Re: LYNX-DEV Lynx Broswer...

[Al Gilman]

to follow up on what Mark H. Wood said:

> Hmmm.  You won't make many friends on LYNX-DEV with that bit
> about "the pages of today through the eyes of yesterday".
> Here's another angle that you might wish to mull over: the Lynx
> developers are quite serious about supporting Web use for the
> visually-impaired, including those with impairments so profound
> that they must use tactile appliances or voice-synthesizers
> rather than display screens.  I can't imagine how such people
> could make good use of "more modern" browsers such as Netscape
> Communicator or Microsoft Internet Explorer.

To be fair, they are making major strides.  A Windows screen
reader (one of the more capable ones) is actually a hybrid device
that reads not only from the screen buffer but also from an
"off-screen model" or access-dedicated API such as MSAA to get
attributes of the content that don't show on the visual screen.

Many blind users continue to find the Lynx UI has superior
usability.  But the competition is no longer flat out unusable.

> Support for those using assistive technology must come from
> page designers, too.  Many sites are simply incomprehensible
> using text-only tools, which are the only ones truly available
> to those with visual impairments.

If it's incomprehensible in Lynx by reason of overdependence on
images, it will be incomprehensible in any browser with the best
available speech technology.  [Tables are another matter.]

> Page designers should review their work with a tool like Lynx
> to ensure that their message is reaching *all* of the audience.

That's excellent advice, and it is in the package of advice the
WAI is pushing.

Al Gilman