"Reader's are not the key. They are just a kludge to solve a larger problem, and one that won't go away and will get more and more complicated.
Why? Because web browsers and the whole internet experience was *always* going to cycle back to the kind of richer interaction that existed long before the web browser existed. (Basically the entire 80s and early 90s of the software world.) The whole "web" thing was nothing but a pit stop on the evolution of the computer and digital technology. Things are going back to drag and drop, multi-windowing systems, etc. Given this, the problem is not a reader problem of reading "web" pages. It's a computer problem and how its core interactions pertain to people who are disabled." OK. I'll bite :). How was the evolution of computer software going to have served the disabled if it hadn't been distracted by this "whole "web" thing"? Sophisticated or simple, web or desk top, the challenge remains the same. How do you take a primarily visual experience and provide it verbally, or sonically, or otherwise? In the simplest sense the reader is an interpreter. It translates visual into audio. I haven't heard of any core, structural, intrinsic way in which any software or hardware system can be designed that allows for visual complexity to be more easily translated into audio or other input using an assistive technology. If you are talking about direct implants or something of that nature, where you enable a person to see who can't ordinarily see, then I think you are going beyond the issue of software and hardware design and into the realm of abling the disabled. I'm all for it and I hope that it can happen. Meanwhile you need a translator from visual to audio. Perhaps all you are really advocating is that MS and Apple should take the responsibility to provide good translators with their OS's. Or put another way, they should be in the reader business whether they like it or not. I doubt they would agree. But even if they did, and they develop built in software support for the disabled, the people designing and coding the software will still have to understand how that built in capacity works and make sure that they have coded to its standards. I don't see any way you don't loop back to the same challenge. And I circle back to my original issue. Even if good readers evolve, or OS's incorporate the task of providing assistance, it will do so by evolving standard user conventions. What happens when the next wave of new capabilities hits? The assistive technology will lag behind... Joseph Selbie Founder, CEO Tristream Web Application Design http://www.tristream.com ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] List Guidelines ............ http://beta.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://beta.ixda.org/help Unsubscribe ................ http://beta.ixda.org/unsubscribe Questions .................. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home ....................... http://beta.ixda.org
