LYNX-DEV RFC: accessibility accomodations for WWW

[Al Gilman]

I would welcome any comments from y'all on these ideas.  - Al Gilman
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X-URL: http://www.access.digex.net/%7Easgilman/web-access/announce-two.html

                   Two Access-Motivated Wrinkles for the Web
                                       
Introduction

   For the last few years I have been active assisting users of the Lynx
   World-Wide Web browser. Some of these users are blind and use speech
   output in lieu of video display screens in their dialog with computers
   and the Web. Since Lynx is optimized for text-only browsing of the
   Web, it has developed a following of devoted users among the
   speech-interface user community. Based on this contact I have
   developed an interest in access adaptability for the World Wide Web.
   This is a natural extension of long-term interests that you might
   summarize as modeling classes of knowledge.
   
Proposal

   In two companion papers, I summarize two change notions for the basic
   operation of the World Wide Web. These are inspired by the
   difficulties that I observe Lynx users having with the way the Web
   works today. Perhaps better solutions can be found. But based on my
   experience to date, these look like they would be a win for the blind
   Web browsing community, and very lightweight in their cost to the rest
   of the Web world.
   
   One of these dodges I have wanted from long ago and just recently
   realized that the blind need it more than anyone. That is a
   [1] "where-it-says" clause in an URL that triggers text-searching in
   the client that exercises the URL. In other words citations would not
   be limited to anchors named by the author, but an URL could go
   precisely to a location defined in the cited document by a third
   party. This is a way of formalizing in an URL what the folks on
   lynx-learners use as their standard form of citation.
   
   The second is a [2] percolation-of-titles notion. It is more of a
   problem statement than a solution statement at this time, although I
   have provided a sketch of changes to server and client behavior that
   would get links better identified by a text-mode browse session.

References

   1. http://www.access.digex.net/%7Easgilman/web-access/wis_rfc.html
   2. http://www.access.digex.net/%7Easgilman/web-access/perc_rfc.html
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