Symbolic Languages instead of text-based language

Summary

Some very low level readers use symbol languages instead of character-based. This is one of the requirements of Jonathan Chetwyn's students. The working group has argued that authors can not provide a symbol-only version of all content. The working group felt it was too much burden on the author since the author would not be schooled in how to provide appropriate symbols.

Beyond that, many of the symbolic languages are proprietary. Also, since there are many of them it would also be like asking an author to provide content in the variety of written languages or for a reader to read something in a foreign language.

Technology solutions

WWAAC work

The WWAAC is the World Wide Augmentative Communication and Alternative Communication.

The WWAAC is working on the translation of Web content into symbols in three ways:

I spoke with Bengt Farre (a new participant of the working group) from the WWAAC a couple of weeks ago. This is a summary of my understanding of that conversation.

Annotations

Several organizations are working on annotating content. The W3C project is called Annotea. The W3C Browser/Editor Amaya is one implementation of an Annotea client.

A possible user scenario for annotations:

Content provider solutions

News-2-You is an example of a news site that is provided in symbols.


$Date: 2002/03/29 23:03:12 $ Wendy Chisholm