Why Lynx-compatibility matters (was RE: Lotsa laughs)

[Jerome McDonough]

At 05:31 PM 5/26/1999 -0400, David Megginson wrote:
>Didier PH Martin writes:
>
> > Lynx? Do you have a time machine? :-)
>
>Until very recently (a few months ago), I still used Lynx to read HTML
>documentation quickly when I was already in a shell.
>

To throw my two bits in along with David:  Many blind computer users turned
to lynx in the early days of the web as screen reading software of the
time typically worked better with character-based programs than with GUIs.
While screen readers have become more advanced, a lot of blind users
have continued to use lynx because the text displays it provides
are easier to navigate than the graphic mess seen on many web sites.
If you're an organization trying to disseminate information over the
web and your site doesn't present a coherent display in lynx, I'd redo
the web site.

An interesting note on this topic.  The revamped version of my School, the
School of Information Management & Systems at U.C. Berkeley, just graduated
its
first class of Masters students.  The students were required to complete a
final
project that involved design and implementation of an information system.
Most all of the students designed systems using a web interface.  A panel
of judges comprised of both faculty from the school and people from industry 
reviewed the students' work to award a prize to the graduate with the
best final project.  One of the judges from industry remarked that while
the quality
of the projects overall was very good, none of them would pass muster
with ADA guidelines.  If any of the students had bothered to look at their
projects
in lynx, I bet they would have done a better job.




Jerome McDonough -- jmcdonou at library.Berkeley.EDU  |  (......)
Library Systems Office, 386 Doe, U.C. Berkeley     |  \ *  * /
Berkeley, CA 94720-6000    (510) 642-5168          |  \  <>  /
"Well, it looks easy enough...."                   |   \ -- /  SGNORMPF!!!
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