[thelist] the use of lynx

[viveka]

At 2:39am -0500 27/2/02, David Kutcher wrote:
>  > > Does anyone still use lynx?  realistically?  or is that spending extra k
>to
>>  > appease one half of one percent?
>>
>>
>>  Oooooh, you sinner. How much time does it take to put in alt desc's ?
>>  Ton's of people use lynx including me. Bit of an unsavoury attitude
>>  there David.
>
>Okay, so this email came in right before I was about to quit for the night.
>
>How is it unsavory?  It's called business reality.

When you get sued for not providing ALT text, and thereby
unreasonably restricting access to good or services to the disabled,
you'll learn a new view of business reality.

Here's Joe Clark's reader's guide to the Sydney Olympics
accessibility complaint. http://www.contenu.nu/socog.html
The case won in court, and Australian courts are *much* less
litigant-friendly than US courts. This is why the fine was only
$20,000 - we don't go for huge settlements here. Also, this wasn't a
class action. This was one man, suing IBM and SOCOG, a powerful
government body. The court's decision was unequivocal. Read it,
you'll learn something.

>Me?  I'd say that k is wasted information on 99.5% of the viewing populace.
>It's better used on a stupid animated gif.

You're complaining about the *file size* added by ALT text? Each
character is one byte. It would take one thousand characters of ALT
text to add a *single kilobyte* to the weight of your page.

If you're too lazy to do it, you're not alone. But just because your
clients don't ask for it doesn't mean that you don't have to do it.
Clients don't ask architects for buildings with wheelchair access to
the toilets; they just assume that the architect will know what's
required to be in compliance with local building codes.

I can't believe that we're even discussing this. Pfah.

V.
--
Viveka Weiley, Karmanaut.
{ http://www.karmanaut.com | http://www.planet-earth.org
    http://www.MacWeb3D.org | http://sydney.siggraph.org.au }
Hypermedia, virtual worlds, human interface, truth, beauty.