Another point - LIFT is one of those companies that cashes the open-source efforts. There are free and better alternatives to LIFT for those “text-only accessibility???” lovers - “BBC Betsie” and “UNB’s Luci” are just a few names.

I would like to address some of the negative points made at the expenses of LIFT Text Transcoder and our clients, that have made and continue to make strong efforts to support the disabled and other users on their site.

Firstly the vast majority of our clients see LIFT Text Transcoder as part of their strategy for creating better options to content for all. The solution has help many address the practical limitation of too much to do with too few resources. This solution provides a simplified text based interface dynamically generated from current content much in the same way a text interface option to a content management system may do but without the expenses of the content management system.

On the technical benefits of this approach the author has failed to understand the benefits a centrally controlled alternative option is bringing to our users.

On the support and benefits for more than just the blind that they outlines as:

“Aside from the fact that this statement assumes that all disabled users are visually impaired, it also makes the false assumption that all web content is magically made more usable by simply removing images.”

I would point readers to a detailed article written on the support for different groups using this solution:
http://www.usablenet.com/accessibility_usability/textonly.html

On the technical note that a text-mode can not improve the user experience as stated:

“while technically compliant with section 508 guidelines, does not in any way provide a better user experience? It’s certainly no easier to navigate”

The LIFT Text Transcoder can employ annotations as it creates the text-mode on the fly to enhance, reorganize and filter content to create better user experience for specific devices. Please see live examples of before and after at:
http://www.usablenet.com/products_services/text_transcoder/annotations/index.html

These annotations can be used by a central accessible aware web team to alter and improve the overall access to the site for people with disabilities without having to rely on large numbers of dispersed web masters with varying levels of skills. This addresses this final comment made in the article:

“Meanwhile, the underlying structural problems that contribute to the most common accessibility and usability problems go unaddressed.”

In all LIFT Text Transcoder is providing a bridge for large institutions to make efforts to improve the general access to all content while focusing their available limited resources on educating and following better web design guidelines on the most popular content.

Regards
Jason Taylor
UsableNet
212 965 5388