Flash Loons

[Stephen]

Re: Flash Loons

On 20 Jul 2006 06:08:54 -0700, Chaddy2222 in comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html wrote:

>Stephen wrote:

>Because the vast majority of people don't have visual handicaps.

>BULL SHIT!
>There are probly more people with vision problems in the world then you
>would have time to count. I know that 10% of the Australian population
>has some form of print disability (this includes Vision impaired
>people) among others.

Cite ?

>cater to them being that we're primarily a visual medium now-a-days.

>You must design sites for 5 year olds. They are about the only people
>who would be amused by the majority of eye candy designs.
>Though I think even children would get board and just find something
>else.

BTW that's "bored" not "board".

My firm is quite successful, and we don't work with Mom/Pop franchises.

<snip>

>Until then, I'll be pragmatic. There is still 4 billion people that need
>to get on the Internet, the majority of which don't have visual
>handicaps.

>WTF!?
>Who said anything about people with a Vision impairment.
>By the way, there are a lot of other reasons for accessibility, think
>about (people who have poor movement with their hands) as an example.
>Arthritice (however you spell it) comes to mind as well.

They aren't visually impaired, therefore having Flash on the page is not
an issue. We're talking Flash here my man. I don't need to do anything
different to develop a website for them, then what I do normally. Voice
recognition simply does what the mouse does and "clicks" for them.

[Stephen]

Re: Flash Loons

On Thu, 20 Jul 2006 16:43:34 -0400, Chris F.A. Johnson in
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html wrote:

>On 2006-07-20, Stephen wrote:

>On 19 Jul 2006 07:58:05 -0700, Andy Dingley in
>comp.infosyste ms.www.authoring.html wrote:
>>

>>>Stephen wrote:

<snip>

>Because the vast majority of people don't have visual handicaps. We
>cater to them being that we're primarily a visual medium now-a-days.

Why exclude those who do (which is probably a much larger
percentage than you think) when it is no more work to make it
accessible?

The % of people using the internet that are totally blind is probably
much smaller than you believe. :)

Tell me what that percentage is, say for people wanting to look at
automobiles on the GM Website that are totally blind ?

It's like anything Chris, if the market the website is created for,
demands it, then do it. What I'm saying is that the majority of
websites, and over 99% of the ones that my firm is involved in, don't
require anything for the visually handicapped. They're not in our target
market. The majority of visually handicapped are also not totally blind,
most can see in front of them, just not well farther away -- Some have
issues with colour contrast etc.

I'm one of these, in fact I'm legally blind, and I can view the web like
anyone else. Sure I up-size my fonts, but that's done easily enough.

P.S.
Are you the same C. Johnson from TLUG ? ;)

[Els]

Re: Flash Loons

Stephen wrote:

They aren't visually impaired, therefore having Flash on the page is not
an issue.

So far, I've never been able to jump from on link to another on a
Flash page. How do I do that if I can't operate a mouse?

We're talking Flash here my man. I don't need to do anything
different to develop a website for them, then what I do normally. Voice
recognition simply does what the mouse does and "clicks" for them.

Voice recognition as in "up, up, left, left, no, you went too far now,
back to the right..." ? (Sorry, no idea how that works with Flash)

--
Els http://locusmeus.com/
accessible web design: http://locusoptimus.com/

[Darin McGrew]

Re: Flash Loons

Stephen <Stephen.D.Alle n@gmail.comwrot e:

Since this is a visual medium,

The web is sometimes a visual medium, but it is not always a visual medium,
nor is it exclusively a visual medium. Even when it is a visual medium, it
isn't always a graphical medium.
--
Darin McGrew, mcgrew@stanford alumni.org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, darin@htmlhelp. com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/

"I can take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once."

[Bart Lateur]

Re: Flash Loons

Stephen wrote:

>No one of any importance surfs with javascript disabled these
>days.

You're underestimating the impact of very popular Firefox extensions
like NoScript.

<https://addons.mozilla. org/firefox/722/>

--
Bart.

[Alan J. Flavell]

Re: Flash Loons

On Fri, 21 Jul 2006, Bart Lateur wrote:

Stephen wrote:
>

No one of any importance surfs with javascript disabled these
days.

>
You're underestimating the impact of very popular Firefox extensions
like NoScript.

Stephen is just repeatedly showing us his comfort blanket, on which it
presumably says something along the lines of "anyone who won't do it
my way isn't worth considering". Made-up statistics are just part of
that comfort blanket. I lost interest in discussing the issue /with/
him, some time back on this thread, but I did want to post the
occasional hint, for any other readers around who might not yet have
asked themselves why browser developers went to the trouble of
supplying "off" switches for these kinds of functionality, and other
developers go to the trouble of developing more-sophisticated
extensions, whereby the features can be whitelisted etc. for sites
that have gained the reader's confidence.

(In fact, there had existed free-standing JS-blocking proxies for many
years already. I recall using one when Win'95 was still a current OS,
to take just one example.)

Regarding your cited extension, you may have noticed:

||Total Downloads: 8584861 . Downloads this Week: 133056

I'm sure those are all "no-one of importance" to Stephen, but somebody
could run a profitable business with a customer base of 8.5M, and 133K
purchasers per week.

As a reader has commented there:

||The idea of having any potentially insecure technology turned off by
||default gives you the chance to "interview" a web site and then
||"lower your shields" to it if the site looks trustworthy. That is
||truely the best way to browse.

If I might add my own comment to that - while the security issue is
one very good reason for this approach, particularly with JS - the
plain annoyance factor of many of the things which web sites do with
JS and Flash would by itself be enough reason to consider a "default
deny" policy, where a web site had to "earn" the right to get
unblocked by the reader.

Anyhow, this is not just about the browsing habits of me and you -
we're going to be untypical anyway. This is a *web authoring* group,
and it behoves us to author for all of our readers, or at least to aim
to.

--

[Chris F.A. Johnson]

Re: Flash Loons

On 2006-07-21, Stephen wrote:

On Thu, 20 Jul 2006 16:43:34 -0400, Chris F.A. Johnson in
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html wrote:
>

>>On 2006-07-20, Stephen wrote:

>>On 19 Jul 2006 07:58:05 -0700, Andy Dingley in
>>comp.infosyst ems.www.authoring.html wrote:
>>>
>>>>Stephen wrote:

>
><snip>
>

>>Because the vast majority of people don't have visual handicaps. We
>>cater to them being that we're primarily a visual medium now-a-days.

>

> Why exclude those who do (which is probably a much larger
> percentage than you think) when it is no more work to make it
> accessible?

>
The % of people using the internet that are totally blind is probably
much smaller than you believe. :)

Who said anything about "totally blind"?

Tell me what that percentage is, say for people wanting to look at
automobiles on the GM Website that are totally blind ?

Why would you turn away the grandfather wanting to buy a car for
his grandchild?

It's like anything Chris, if the market the website is created for,
demands it, then do it.

Why limit your market?

What I'm saying is that the majority of websites, and over 99% of
the ones that my firm is involved in, don't require anything for the
visually handicapped.

Do you mean you don't make it hard for them or that you drive them
away?

They're not in our target market.

A myopic attitude.

The majority of visually handicapped are also not totally blind,
most can see in front of them, just not well farther away -- Some
have issues with colour contrast etc.
>
I'm one of these, in fact I'm legally blind, and I can view the web like
anyone else. Sure I up-size my fonts, but that's done easily enough.

How do you do that with a flash page? As far as I can see the only
way is to zoom, but the window stays the same size, and it is not
possible to pan (which would be irritating in any case).

P.S.
Are you the same C. Johnson from TLUG ? ;)

One and the same (unless there's another C. Johnson in TLUG).

--
Chris F.A. Johnson, author <http://cfaj.freeshell. org>
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)
===== My code in this post, if any, assumes the POSIX locale
===== and is released under the GNU General Public Licence

[Adrienne Boswell]

Re: Flash Loons

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed Stephen <Stephen.D.Alle n@gmail.com>
writing in news:slrnec1mbk .3kv.Stephen.D. Allen@sweetpig. dyndns.org:

Accessibility on the Internet isn't
a life/death or safety issue.
>

You don't know that. Someone might have a question about medication they
are taking, and might want to know if there are any drug interactions.
What if the pharmacy is closed, and the ER won't tell them anything because
they're afraid of a lawsuit? They might be able to find that information
on line, but if the site is not accessible to them for whatever reason,
then they will not get that information, and they could have a drug
interation, and they _could_ die.

--
Adrienne Boswell at Home
Arbpen Web Site Design Services

http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info

Please respond to the group so others can share

[Chaddy2222]

Re: Flash Loons


Stephen wrote:

On 20 Jul 2006 06:08:54 -0700, Chaddy2222 in comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html wrote:
>

Stephen wrote:

>

Because the vast majority of people don't have visual handicaps.

>

BULL SHIT!
There are probly more people with vision problems in the world then you
would have time to count. I know that 10% of the Australian population
has some form of print disability (this includes Vision impaired
people) among others.

>
Cite ?

http://www.visionaustralia.org.au

>

cater to them being that we're primarily a visual medium now-a-days.

You must design sites for 5 year olds. They are about the only people
who would be amused by the majority of eye candy designs.
Though I think even children would get board and just find something
else.

>
BTW that's "bored" not "board".

Ok, you've got me there.

>
My firm is quite successful, and we don't work with Mom/Pop franchises.

That was not the point.

>
<snip>
>

Until then, I'll be pragmatic. There is still 4 billion people that need
to get on the Internet, the majority of which don't have visual
handicaps.

WTF!?
Who said anything about people with a Vision impairment.
By the way, there are a lot of other reasons for accessibility, think
about (people who have poor movement with their hands) as an example.
Arthritice (however you spell it) comes to mind as well.

>
They aren't visually impaired, therefore having Flash on the page is not
an issue. We're talking Flash here my man. I don't need to do anything
different to develop a website for them, then what I do normally. Voice
recognition simply does what the mouse does and "clicks" for them.

I doubt the software could read it.
Besides, your arguments about not provideing accessible websites are
floored.
Their are very strict guidelines around that baysicly state, that all
information needs to be made accessible to people with a disability (or
anyone who wants it), this includes web content.
Did you even read the links regarding the Olimpic site? anyone
(includeing) corperet groups makeing web content needs to make it
accessible to all, even if that includes having to make two sites, with
in the same domain name.
What's so critical that you need to use Flash for anyway?, I want
examples that you have createed.
I can only think of a few sercomstances where this would be the case,
BTW, your Car buying example is not a good example, (many sited people
have totally blind friends / partners).
Also, I know that most vision impaired people can see a bit, I am one
such person.
I still find Flash inaccessible though.
--
Regards Chad. http://freewebdesign.cjb.cc

[Chaddy2222]

Re: Flash Loons


Alan J. Flavell wrote:

On Fri, 21 Jul 2006, Bart Lateur wrote:
>

Stephen wrote:

>No one of any importance surfs with javascript disabled these
>days.

You're underestimating the impact of very popular Firefox extensions
like NoScript.

>
Stephen is just repeatedly showing us his comfort blanket, on which it
presumably says something along the lines of "anyone who won't do it
my way isn't worth considering". Made-up statistics are just part of
that comfort blanket. I lost interest in discussing the issue /with/
him, some time back on this thread, but I did want to post the
occasional hint, for any other readers around who might not yet have
asked themselves why browser developers went to the trouble of
supplying "off" switches for these kinds of functionality, and other
developers go to the trouble of developing more-sophisticated
extensions, whereby the features can be whitelisted etc. for sites
that have gained the reader's confidence.
>
(In fact, there had existed free-standing JS-blocking proxies for many
years already. I recall using one when Win'95 was still a current OS,
to take just one example.)
>
Regarding your cited extension, you may have noticed:
>
||Total Downloads: 8584861 . Downloads this Week: 133056
>
I'm sure those are all "no-one of importance" to Stephen, but somebody
could run a profitable business with a customer base of 8.5M, and 133K

They could, and a lot would.

purchasers per week.
>
As a reader has commented there:
>
||The idea of having any potentially insecure technology turned off by
||default gives you the chance to "interview" a web site and then
||"lower your shields" to it if the site looks trustworthy. That is
||truely the best way to browse.
>
If I might add my own comment to that - while the security issue is
one very good reason for this approach, particularly with JS - the
plain annoyance factor of many of the things which web sites do with
JS and Flash would by itself be enough reason to consider a "default
deny" policy, where a web site had to "earn" the right to get
unblocked by the reader.
>
Anyhow, this is not just about the browsing habits of me and you -
we're going to be untypical anyway. This is a *web authoring* group,
and it behoves us to author for all of our readers, or at least to aim
to.

I agree, I can hardly think of any compeling reason as to how Flash can
add to a good user interface, it's good for video and other items
though.

I must also mention, if the Olimpic site case is not convincing enough,
then you could always take a look at

http://www.dralegal.org/cases/private_business/nfb_v_target.php

They (from what I read of that article) being Target, had a similar
attitude to what some (or one particular) person in this thread has
been showing regarding accessibility.
They are being sued as an end result.

--
Regards Chad. http://freewebdesign.cjb.cc

[Andy Mabbett]

Re: Flash Loons

In message <Xns9807E1C0C33 68arbpenyahooco m@69.28.186.121 >, Adrienne
Boswell <arbpen@yahoo.c omwrites

>Accessibilit y on the Internet isn't
>a life/death or safety issue.

Yeah, right:

http://www.samaritans.org.uk/

>You don't know that.

Either that, or he's just being deliberately obtuse and offensive.

--
Andy Mabbett
Say "NO!" to compulsory ID Cards: <http://www.no2id.net/>

Free Our Data: <http://www.freeourdata .org.uk>

[Andy Mabbett]

Re: Flash Loons

In message <g5f8p3-uk3.ln1@xword.t eksavvy.com>, Chris F.A. Johnson
<cfajohnson@gma il.comwrites

>Tell me what that percentage is, say for people wanting to look at
>automobiles on the GM Website that are totally blind ?

>
Why would you turn away the grandfather wanting to buy a car for
his grandchild?

In once worked with someone with virtually zero vision (if you stood in
front of him, he could tell that there was someone (or something) there,
because the light level changed, but not who you were).

His rapid-onset sight loss meant that he could no longer do his job, of
installing network cables and equipment.

So he was given the job of analysing the need for, and then ordering,
such equipment - and could not so from the arrogant and clueless
suppliers whose websites were inaccessible, or whose promotional e-mails
to him were gifs of text, with no plain-text content.

The annual budget for such equipment was many tens of thousands of
pounds sterling (far more than the cost of a car); a large project a
couple of years ago had a budget of a couple of million.

--
Andy Mabbett
Say "NO!" to compulsory ID Cards: <http://www.no2id.net/>

Free Our Data: <http://www.freeourdata .org.uk>

[Stephen]

Re: Flash Loons

On 22 Jul 2006 00:47:25 -0700, Chaddy2222 in
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html wrote:

>Stephen wrote:

>On 20 Jul 2006 06:08:54 -0700, Chaddy2222 in comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html wrote:

>BULL SHIT!
>There are probly more people with vision problems in the world then you
>would have time to count. I know that 10% of the Australian population
>has some form of print disability (this includes Vision impaired
>people) among others.

>>
>Cite ?

>http://www.visionaustralia.org.au

I still don't see any specific citation -- I'm not going to do your work for you.

<snip>

>>
>My firm is quite successful, and we don't work with Mom/Pop franchises.

>That was not the point.

IMHO it is, because we believe we know where the industry is and heading,
our clients are in agreement as well.

Accessibility reached a zenith a couple of years ago, now, most businesses
are realizing that it should be done on a case by case basis, if at all,
much like browser support. Usability for the majority of the clients customers
is far more important, when getting their message across.

>They aren't visually impaired, therefore having Flash on the page is not
>an issue. We're talking Flash here my man. I don't need to do anything
>different to develop a website for them, then what I do normally. Voice
>recognition simply does what the mouse does and "clicks" for them.

>I doubt the software could read it.
>Besides, your arguments about not provideing accessible websites are
>floored.
>Their are very strict guidelines around that baysicly state, that all
>information needs to be made accessible to people with a disability (or
>anyone who wants it), this includes web content.
>Did you even read the links regarding the Olimpic site? anyone
>(includeing) corperet groups makeing web content needs to make it
>accessible to all, even if that includes having to make two sites, with
>in the same domain name.
>What's so critical that you need to use Flash for anyway?, I want
>examples that you have createed.
>I can only think of a few sercomstances where this would be the case,
>BTW, your Car buying example is not a good example, (many sited people
>have totally blind friends / partners).
>Also, I know that most vision impaired people can see a bit, I am one
>such person.
>I still find Flash inaccessible though.

BTW you would have a lot more credibility if you used proper spacing in
your paragraphs, along with proper spelling. The occasional mistake I
probably wouldn't notice, but yours are frequent.

Do you realize how hard the above is to read comfortably? Accessibility
expert indeed!


As I indicated very early on, accessibility in Flash has been an issue,
it's improving, and will only get better.

I'm done with you grasshopper, discuss this with yourself, if you must.

[Stephen]

Re: Flash Loons

On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 22:29:36 -0400, Chris F.A. Johnson in
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html wrote:

>On 2006-07-21, Stephen wrote:

>On Thu, 20 Jul 2006 16:43:34 -0400, Chris F.A. Johnson in
>comp.infosyste ms.www.authoring.html wrote:

>The % of people using the internet that are totally blind is probably
>much smaller than you believe. :)

>
Who said anything about "totally blind"?

I did. :)

They are the ones that IMHO shouldn't even be using a visual medium.
Who wants to read described video? <shudder>

>Tell me what that percentage is, say for people wanting to look at
>automobiles on the GM Website that are totally blind ?

Why would you turn away the grandfather wanting to buy a car for
his grandchild?

We're not, he has a choice whether or not he wants to view a Flash
movie where he can chose the colour scheme, or view a wire frame
cutout of a specific model. It's not forced on anyone.

What's the problem?

Why do you think that all Flash designers are like that? We're no
different than HTML only developers, some are good at what they do,
others aren't.

>It's like anything Chris, if the market the website is created for,
>demands it, then do it.

Why limit your market?

We're not, we know our clients target demographics.

>What I'm saying is that the majority of websites, and over 99% of
>the ones that my firm is involved in, don't require anything for the
>visually handicapped.

Do you mean you don't make it hard for them or that you drive them
away?

We don't make it hard for them, but then we don't bend over backward
either.

>They're not in our target market.

A myopic attitude.

Nope a pragmatic one. My clients are the boss, and what drive our
decisions vis-a-vis their website. Sorry but I'm not into PC.

<snip>

>I'm one of these, in fact I'm legally blind, and I can view the web like
>anyone else. Sure I up-size my fonts, but that's done easily enough.

How do you do that with a flash page? As far as I can see the only
way is to zoom, but the window stays the same size, and it is not
possible to pan (which would be irritating in any case).

Of course I can't up size fonts in a Flash movie (BTW I never advocated
creating websites in Flash so that's a moot point).

Again the size of fonts whatever, are a design decision. Make the fonts
a reasonable size to begin with. That is one bur I have about many
Flash designers -- They make their font sizes too damn small.

>P.S.
> Are you the same C. Johnson from TLUG ? ;)

One and the same (unless there's another C. Johnson in TLUG).

Yup I figured, I've been a member of that list since 1998, mostly in
lurk mode. Remember Thamer ?

[Ben Bacarisse]

Re: Flash Loons

Stephen <Stephen.D.Alle n@gmail.comwrot e:

On 17 Jul 2006 15:03:37 GMT, Ben Bacarisse in comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.html wrote:

>>Stephen <Stephen.D.Alle n@gmail.comwrot e:

>>>
>>Here's a nice example of an RIA;
>><http://www.asfusion.co m/apps/homelocator/>

>

>>Is that a joke? I see a blank screen and nothing else. I would be
>>less antagonistic to so called "rich" interfaces if they worked more
>>often.

>
Do you actually keep your flashplayer up-to-date ?

Well, who knows? The system is only a month old and the flash player
would have been current when the system was put together and all
released updates have been applied.

If you don't have
current plugins update them !

I run an up-to-date system but I will only go out of my way to view a
site (i.e. try to diagnose why I see nothing) if I *know* I want the
content. I would want, if I were forced to use flash, to be able to
report to the reader that the content will not display on a particular
version. A blank screen is the worst of all worlds.

--
Ben.