rose.parks@att.net wrote:
I have been hoping that someone else would bring up the issue
of accessibility in Wikipedia. Yet, having read over 20 e-mails on the problem of our many and multi-colored links, I saw no mention of this issue.
I fully agree with Ruth Ifcher that this should be a priority, and that we should stick to display standards that are simple and functional rather than beautiful.
I think at this stage in Wikipedia's development, some of the
basic accessibility features might be incorporated in our software - like not depending on color coding to convey information, and adding descriptions to all images. I am strongly in favor of such features. Unfortunately, my programming skills are not nearly strong enough to try to add any. Hopefully, some of the developers will agree that accessibility is important and will be willing to work on adding some of these features.
In my opinion, you are absolutely right. This is something that would be easy to forget, but the wikipedia mission of open education for all is consistent _only_ with efforts to bring our work to everyone in as fully accessible a manner as possible.
Ruth, I encourage you to keep complaining about this, lest we forget!
--Jimbo