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September 11, 2007
Charts over the telephone
Charts over the telephone: Mailing list for Web Accessibility Forum has a cry for straightforward information: ""How does blind users access graphical information as charts (flowcharts, organisation chart)?". I think Giorgio Brajnik may have had the best answer: "How would you describe the chart over the telephone?" Other respondents pointed to older projects, older books, older videos, but none of them really answered the question, or challenged the assumptions of text's supremacy over other media types. (Some of the replies were written in ponderous English, which doesn't seem like it would be particularly accessible to someone asking "how does blind users"....) I think it's a bad formulation to ask "Is it accessible or is it not accessible?" -- better to ask "How readily can different audiences access the message behind this presentation? How much would it cost us to provide deeper engagement to that audience; how much to expand the audience wider?" Accessibility is not an either/or checkbox. But how would you describe a chart over the telephone? How are you dealing with physical differences, language differences today? Tidibts or new perspectives appreciated, thanks.
Posted by JohnDowdell at September 11, 2007 10:58 AM
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