text only pages

[Kevin W. Bishop]

Oddly enough, I didn't find any discussion on this in the archives ... 

We've recently redesigned various sections of our web site(s) and in the
process eliminated our "text-only version" of what we refer to as our
"internal homepage," RPInfo: <http://www.rpi.edu/rpinfo/>.  

Both our internal and external (site root: <http://www.rpi.edu/>) homepages
validate according to HTML 4.0 Transitional, and Bobby approves their
accessibility along Priorities 1, 2 and, to some extent, 3 of the WAI
Guidelines <http://www.w3.org/WAI>.  The internal homepage -- a type of
"portal" to many, many other campus web sites -- is only 14K with 13K total
embedded images (not too bad, right?). 

My question: with a web page that validates and meets basic accessibility
guidelines, what benefit does a text-only version provide users?  

We've had two users mourn the loss of our text-only version of RPInfo ...
complaining about download times from remote locations (which I cannot
replicate using the same ISP), advising us of "Bobby" and the WAI
Guidelines, and so on.  While I've instructed them on how to turn off
images and explained our rationale for providing a valid, accessible and
current-to-the-minute page, nothing seems to satisfy.  

Are many of you offering text-only versions of your upper level pages or
any other important sections of your site?

Thanks for your consideration,
-kb



______________________________________
Kevin W. Bishop                              
Libraries and Information Services
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute             
<bishopk at rpi.edu> | <http://www.rpi.edu/rpinfo/>