Wendy's unillustrated notes, thoughts, and questions about the recent WCAG
WG "Illustrating Guidelines" thread
Introduction
Having reread the Illustrating
Guidelines thread, here are the notes that I'm using to help me get my
head around the issue. It might help others, it might not. It's dense text.
We'll see who has the time and energy to read through it. I have highlighted
important points for those who want to skim quickly to get a summary. Note
that points are highlighted with the <strong> element and appear in bold
face font. Questions that I ask and reactions to thoughts of others are
highlighted with the <em> element and appear in italic font.
Contents
These are based on observations of the list discussions and a discussion I
had with Judy. Trying to tease out the issues so that we might be able to
tackle each one separately rather than all together in one shot.
- All or Some: all books in library vs. some books in the
library. How to define "some"
- Required vs strongly recommended vs informative
- Supplemental vs replacing: supplementing text vs
replacing text w/symbolic language or illustrations
- Summarize vs simplified language: meta-data summary of
content (like in card catalog, synopsis) or completely simplified content
for various reading levles.
- Usability vs accessibility
- Technology vs author responsibility: author provides
content or technology creates
- Possible now vs possible later
- Purpose? Audience? The purpose of content must figure
into this somewhere? Immediacy? e.g., I wanted to get this analysis out
quickly. I analyze via words. I did not have time to illustrate...
Anne and Lisa claim that illustrating content significantly increases its
understandability. Illustration is defined by Anne as [@@find ref] this is
different than [@@find ref, her distinctions]. Anne also claims that there are
decades worth of research showing that multimedia significantly increases the
understandability of text.
Anne is pushing for a requirement that all content must be illustrated.
This is different than saying every "concept" must be illustrated.
Matt claims that we are all schooled in speaking and writing, that
composition is required.
Anne claims that the majority of students are taught to read and write,
many are not and learn to communicate through images and other media,
depending on their strengths and weaknesses.
Lisa supports this claim - from personal experience.
We all seem to agree that illustrating WCAG 2.0 is a good idea and
appreciate Anne's suggestions.
Jason wants hard evidence, but Anne asks which evidence made us require
alt-text for images?
Matt argues that since only a portion of us are taught to create effective
images that requiring everyone to do so would result in lots of silly images.
He is also concerned about anything that requires a change in tools or author
processes.
Charles notes that changes are required already due to new technologies as
well as WCAG, 508, etc. Current tools are not adequate and he hopes they do
change. I strongly agree with this.
Are images universal? There is debate about this.
I went on a search for the hard evidence that Jason requested and here's
what I found. I interspersed questions and comments. These are denoted by
emphasis (the <em> element).
- Designing for Users
With Cognitive Disabilities by Erica Kolatch, Department of Computer
Science University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 USA, April 2000
Developers might also want to consider the following suggestions made
by Singh, Gedeon, and Rho (1998). They suggest that designers
should:
- Remove the need for reading and writing skills in web exploration
through graphic representations and point and click interfaces.
- Create search techniques that are easy to use, and make them
consistent across sites, providing as many graphical and point and
click options as possible.
- Reduce information overload, by simplifying text or providing
options for abbreviated content.
- Develop specialized software agents to assist language-impaired
and learning disabled users with searches
- Provide useful ranking systems for search engine results
- Provide the opportunity for audio and video representations to cue
subject recognition.
- Selected references from her paper:
- Babbitt, Beatrice and Miller, Susan. 1997. "Using hypermedia to
improve the mathematics problem-solving skills of students with
learning disabilities." In K. Higgins & R. Boone. Technology for
students with learning disabilities. Austin, TX: Pro-ed. :
91-108.
- Bryant, Brian R and Penny Crew Seay. 1998. "the technology-related
assistance to individuals with disabilities act: relevance to
individuals with learning disabilities and their
advocates." Journal of Learning Disabilities 31, no.
1 : 4-15
- Hill, Janette R. and Michael J. Hannafin. 1997. "Cognitive
strategies and learning from the World Wide Web."
ETR&D: Educational Technology Research & Development 45, no. 4
: 37-64.
- Using computers to create content area enhancements By David Walker and
Rhonda Buford December 1996 / January 1997 Closing the Gap
- Addresses Matt and Anne's discussion about students learning (or
not) to primarily read/write text. I've added the emphasis to specific
points.
Traditionally, teachers in content area classrooms have presented
information primarily through lecture format. For example,
Schumaker, Sheldon-Wildgen, and Sherman (1980) found that 70 percent
of class time in secondary content classrooms was spent by teachers
delivering information through lecture. This places a heavy emphasis
on listening, note taking, and comprehension skills, and on the
ability to process and retain large amounts of information (Cuban,
1984). Since students with mild/moderate disabilities have
difficulty processing and organizing information efficiently, the
traditional mode of content transmission only exacerbates the
effects of the disability. This is frustrating for both the
student and the teacher. ... Specific modifications can be developed
to make content delivered in traditional formats accessible to
students with mild/moderate disabilities. Content
enhancements that have been shown to be effective with adolescents
with mild/moderate disabilities include: advanced organizers, guided
notes, and visual displays that graphically depict the organization
of content information, the steps in performing some activity, or
demonstrate abstract processes. ... Technology can
definitely help teachers lead secondary students to content and help
students access and internalize subject matter. Software
applications can assist the teacher in making the content accessible
not only to the student with a diagnosed disability but to other
students who may have difficulty grasping information as well.
They can be used to create visuals that enhance the content
in a way that is essential for the student with disabilities and
beneficial for non-disabled students. Thus, the stigma of
differential accommodations is eliminated since all students are
benefiting from the enhancement.
- David Walker, Ed.D, is an associate professor at the University of
Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Miss. Rhonda Buford, Ph.D is an
assistant professor of special education at the University of
Houston-Clear Lake in Houston, Texas. The information contained in
this article was used in their presentation at the 1996 Closing The
Gap Conference.
- Most of this research is aimed at teaching people with learning
disabilities. What about workplace? Is there a difference between learning
and working? ASSISTIVE
TECHNOLOGY Meeting the Needs of Adults with Learning Disabilities by
Adrienne Riviere (National Adult Literacy and Learning Disabilities Center
A Program of the National Institute for Literacy Summer 1996) mostly
discusses audio output as an aid for helping people read. Although, later
in the article, she discusses multimedia
and says the following:
More and more assistive technology is being designed around a
multimedia approach. Material presented through some mix (text, graphic
arts, photographic images, audio and visual) plays to a variety of
individual learning strengths while accommodating a variety of learning
disabilities. Many of the assistive technologies thus far
referenced are examples of the use of multimedia, or become so when
integrated with another technology. A few more include interactive
videos that use the video source, a videodisc player connected to the
user's computer, to augment computer text, and interactive videodiscs
that store, on laser disc, both audio and visual information for
instructional programs that can be played on a computer. When multimedia
information is linked to and accessed by a computer, it is called
hypermedia.
- Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies in Reading: Extensions for
Kindergarten, First Grade, and High School by Douglas Fuchs, Lynn S.
Fuchs, Anneke Thompson, Ebba Svenson, Loulee, Yen, Stephanie Al Otaiba,
Nancy Yang, Kristin Nyman McMaster, Karen Prentice, Sarah Kazdan, and
Laura Saenz. Remedial and Special Education Vol 22, Number 1,
January/February 2001, Page 15-21
- Alarming statistics about the number of illiterate people in the
U.S.
- Discusses greater variety of student needs in school and the strain
it has placed on teachers.
- This strain is similar to requirements on page authors, no?
Creating content that can be used internationally, by a variety of
devices, in a variety of situations, by people with a variety of
abilities...
- They say, "One promising alternative to conventional instructional
methods is a collaborative arrangement whereby children work together
to support each other's learning. Research demonstrates that in the
elementary grades, children's reading competence can improve when they
work collaboratively on structured learning activities (Greenwood,
Delquadri, & Hall, 1989; Rosenshine & Meister, 1994; Stevens,
Madden, Slavin, & Famish, 1987). With collaborative learning,
groups of children can operate on different levels of curricula, using
alternative instructional procedures. Teachers can create and
simultaneously implement different lessons to address a greater range
of learning needs."
- What about a collaborative approach to illustrating content? In
Web development this is already considered a must - a web team ideally
has graphic designers, user interface designers, programmers, etc.
etc. A collaboration of skills. However, what about smaller shops
where one person does it all? Could Anne's students or a consortium of
students or people with and without learning disabilities collaborate
with content creators to illustrate concepts?
- What if students who are able to read well who are collaborating
with students who don't read well (as proposed in this study) annotate
documents with their illustrations or simplifications. Refer to
theW3C Annotea
project. Can annotations be images? If not yet, then
should be eventually!!
- Multisensory
Structured Language Programs: Content & Principles of Instruction:
Clinical Studies of Multisensory Structured Language Education for
Students with Dyslexia and Related Disorders by Curtis W. McIntyre, Ph.D.
and Joyce S. Pickering, LSH/CCC, MA, editors, 1995. International
Multisensory Structured Language Education Council (IMSLEC).
- The
Big "R" - Reading reprinted from The Link Vol. 17, No. 3, Fall 1998
Appalachian Educational Laboratory
- Good explanations of the types of disabilities that affect learning
to read.
- Good tips for tutors of readers with disabilities.
- Multimedia
and More: Help for Students with Learnng Disabilities produced by
National Center to Improve Practice 1999
- Discusses how multimedia projects can help students write better.
What about reading?
- CHAT
transcript for Wednesday, January 12, 2000 TOPIC: Technology &
Reading with Dr. Tamarah M. Ashton
- Project LITT -
focuses on the roles that technology can play in improving the reading
skills of students with learning disabilities. Research efforts center
around one type of reading software: hypermedia-based children's
literature programs, sometimes called "talking storybooks."
- How many sites already illustrate concepts? Isn't that why it's so
important to use alt-text in the first place?
- Write a proposal for change to WCAG 2.0 (or not?)
- All but one article that I found were about teaching children with
disabilities, what about adults? Once a child learns the strategies that
they need to succeed, do they need to have the same "props?" What about
older adults who are just beginning to read? Or adults who have had a
stroke and lost the ability to read?
- General usability studies of the use of multimedia in classrooms?
workplace? Is GUI evidence of the success of multimedia over text (DOS)?
Yes, people still use command line, but note the types of people who are
more comfortable with command line, mainly programmers. Look at Mac vs.
Windows. I had a discussion with the FedEx delivery man today. He went
from PC to Mac since he said "it was hard to get things running on the
PC."
- The research shows that there is strong agreement among teachers that
multimedia can increase students ability to learn to read and to to learn
concepts.
- There are different types of learning and working styles. We each have
our own preferences and styles.
- Illustrating WCAG 2.0 as best as we can would be a good thing. I have
contacted a professional graphic designer for help with this.
- What do we require of all content?
- What do we strongly suggest for all content?
$Date: 2001/05/15 23:54:10 $ Wendy
Chisholm