On Tue, 16 Nov 1999, Pete Torrano wrote:
> May I forward your response to the original originator?
You may. Please mention to her that I am not dismissing the accessibility
concerns themselves. In my work developing state government pages, I push
for accessibility in design and my wife is blind. So I have awareness of
the accessibility issues. My my objection to using laws as the method of
encouraging Web designers to make pages accessible is that laws are a
lousy tools encouraging compassion, respect, and ethical behavior. They
serve, IMO, as tool of last resort for regulating behaviors.
To add to another problem with overdependence upon regulations to
encourage online accessibility is that it can encourage subtraction of
useful services rather than the building in accessibility into
innovations.
I think I may lose people with that sentence. So, here are a couple of
examples (and, yes, do pass this msg along):
About five or six years ago, speech synthesizers were a niche market
device for computers. While there were a couple of really inexpensive
ones, the really good synthesizers cost anywhere from $700 to $1600. Once
there was interest in sound and voice synthesis for the gamers' market,
the incentive for manufactures to develop low cost sound boards increased
greatly and the volume has made sound output more affordable for blind
people. So now, a SoundBlaster card can be used well instead of the
expensive DECTalk card.
A similar thing is now happening for Web development. WHile there has been
a push for accessibility by various groups (e.g.; TRACE project) and
individuals, some uses of the Web are adding to this push. Among them is
accessibility via PDA (portable data aassistants such as the Palm Pilots)
and via automotive systems. PDAs push for streamlined info display. The
automotive systems push for sound output and input.
Regarding accessibility, Microsoft Windows had thrown in a big stumbling
block. Now, things have improved. MSC is adding accessibility resources
and adaptive software designers have found ways to hook into Windows
operation and provide usable speech output. (There is still the painful
situation for blind people who had started careers as programmers in
computer languages that were text I/O orientated and program by writing
code. The Windows driven visual-programming apporaches are forcing many
such programmers to switch jobs. Some do find programming niches where
visual-approach is not required. Meanwhile, the end-user improvements for
accessibility have opened doors for non-programming but computer
computer-using careers for blind people.)
J.D. Abolins
Meyda Online -- Infosec & Privacy Studies
Web: http://www.meydabbs.com
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