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Thread: LIFT Transcoder being pimped
Number of posts in this thread: 10 (In chronological order)
From: Tim Beadle
Date: Thu, Aug 05 2004 6:50AM
Subject: LIFT Transcoder being pimped
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Hi all,
I found this article on The Register [0], which was a republish from
it-analysis.com. The closing para made me laugh:
"In an ideal world LIFT text transcoder, or an equivalent, should become
a standard part of any website." [1]
Who's paying him to say that? I couldn't possibly think...
No, in an ideal world web sites would be coded correctly and all markup,
presentation and behaviour layers kept separate, leading to sites that
serve all users regardless of ability, platform or browser.
Regards,
Tim
[0] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/04/website_accessibility/
[1] http://www.it-analysis.com/article.php?articleid=12118
--
Tim Beadle
From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Thu, Aug 05 2004 8:12AM
Subject: Re: LIFT Transcoder being pimped
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On Thu, 5 Aug 2004, tim.beadle wrote:
> I found this article on The Register [0], which was a republish from
> it-analysis.com. The closing para made me laugh:
>
> "In an ideal world LIFT text transcoder, or an equivalent, should become
> a standard part of any website." [1]
It goes on to say that authors should add a "text only" button to all
pages, to use the transcoder. This alone is suspicious: "text only"
buttons (or links) indicate accessibility _problems_, not solutions. The
user never knows whether he would get second-class (trimmed, outdated,
etc.) content, since "text only" buttons have so often be used for that.
> No, in an ideal world web sites would be coded correctly and all markup,
> presentation and behaviour layers kept separate, leading to sites that
> serve all users regardless of ability, platform or browser.
Well, yes, but being accessible in text-only mode too (which is just one
though important, aspect of accessibility) is not trivial to reach even if
you have got the principles right. Sometimes you have images that have
essential content that cannot be expressed in words, or at least not in
the few words that you can practically put into an alt="..." attribute.
But naturally no "text transcoder" can help to deal with a complicated
drawing, or with a photograph, or an animation.
--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
From: Jared Smith
Date: Thu, Aug 05 2004 8:36AM
Subject: Re: LIFT Transcoder being pimped
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On Thu, 5 Aug 2004, tim.beadle wrote:
> No, in an ideal world web sites would be coded correctly and all markup,
> presentation and behaviour layers kept separate, leading to sites that
> serve all users regardless of ability, platform or browser.
In my mind, the real danger of such approaches to accessibility is
that people begin to believe that a text-only version of their site
somehow means that they are accessible. Or even worse, that the
text-only site can be an alternative to an otherwise inaccessible main
site. I know this is not the approach that LIFT takes, but it is the
mentality of many who are purchasing it. Besides, I don't believe it
possible to automatically create an accessible text site from content
that does not have accessibility features implemented in the first
place (garbage in, garbage out).
For those who choose to or are compelled to comply with Section 508,
it's important to note that Section 508 says that a text-only site can
only be used as an alternative when the main site itself cannot, in
any other way be made accessible - and I've seen very few that cannot.
The implementation of a text-only site can be an important piece of an
accessible site, but developers should understand that it only serves
a VERY limited audience and that its no excuse for an inaccessible
main site. And those who take the steps to make their main site
accessible typically find a text-only version unnecessary.
Jared Smith
WebAIM (Web Accessibility In Mind)
Center for Persons with Disabilities
Utah State University
From: John Hamman
Date: Thu, Aug 05 2004 8:45AM
Subject: Re: LIFT Transcoder being pimped
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What we do is, create a site that has text only versioning but also the site
is accessible without the text-only. XML and XSL are great for this.
John
LIFT STINKS
From: Ineke van der Maat
Date: Thu, Aug 05 2004 9:22AM
Subject: Re: LIFT Transcoder being pimped
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Hello John,
>What we do is, create a site that has >text only versioning but also
the site
>is accessible without the text-only. XML >and XSL are great for this.
http://www.dresden.de has also an only-textversion, but when you compare
both versions side by side, you can notice very clearly that in the
only-text version two important links are missing:
stadsentwicklung und umwelt;
suche und service.
In other sites I saw that some links had different names in both
versions and all text-versions were missing some pieces of text, also
information that is available in the usual version.
For me a good reason to object a text-only version for a whole site.
And why is a text-version needed when the whole site is accessible? That
requires more work for maintaining than needed.. and also unneeded
costs..And the risk that after some time 2 not-equivalent versions will
exist as mentioned earlier in this mail
Greetings
Ineke van der Maat
From: Eppley, Mandy
Date: Thu, Aug 05 2004 9:25AM
Subject: Re: LIFT Transcoder being pimped
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Good morning John,
Our department web developer is considering purchasing the LIFT program.
Could you possibly give us any specifics about the poor
features/functionalities of the program?
From: John Hamman
Date: Thu, Aug 05 2004 9:46AM
Subject: Re: LIFT Transcoder being pimped
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We do both for multiple reasons. For the majority of businesses and sites,
accessibility is not easy, NOT just because of the changing of current code
but because of marketing and flow control of the site. If we were JUST to
look at the factor of changing the code with accessibility, many commercial
sites would probably grab it as a low hanging fruit. BUT the problem is
marketing involved. Not only would you have to design the page to be
accessible but to look good and fill the requirements of the sites target
audience. That's where it becomes difficult. So what we do is make both a
text only and make the front end accessible. The page content is pulled from
a xml file that is fed to an style sheet that will format it for text only
or not. That way there is no loss in upkeep. So the text only shows the
exact same content as the non text only no matter what. Plus it allows the
user to choose his or her own pace on the site. And to top it off. It allows
more marketing opportunities. Higher keyword indexing.
-just my 2 cents.
john
From: John Hamman
Date: Thu, Aug 05 2004 9:59AM
Subject: Re: LIFT Transcoder being pimped
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Lift program is ok. I prefer using watchfires products like
http://www.watchfire.com/products/desktop/webqa/default.aspx (webQA) or
(bobby) for testing. It's more in-depth.
Lifts regular products that check for accessibility issues are not bad, not
great either, don't waist your money on the Nielson/Norman group version.
Plus using it with Dreamweaver is slow, because Dreamweaver is slow when it
comes to sites with over 200 pages.
What I meant in my little LIFT STINKS was really for LIFT Text Transcoder,
which I think has way to many flaws and leaves out the control of how you
want to deliver. Plus its slow. http://www.psu.edu/studentaid/ take a look
for yourself. Imagine if you have a cognitive disability or are deaf, how
does the text only help you? It only solves (if it even does that) a few
disabilities that our society thinks is the majority. We tend to throw up
text-only sites thinking only of the blind but it doesn't help majority of
the disabled. Think of Color blindness. They should not have to go to a
text-only site to be able to view the site, Or a low vision, or arthritis.
If you take away from their experience when you could of addressed those
disabilities without doing a "Text-Only" then you are discriminating against
them. Text only should be an ADD-ON to your already accessible site.
Ok I'm off my soap box.
john
From: julian.rickards
Date: Thu, Aug 05 2004 10:24AM
Subject: Re: LIFT Transcoder being pimped
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John wrote:
Think of Color blindness. They should not have to go to a text-only site to
be able to view the site, Or a low vision, or arthritis. If you take away
from their experience when you could of addressed those disabilities without
doing a "Text-Only" then you are discriminating against them. Text only
should be an ADD-ON to your already accessible site. Ok I'm off my soap box.
If I may step up on your warmed up soap box, I believe that text-only
produces a second-class product which then suggests (to me) that it is
intended for second-class citizens. This is NOT how I feel people should be
treated and for that reason, I do not support the idea of generating
text-only pages (even if they contain all of the content). We have the
techniques to "allow" our pages to be used by all (most?) technologies, why
not give *everyone* the same page and allow them to use it as they can or
must.
Accessibility is not just about colours, images and table-less layouts, it
is about language, document structure (what structure is present in a
text-only page) and quality content. If you have poorly written content, no
headings or lists (despite the appearance of both) and disorganized writing,
how does text-only help you? Not at all.
Accessibility should be part of the original specifications of a design, not
a plugin added at the end.
OK, soap box nice and warm for the next speaker.
Jules
-----------------------------------------------
Julian Rickards
A/Digitial Publications Distribution Coordinator
Publication Services Section,
Ministry of Northern Development and Mines,
Vox: 705-670-5608 / Fax: 705-670-5960
From: John Hamman
Date: Thu, Aug 05 2004 10:31AM
Subject: Re: LIFT Transcoder being pimped
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Well said Jules. Agreed.
john