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Re: UsableNet's text transponder

for

From: Jason Taylor
Date: Jan 18, 2007 1:50PM

Dear WebaAIM members

Lift Assistive was formally know as text transcoder and renamed in part
due to observations that text transcoder does not explain what this
solution does.

Lift Assistive is not only a "text" transcoder like BETSIE where if you
put X in you get X-less-images out. It has the ability to, as it
transcodes, rewrite the html page to a fully accessible version. Through
the use of custome annotations we deliver an accessible version of an
in-accessible page or as-importantly an inaccessible application.

So it is not a text trancoded version of a page, it is an improved
version, we can help with javascript navigation, remove frames, correctly
code tables and forms as the new page is generated.

If you are a College or organization that uses a third party application
like a booking system, purchase system, calender or student records
application that uses lots of javascript and frames. Lift Assistive can be
used to make this fully accessible. Without any need for IT or code
changes of the orginal. There is little alternative for that organization
apart from waiting for the third party application to change, in many
cases old apps.

So in many cases Lift Assistive can be used to extend or support more
traditional efforts. We have never advocated this replacing ground-up
efforts but in reality there are still lots of content and applications
that are in-accessible and this is not due to people thinking this is the
wrong thing to do but due to lack of resources, technology issues and many
others issues.

I always find it interesting that many comments are based on very limited
knowledge of this solution but welcome the discussion and wanted to shed
some light on this for others.

Kind Regards
Jason Taylor
product team

> My problem is with people using the service and then claiming that their
site is accessible. Most web sites today contain many dynamic elements
and controls. A text transcript of the site does not provide equivalent
functionality. Finally if the site contains images that do not have
appropriate text alternatives through alt, captions or linked
> descriptions then the transponder cannot even present all of the
content.
> Try this, run your site through the text transponder. Review the output.
If it is really equivalent to your site then your site is probably already
accessible. My guess is that the output of the transponder will not be
equivalent.
> mike
> -----Original Message-----
> From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Cheryl Amato
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 8:02 AM
> To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> Subject: [WebAIM] usablenet's text transponder
> Does anyone have any experience with Usablenet's text transponder? And
how do people feel about the accessibility of automatically generating
text only pages of a web site? Doesn't that set up an us vs. them
scenario? A separate but equal?
> I guess something about it bothers me.
> Cheryl Amato
> Trusted Technologies
>