[Art_beyond_sight_educators] value of the nonessential

[fnugg at online.no]

Hi again,

In the last email I tried to suggest a case for "decoration graphics".  
Wondering if they are important or possibly important?

Another analogy: It is often said that the best way to get vitamins is 
by eating the whole fruit/vegtable instead of just vitamin pills. That 
is because the fruit/vegtable also brings with it many unknown 
nutritional values that are unknown to us and useful.
So sort of suggesting that "decoration graphics" are a type of 
nutritional value that can have value but at the present is not 
considered.    That since they are not seen as "vitamins" they are 
deemed not useful.

At this time making tactile graphics is pretty time consuming. The 
tactiles I think most people concentrate on making are the important 
ones for a text. Currently there is no easy way to machine generate a 
complicated graphic - it requires a person to adapt one. So one might 
argue that "decoration" graphics are not made because they would take up 
the time required to make the essential tactile graphics. Have they been 
dismissed because of this and therefore we have not considered their value?

But what if there is essential nutritional value to these "decoration" 
graphics?

What if such "decoration graphics" in a school book were included with 
the important ones? How could this be done?

I am thinking that these would be made in a simple way. A restricted 
amount of lines, dots and areas.

These would be easily read, help maintain a students feeling of 
accomplishment of reading tactiles, act as a warm up for the more 
difficult tactiles, and increase the tactile graphic vocabulary

Perhaps these are some of the values of "decoration" graphics - a type 
of fruit fiber.

What do you think?

Lisa