No wonder there is a move afoot to convince the governments that
accommodating accessibility for visually-impaired people to the Internet, to
jobs, to electronic information has to be magical, difficult, expensive, a
brake on the freedom of artistry and design for web designers, and all that
other nonsense.

This is the kind of dribble/drivel we get from the press.  Braille is
probably the absolute simplest code for writing a complex language on paper
that's ever been devised.  Yet, we see trash like this quote about, " ...
the bumps and spaces of the elaborate code developed in 1829 ..."

Most general press articles you read where braille is mentioned talk about
it as if it must be mysterious and magical,fiendishly complex and difficult
to learn.  No wonder very few blind kids who are mainstreamed into the
general public schools are learning braille anymore.

Then again, didn't you, Kelly, recently post for our enjoyment, an article
about the upcoming U.S. House of Representatives hearings about access to
the Internet for people with disabilities where one lawyer tried to claim
that the expense of providing access to the web would drive small businesses
and small web designers out of the internet because they couldn't afford the
expensive and complex software tghat would be needed to make every website
or server accessible?  Did the guy really think that every computer hosting
or transmitting a web page would need to be equipped with an expensive
screen access program each for braille, speech, and large print, plus
expensive braille and speech output hardware?

They don't even want to get it.  It's not a question of whether they do get
it.  We know that simply labeling frame headers, and following the HTML
convention for labeling buttons and graphics with short alt-tags would go a
long way to easing accessibility for blind people, and all that costs is a
few extra seconds in the process of designing the graphic or button the
browser is supposed to "click".

I'll believe that the government and society as a whole are really serious
about any kind of access for people with disabilities to the world of
electronic information and commerce when I see it.

Reply to: [log in to unmask]
Brent Reynolds, Atlanta, GA  USA

Net-Tamer V 1.12 Beta - Registered


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