[WEB4LIB] text only pages

[Thomas Dowling]

If you read the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, you'll see that
providing a separate, text-only page is considered a last-ditch resort.
It's actually frowned up, because of the likelihood that a site will
update the main version and forget to update the text-only version.

So if you're doing your job right, there shouldn't be a need to provide a
text-only version.  Show some common-sense restraint in the number and
size of graphics, and the download times won't be too badly affected.

Thomas Dowling
OhioLINK - Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu


>
> 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.
>