Re: Accessibility

by "Mike Burks" <mburks952(at)worldnet.att.net>

 Date:  Tue, 6 Apr 1999 10:28:05 -0400
 To:  "Hans von Lengerke" <hans(at)knowledgepool.com>,
"Christopher Higgs" <c.higgs(at)landfood.unimelb.edu.au>
 Cc:  <hwg-theory(at)hwg.org>
 References:  peritas
  todo: View Thread, Original
All,

in fact the Internet Society has found that most users are in the Cities.
So what?  does this mean we cut out the rural users? Or the disabled?  Or
any other group we don t want address? This is in fact an attitude  taken by
the telephone companies in the US for many years....


Sincerely,

Mike Burks



----- Original Message -----
From: Hans von Lengerke <hans(at)knowledgepool.com>
To: Christopher Higgs <c.higgs(at)landfood.unimelb.edu.au>
Cc: <hwg-theory(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 1999 8:26 AM
Subject: Re: Accessibility


> On Tue, 6 Apr 1999, Christopher Higgs wrote:
>
> > OK - Accessibility with a new slant :)
> >
> > I'm not talking about web-accessibility, but internet-accessibility!
> >
> > While I realise readers of this list aren't the "average everyday user",
I
> > still see a continual suggestion that 28.8 is the "minimum" access speed
> > webmasters should consider when designing.
> >
> > Here's a local report I came across recent (4/4/99 - non Y2K compliant
date
> > format :)
> >
> > >DIGITAL DATA INQUIRY: AUSTRALIAN COMMUNICATIONS AUTHORITY REPORT
> > >Norm O'Doherty
> > >Special Adviser, Australian Communications Authority
> > [snip]
> > >THERE IS SIGNIFICANT DISPARITY BETWEEN METROPOLITAN AND RURAL CUSTOMERS
at
> > >the reasonable data rates of 14.4 kbit/s and 28.8kbit/s as shown in the
> > >table below.
> > >
> > >PSTN Data Transmission Rates in 'Urban and Provincial/Rural' Areas
> > >
> > >Transmission Rate     2.4kbit/s     9.6kbit/s     14.4kbit/s
28.8kbit/s
> >
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >Metro                        99%           95%           85%
60%
> >
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >Rural                         99%           70%           45%
30%
> >
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > (This quote was extracted from a public forum
> > http://www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/online-ed/ - the full report is
available
> > from http://www.aca.gov.au )
> >
> > Given that the Internet isn't as US-centric as members on some of the
other
> > lists tend to think *VBG*, and that there appears to be a significant
> > difference between urban and rural users (at least in Australia), what
> > access speed do most web designers design for?
> >
> > (Just as well none of my Stats students will quote me on that "sig dif"
> > without an alpha error :)
>
> I'm not a stats student but your data is meaningless as long as you can
> not give a ratio between metro/rural users. The number of households with
> internet access is probably much bigger in cities. Furthermore, in
> developed countries most of the population lives in cities rather than on
> the country side. I therefore expect the number of 'rural' users to be
> much smaller than that of urban users (but I may be wrong - anyone got
> some more stats here?). This insight would lead me to neglect the above
> data when considering access speeds of my website's users.
>
> Hans
> --
> Hans von Lengerke        |     My email address has changed to:
> ICL Training Services    |          hans(at)knowledgepool.com
> (+44) 01753 721042       |      Please update your addressbook
>

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