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Number of posts in this thread: 7 (In chronological order)

From: Cheryl Amato
Date: Thu, Jan 18 2007 7:10AM
Subject: usablenet's text transponder
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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

From: Moore, Michael
Date: Thu, Jan 18 2007 7:30AM
Subject: Re: usablenet's text transponder
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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

From: Philip Kiff
Date: Thu, Jan 18 2007 7:50AM
Subject: Re: usablenet's text transponder
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Philip Kiff wrote on 18 January 2007 09:40:
> a new name "Lift Assistive". Here is a link to the most recent
> version of their product page:
>
http://www.usablenet.com/products_services/lift_assistive/lift_assistive.htm
> l

Dang! Link is one character too long! Try this one:
http://usablenet.com/products_services/lift_assistive/lift_assistive.html

Phil.

From: Philip Kiff
Date: Thu, Jan 18 2007 8:00AM
Subject: Re: usablenet's text transponder
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Cheryl Amato wrote on 18 January 2007 09:02EST:
> 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?

There was some discussion about the Usablenet Text Transcoder on this list
in July 2006, and that discussion is available on the AIM list archive:

LIFT Text Transcoder
http://webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread.php?thread=2985

Also, you might want to check out the following related thread from the same
time period (this link actually points to several threads since the archive
did not collect them all into a single thread for some reason):

Example of LIFT Text Transcoder solving complex accessibility issues
http://webaim.org/discussion/mail_archive.php?sort_by=1&;from=242

And there are a couple threads on a similar subject dating back to 2003 and
2004:

[FWD] Universities Legal Web Accessibility Update (November 2003)
http://www.webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread.php?thread=1697&;id=3981
and
LIFT Transcoder being pimped (August 2004)
http://www.webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread.php?id=4859

I would note that it looks like UsableNet renamed its product some time in
the fall of 2006, from its old name "LIFT Text Transcoder" to a new name
"Lift Assistive". Here is a link to the most recent version of their
product page:
http://www.usablenet.com/products_services/lift_assistive/lift_assistive.htm
l

I am not sure whether the new product is basically just an incremental
update to the LIFT Text Transcoder or if the new name represents a more
radical change in the product.

Phil.

From: Tim Beadle
Date: Thu, Jan 18 2007 8:10AM
Subject: Re: usablenet's text transponder
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On 18/01/07, Cheryl Amato < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> 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 blogged about it in 2003:
http://www.timandkathy.co.uk/journal/2003/11/20/lift-text-transcoder/

I don't think anything in web accessibility has changed since then
that suddenly makes transcoding a good idea.

> I guess something about it bothers me.

You're not alone in that regard.

Tim

From: Jason Taylor
Date: Thu, Jan 18 2007 1:50PM
Subject: Re: UsableNet's text transponder
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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
>

From: Jon Gunderson
Date: Thu, Jan 18 2007 2:50PM
Subject: Re: UsableNet's text transponder
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Jason,
What are the requirements for adapting existing web applications?

Is adapting the application something usablenet does as a service or is this something people can do on their own after they purchase the product?

What types of patterns can Text Assist identify and translate?

Can you point to some examples?

Jon

---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:42:51 -0600 (CST)
>From: Jason Taylor < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
>Subject: Re: [WebAIM] UsableNet's text transponder
>To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
>
>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
>>