Hello Kelly,

As a sighted person, I would disagree with you about presentation being
important for comprehension, unless you you are talking about structure.
Some aspects of presentation show structure, for example a blank line
may indicate the boundary between paragraphs.  But other aspects of
presentation - such as use of fancy colour schemes, narrow columns of text,
and fancy fonts - are generally a distraction to comprehension unless
they are done well.  Catching the eye doesn't imply catching the brain.

So I don't think blind people are missing anything, to be honest.  And
anyway I don't know how one would substitute for the sighted person's
visual experience of these things.

Cheers,

In message  <[log in to unmask]>
Kelly Ford, via [log in to unmask] writes:

>Terri,
>
>I am in complete agreement with you on this...
>...presentation is often critical to the actual content in terms of
>comprehension, ease of use and everything else that goes into effective
>document design...
>
>I believe people who are blind need access to this same experience.  It is
>a challenge because we need accessibility to the applications, assistive
>technology that's up to the task and also a quality understanding of the
>visual experience conveyed by document layout and design.  I'm not sure we
>are close to being there.

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