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Thread: sales people
Number of posts in this thread: 13 (In chronological order)
From: FOX, Jake
Date: Tue, Oct 21 2003 9:25AM
Subject: sales people
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I wish people wouldn't try to sell me things on this mailinglist.
Am I the only one who thinks this?
-J
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From: Kevin A Sesock
Date: Tue, Oct 21 2003 9:29AM
Subject: Re: sales people
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At least they're selling things related to accessibility, and not Viagra
and other...enhancements.
Kevin A. Sesock, A+, NET+, CNA, MCSA
Assistive Technology/Accessibility Support
Information Technology Division
Oklahoma State University
"Hail to the speaker, hail to the knower; joy to he who has understood,
delight to they who have listened." --Odin
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cc: (bcc: Kevin A Sesock/it/Okstate)
Subject: sales people
I wish people wouldn't try to sell me things on this mailinglist.
Am I the only one who thinks this?
-J
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This email and any files sent with it are intended only for the named
recipient. If you are not the named recipient please telephone/email
the sender immediately. You should not disclose the content or
take/retain/distribute any copies.
**********************************************************************
Norwich Union Life & Pensions Limited
Registered Office: 2 Rougier Street, York, YO90 1UU
Registered in England Number 3253947
A member of the Norwich Union Marketing Group
Members of which are Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Services
Authority.
For further enquiries 01603
From: Karl Groves
Date: Tue, Oct 21 2003 10:57AM
Subject: RE: sales people
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I fully agree. I have noticed that there have been several instances lately that people have begun offering products and services to this list.
It also doesn't appear that these folks are too terrible active in discussions in the first place, which makes sales solicitation even more tasteless.
Karl L. Groves, Certified Master CIW Designer
E-Commerce Manager
NASA Federal Credit Union
500 Prince Georges Blvd.
Upper Marlboro, MD 20774
301-249-1800 ext.497
Fax: 301-390-4531
Opinions expressed in this e-mail represent only myself and are not in any way to be taken as the words or opinions of my employer.
>
From: julian.rickards
Date: Tue, Oct 21 2003 2:22PM
Subject: RE: sales people
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Send us your URL and we will be able to help a bit better.
---------------------------------------------------------
Julian Rickards
Digital Publications Distribution Coordinator
Publications Services Section
Ontario Ministry of Northern Development and Mines
Phone: (705) 670-5608
Fax: (705) 670-5690
>
From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Tue, Oct 21 2003 3:16PM
Subject: RE: sales people
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Michael,
In your case, the word "image" may be correct because you provide additional
text to describe the image. However, since evaluation tools are vastly
limited in their capability to understand the intent of the value of an alt
attribute, they can make mistakes when attempting to determine if the alt
text is adequate or one of those situations where the words are simply a
place filler.
If you are doing a presentation on evaluation tools, this may provide a very
helpful example to you. The fact is evaluation and repair tools are only
part of the solution for making web sites more accessible. In this case,
your knowledge of accessibility allowed you to interpret the feedback from
the evaluation and repair tool correctly.
....and if your intended audience also could involve people with disabilities
to test their web sites, they would undoubtedly gain more additional useful
information.
Hmmm, if you want to make the web accessible, you need the tools, the
knowledge, and the people. Gives me an idea for a presentation.
Tim
Tim
>
From: Dana Louise Simberkoff
Date: Tue, Oct 21 2003 9:51AM
Subject: RE: sales people
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Hello All-
If you are writing in regards to the post about Hi-Caption LE, and how a
list member mentioned they did not like being sold to, this product is
available at NO-COST as part of HiSoftware's Education and outreach program.
It also includes, at no-cost, our Link Validation Utility. The post was
informative about a new free resource and not a sales post.
We provide many *no-cost* accessibility and Web content quality solutions
through this program including;
- AccVerify SE for FrontPage 98-2002
- The CynthiaSays.com portal: www.cynthiasays.com
- The HiSoftware online accessibility tester
http://www.hisoftware.com/accmonitorsitetest/
- Also, our no-cost resource on Web Accessibility, considered to be a *must
read* by industry experts: http://www.hisoftware.com/uaen/WebHelp/uaen.htm
- Free Usability Testers
- No Cost Plugins to MS Office
- No Charge Cynthia Says Desktop Software for K-12 and Equivalent
Internationally
- etc...
We are happy to be able to support the development of accessible Web content
through these outreach programs and initiatives. In the future we will note
besides media that it is part of our educational and outreach program to
remove any confusion!
Best Regards,
Dana Louise Simberkoff
www.hisoftware.com
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
+1-603-229-3055
From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Wed, Oct 22 2003 12:09AM
Subject: RE: sales people
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On Tue, 21 Oct 2003, Tim Harshbarger wrote:
> Michael,
>
> In your case, the word "image" may be correct because you provide additional
> text to describe the image.
Michael originally wrote:
"The full alternative text says that the image is a link to a site where
one can get a program that produces accessible client side image maps."
and later clarified that "full alternative text" means the alt text as a
whole. Without seeing the actual context and markup, it is difficult to
say exactly how adequate the alt text is, but it's probably basically OK.
The point however is not whether there is additional text to describe the
image. The point is whether the alt text acts as a suitable _replacement_
for the image, serving well in a situation where the image is not seen at
all, so that it would be rather pointless to _describe_ it.
The following would probably work as a link to a site where one can
get a program that produces accessible client side image maps:
<div><a href="...">FooBar</a>, a program for producing
accessible client side image maps.</div>
where FooBar is the name of the program. There are good reasons for
keeping link texts relatively short and name-like. And if you
then replace FooBar, in the link, by an icon of the program, for example,
then the replacement should apparently be <img alt="FooBar" src="...">,
shouldn't it? If you wish to _describe_ the icon, the title="..."
attribute could be used, but that would be somewhat pointless and
even disturbing here, when the image is a link.
> However, since evaluation tools are vastly
> limited in their capability to understand the intent of the value of an alt
> attribute, they can make mistakes when attempting to determine if the alt
> text is adequate or one of those situations where the words are simply a
> place filler.
Indeed. And the more heuristics an evaluation tool applies, the more often
it produces warnings that are completely nonsensical. Contrary to what one
might expect, a high level of heuristics (that is, lots of different
"practical" tests) is suitable for _experts_ only.
> If you are doing a presentation on evaluation tools, this may provide a very
> helpful example to you.
Actually I am currently writing an evaluation of evaluation tools, and I
find this (and the HiSoftware tool in general) an illustrating example.
> The fact is evaluation and repair tools are only
> part of the solution for making web sites more accessible.
I'm afraid that's not quite accurate. They are often part of the problem
too.
> In this case,
> your knowledge of accessibility allowed you to interpret the feedback from
> the evaluation and repair tool correctly.
Hopefully this discussion helps in that direction. In any case, even
people who know accessibility issues rather well can be confused with the
reports of evaluation tools. Those reports are certainly, at times,
_very_ confusing and even misleading to people who are just starting to
try and understand accessibility. This implies that we should not
encourage people into using such tools too early. At worst, they will
spend their time "fixing" page features that needed no fixing, or
fixing them in the wrong direction, and making pages less accessible just
to please an evaluation tool.
--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
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From: Sarah Brainard
Date: Tue, Oct 21 2003 10:02AM
Subject: Re: sales people
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> I wish people wouldn't try to sell me things on this mailinglist.
>
> Am I the only one who thinks this?
>
> -J
>
I usually do not "chime in" to statements like this, and would generally
agree. But as Ms. Simberkoff said, it is a Free piece of software and I
think it is important that we know it is out there. There is so much out
there, that knowing about something from a company who's products are used a
lot within the "usability/accesibility world" is not a bother to me, it
helps to avoid sifting through everything else. It is not something I would
have much use for currently, but someone else whom is part of this
list-serve might.
Ms. Simberkoff is a wonderful resource and has been very helpful to me in
the past and I do not feel that she was out of place for posting that at
all. Just my three cents.
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From: Michael D. Roush
Date: Tue, Oct 21 2003 2:18PM
Subject: Re: sales people
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This was my first exposure to hisoftware.com so I decided to look through
the site and see what I could add to my presentation on accessibility tools.
I ran my site through the online accessibility checker and it doesn't like
the fact that the word 'image' appears in my alterate text for an image.
The full alternative text says that the image is a link to a site where one
can get a program that produces accessible client side image maps. What
word am I supposed to use there other than 'image', or am I just doomed to
having my site fail their checker?
Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dana Louise Simberkoff" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> - The HiSoftware online accessibility tester
> http://www.hisoftware.com/accmonitorsitetest/
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From: Robert B. Yonaitis
Date: Tue, Oct 21 2003 2:37PM
Subject: RE: sales people
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Michael!
Good point and good comment on a feature of the alternative text quality
checker. It will basically look at all alternative text and using well known
techniques determine if an authoring tool might have placed alternative text
in without human intervention. For example image001.gif etc. Additionally
checkpoint 1.1 of the alternative text quality report will look to see if
word Image was used to decribe image, see below:
The checkpoint is more of an example:
http://www.hisoftware.com/cc/altquality.htm#a11
Each Test links back to the custom report recommendation for the test so you
should find it easy to track what the test means:
For Example Alt Text Quality Check:
1.1 Validate that the alt text does not use the word image
When users add alternative text to an image they tend to add the word
"Image" when it really says nothing about the image, but describes the
object versus the meaning of the object. This check will fail a page for the
use of the word image in the alternative text.
Example: Image of Bird
If you had our software you could turn it off and on our online tester you
can simply un select [ ] Include the Content Quality Reports. This will give
you the default test types excluding the alternative text quality.
You will never see this report (informational) if you unselect the check
box.
Best Regards
rob
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From: John Foliot - WATS.ca
Date: Tue, Oct 21 2003 3:27PM
Subject: RE: sales people
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Pardon my confusion, but what exactly do you mean by "The full alternative
text"? Last I checked, alt text is alt text... are you referring to the alt
attribute and the title attribute? In the case of your query, why not
something like alt="softwareprogram icon" title="A program that produces
accessible client side image maps".
usually a URL or code sample would make things easier here.
HTH
JF
--
John Foliot = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Web Accessibility Specialist / Co-founder of WATS.ca
Web Accessibility Testing and Services
http://www.wats.ca 1.866.932.4878 (North America)
>
>
> This was my first exposure to hisoftware.com so I decided to look through
> the site and see what I could add to my presentation on
> accessibility tools.
>
> I ran my site through the online accessibility checker and it doesn't like
> the fact that the word 'image' appears in my alterate text for an image.
> The full alternative text says that the image is a link to a site
> where one
> can get a program that produces accessible client side image maps. What
> word am I supposed to use there other than 'image', or am I just doomed to
> having my site fail their checker?
>
> Michael
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dana Louise Simberkoff" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
>
> > - The HiSoftware online accessibility tester
> > http://www.hisoftware.com/accmonitorsitetest/
>
>
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> visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
>
>
>
>
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From: Michael D. Roush
Date: Tue, Oct 21 2003 6:24PM
Subject: WeMedia
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There used to be a talking web browser made by WeMedia. I know their site
was gone for a while last year while they were fighting with the We!
(Women's Entertainment) cable channel about their name. The site was back
for a while, but it's gone again.
Anyone know what is going on with them?
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From: Michael D. Roush
Date: Tue, Oct 21 2003 6:25PM
Subject: About me. (Was Re: sales people)
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----- Original Message -----
From: "John Foliot - WATS.ca" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> Pardon my confusion, but what exactly do you mean by "The full alternative
> text"? Last I checked, alt text is alt text... are you referring to the
alt
> attribute and the title attribute? In the case of your query, why not
> something like alt="softwareprogram icon" title="A program that produces
> accessible client side image maps".
Sorry for the confusion. I was thinking 'the full alternative text' as
opposed to the one word ('image') that the checking software focused on. I
don't think "software program icon" is sufficient alternative text in this
case, because the picture actually tells what the software program *is*. My
link tags surrounding these images have titles in them, but not the image
tags themselves. In any case, my thought wasn't to 'fool the checker' into
giving me a passing mark on accessibility, but to sincerely correct a
problem if there was one.
As was stated in another post, I sincerely believe that the first and last
line of defense in producing accessible content must be the designers
themselves. Content checkers like this one help me after I put a page
together. I can run the same page through three different ones and have
each of the three pick up a different error, errors which would have taken
me a while to find on my own. But, as I said, my desire here is not just to
pass a checker, but to provide truly accessible content.
Perhaps this is a good time for me to re-introduce myself. I was a member
of this list a while back before some life-changes hit me, and I'm glad to
be back. My name is Michael Roush and I am the technology consultant for a
Special Education Regional Resource Center in rural southwest Ohio. I was
first introduced to accessibility after I got the job as webmaster here, and
went to a workshop led by Mike Paciello (btw, anyone know what's up with his
site?) where I learned so many things I was doing wrong. Since then, I
have tried to absorb everything I could about web accessibility.
This December, I will be presenting a 2 hour hands-on workshop on designing
accessible websites at a conference in Dayton, Ohio. (Anyone closeby, give
me a shout!) I have begun setting up my own page for my work
(http://www.AccessRamp.org) which I would welcome feedback about, and any
links you may have that you would like me to add.
> usually a URL or code sample would make things easier here.
I tend to err on the side of caution when posting URL's for my own work.
Especially in this case, the HTML is dynamically generated by PHP and the
page you see when you go there may not have the image originally in question
on it - it is one of a bank of 24 which are only displayed 10 at a time.
Here is the code sample in particular:
<xmp>
<p class='sidebar'><a href='http://www.abdn.ac.uk/tools/ibmpc/mapthis'
title='Map This!'><img src='./images/mapthis.jpg' alt='MapThis - a
client-side image map designer.' height='40' width='100'
border='0'></a></p>
</xmp>
Thanks!
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