RE: plotting accessibility

Driving directions (e.g. "turn left at next junction") might be visible 
(accessible) in my car, but they are only useable if they are sufficiently large 
and of good contrast so that I can read the instructions quickly without 
straining. If I have to look slowly and carefully while my car is stopped at the 
lights, I'll soon tire of it, and resort to a good old-fashioned paper map and 
shouting at strangers for help as I pass by.

Malleability is about structure and metadata. I need to know, for example, that a 
piece of text is related to another piece of text, so that as I adapt the content 
I try to keep the related pieces together. Yes, it's about semantics. Knowing the 
author's intentions helps us to automatically adapt the input content so as not to 
adversely affect the semantics. Consider a 2 by 2 table. I could adapt this into a 
1 by 4, to fit on a narrow screen, but do I split the table by row or by column? 
Where in the markup can I find the information to help me decide? Or do I just use 
heuristics and hope for the best? There's nothing mystical about this. It's a real 
problem. It can be (partially) solved by adding metadata to "explain" the content, 
from which an informed decision might be reached.

Your current Venn diagram is just another hierarchy. Find the intersections. For 
example, there should be some overlap between "legal requirements" and "special 
needs" because some jurisdictions require that certain types of site are 
specifically accessible by people who have special needs (e.g. visual 
impediments). You will find plenty of other overlaps, and each overlap will give 
you another topic for your blog :-)

---Rotan



-----Original Message-----
From: Kai Hendry [mailto:hendry@cs.helsinki.fi]
Sent: 09 June 2004 15:17
To: Rotan Hanrahan
Cc: www-di@w3.org
Subject: 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 11:22:08 UTC