determines
> the success of adaptation, including at the client-side (which it
> would seem would be the preferred place for adaptation, were it not
> for other issues such as bandwidth wastage, client processing
> requirements etc.)

Malleability is more of implementation thing. For example malleability
is provided by valid XML right? We can now transform, although we really
do have to know our inputs and outputs very well. malleability would be
the flexibility that most authors would not like to touch though... 

I don't want to go to mystical semantic land, if that's what you mean by
Malleability. ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venn_diagram
I am working on a dia figure:
http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/hendry/work/thesis/pictures/accessibility.png

But I am having trouble intersecting some topics there. I feel I should
just use this diagram to put some of the numerous topics I raise in my
thesis under the field of accessibility.

> And feel free to cross-post to WAI, as this discussion has now drifted
> into the realm of human accessibiliy and worthy of mutual consideration.

I will post them a message about the definition and see what happens.

Received on Wednesday, 9 June 2004 10:17:21 UTC