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Thread: Text Transcoders
Number of posts in this thread: 4 (In chronological order)
From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Thu, Jan 18 2007 10:10AM
Subject: Text Transcoders
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I think most of us have difficulty with transcoders because they seem
like a "patch" rather than a solution to accessibility problems. Their
approach seems to be to address accessibility problems somewhere between
the web site and the user agent. I expect most of us would like to see
accessibility problems solved at either the web site or user agent end
of things.
Also, whether or not it is accurate, transcoders make it seem as though
accessibility is simply about providing text only pages. I am uncertain
text only pages work all that well for people with visual impairments.
I know they don't make it accessible to other groups.
I have heard people discuss the "separate but equal" argument. I think
what most often bothers me about separate accessible and inaccessible
pages is that I usually know that it would have been less work to fix
the inaccessible page than to create a separate accessible one. I
believe accessibility is good business--but it is always more difficult
to claim something is good business when someone makes some kind of
dopey design decision like that.
Tim
From: John Foliot - Stanford Online Accessibility Program
Date: Thu, Jan 18 2007 10:40AM
Subject: Re: Text Transcoders
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Tim Harshbarger wrote:
> I think most of us have difficulty with transcoders because they seem
> like a "patch" rather than a solution to accessibility problems.
> Their approach seems to be to address accessibility problems
> somewhere between the web site and the user agent. I expect most of
> us would like to see accessibility problems solved at either the web
> site or user agent end of things.
I, like many here, have similar feelings about transcoders like LIFT and
Betsie (BBC), for mostly the same reasons.
However, a few years ago, I was involved in a project at another major
university, who were grappling with a huge amount of legacy web content.
While the University in question was setting aggressive goals for accessible
development moving forward, the issue of that legacy data made the
acquisition of LIFT an option to improve access to all those years
of...well, "non-accessible-aware" development - yes, it was a work-around,
but it was also an effort to address a real problem that was compounded by
the cost of other "conversion" methods. Built into the process was a server
log review, to try and identify if certain documents were seeing significant
enough traffic to warrant proper conversion. Everyone involved knew it was
a compromise, but in life, compromise generally wins the day.
So, as a tool, it's a tool... It fills a need when it exists, but it is not
a "final solution". Rather, it is a quick means to address a real problem.
My $0.02
JF
From: Jim Allan
Date: Thu, Jan 18 2007 10:50AM
Subject: Re: Text Transcoders
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I know of one person who has done research/user testing on the effectiveness
of transcoders, Giorgio Brajnik from Italy. (At one time Giorgio was the
lead research scientist at Usablenet, currently he is a Computer Science
professor). Check out the various papers based on user testing.
http://www.dimi.uniud.it/giorgio/publications.html
also http://www.csun.edu/cod/conf/2005/proceedings/2180.htm
Jim
> -----Original Message-----
> From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ]On Behalf Of Tim
> Harshbarger
> Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 10:58 AM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List
> Subject: [WebAIM] Text Transcoders
>
>
> I think most of us have difficulty with transcoders because they seem
> like a "patch" rather than a solution to accessibility problems. Their
> approach seems to be to address accessibility problems somewhere between
> the web site and the user agent. I expect most of us would like to see
> accessibility problems solved at either the web site or user agent end
> of things.
>
> Also, whether or not it is accurate, transcoders make it seem as though
> accessibility is simply about providing text only pages. I am uncertain
> text only pages work all that well for people with visual impairments.
> I know they don't make it accessible to other groups.
>
> I have heard people discuss the "separate but equal" argument. I think
> what most often bothers me about separate accessible and inaccessible
> pages is that I usually know that it would have been less work to fix
> the inaccessible page than to create a separate accessible one. I
> believe accessibility is good business--but it is always more difficult
> to claim something is good business when someone makes some kind of
> dopey design decision like that.
>
> Tim
>
From: Sean Keegan
Date: Thu, Jan 18 2007 4:00PM
Subject: Re: Text Transcoders
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John Foliot wrote:
> So, as a tool, it's a tool... It fills a need when it exists, but it is
not a "final
> solution". Rather, it is a quick means to address a real problem.
It is a tool and, if used appropriately, can be useful for
developers/content creators completely unfamiliar with accessibility when
developing Web apps. I walked into a situation where it was implemented and
I had to figure out what to actually do with it. It was/is helpful in
communicating the concept of how a page would be organized in terms of
reading order by a screen-reader/other assistive tech. applications. Vision
is such a dominant sense that it did make it easier for those not familiar
with screen-reader feedback (or without access to such technology) to get a
basic understanding as to what may be access limitations to the page
content; they could "see" the problem on the page without resorting to
running the latest screen-reader.
To echo John F. - is it *the* magical tool that fixes everything? No - but
it can be a tool in the toolbox. Usablenet claims it is not a testing or
evaluation tool, but that is the role in which I found it was useful. Most
of the developers I have worked with have moved on to using tools like the
Web Developer Toolbar (FF) or AIS Web Accessibility Toolbar (IE).
sean
-----Original Message-----
From: John Foliot - Stanford Online Accessibility Program
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ]
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 9:17 AM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Text Transcoders
Tim Harshbarger wrote:
> I think most of us have difficulty with transcoders because they seem
> like a "patch" rather than a solution to accessibility problems.
> Their approach seems to be to address accessibility problems somewhere
> between the web site and the user agent. I expect most of us would
> like to see accessibility problems solved at either the web
> site or user agent end of things.
I, like many here, have similar feelings about transcoders like LIFT and
Betsie (BBC), for mostly the same reasons.
However, a few years ago, I was involved in a project at another major
university, who were grappling with a huge amount of legacy web content.
While the University in question was setting aggressive goals for accessible
development moving forward, the issue of that legacy data made the
acquisition of LIFT an option to improve access to all those years
of...well, "non-accessible-aware" development - yes, it was a work-around,
but it was also an effort to address a real problem that was compounded by
the cost of other "conversion" methods. Built into the process was a server
log review, to try and identify if certain documents were seeing significant
enough traffic to warrant proper conversion. Everyone involved knew it was
a compromise, but in life, compromise generally wins the day.
So, as a tool, it's a tool... It fills a need when it exists, but it is not
a "final solution". Rather, it is a quick means to address a real problem.
My $0.02
JF