Re: My Action Item: Multiple interface guideline

At 5:18 AM -0700 10/13/00, William Loughborough wrote:
>I wonder if in the explanation it could somehow be emphasized that 
>this technique must not serve as a copout for failure to provide 
>conformance in the provided versions? One problem with "separate but 
>equal" is that you tend to get a whole lot of separate and not 
>enough equal. "Oh, I provided a text description so I didn't think 
>it necessary to make the xxx (Flash, SVG, whatever) version conform 
>to the guidelines.

Uh, part of the whole point of doing server-side multiple interfaces
is that the different pages don't _have_ to be held to the same
standard of accessibility.

For example, if I were making a page that was intended solely for
a screenreader, I would produce a structured textual page without
graphics -- save for the one graphic to allow change back to a
"base" state which has been held to a higher standard of
accessibility.

A purely textual page obviously -- as Jonathan and Anne would tell
us -- violates the needs of people who rely upon graphics.  And yet,
for the specific audience who had selected this interface, it _is_
accessible (remember, accessibility does not exist in a vacuum,
you can only be accessible or inaccessible _by a person_).

The one graphic is there because the mechanism needed to "change
back" is required by the proposed guideline (as articulated well
by Cynthia).

A parallel solution would indeed be the Flash version.  I can
deliver a near-pure Flash interface to site users who desire or
who can use it, and I don't -have- to hold it to the same standard
of general accessibility as a single-interface page.  However, the
mechanism to switch back (the same graphic, with -- of course --
appropriate ALT text, etc.) must be made accessible so someone who
wanders onto this page with a screenreader has a way out.

There is no concept of "separate but equal" or "whole lot of
separate and not enough equal" involved here.  You are misapplying
social rhetoric and trying to force technology to bend to simplistic
dogma.

As long as the _content_ is accessible to as broad an audience as
possible, there is no need to require that every single interface
be equally accessible to everyone -- only that the mechanism for
selecting an appropriate interface be of the highest level of
accessibility.  This is not a "separate but equal" case, and I think
it is _very_ dangerous to try to apply pithy slogans in ways which
they were never intended to be used.

--Kynn
-- 
--
Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com>
http://www.kynn.com/

Received on Friday, 13 October 2000 09:59:29 UTC