website accessibility-your experiences

Peter McC

Hi. It seems that most websites are not accessible for the visually impaired and others.

Website accessibility is something I'm interested in as I'm a web designer and I believe that websites should be accessible to everyone.

So far the information I have relating to web accessibility is from books and other designers who follow the standards. That's fine and good but I doubt many of them ever really get feedback from the users of their sites for whom this is an issue.

I'd appreciate comments, personal experiences and a links to good quality accessible websites that you've found that covers all the bases.

Thanks.

merritt

Cool that you're interested in this. But not just cool; it's being practical - and as far as I know, upholding the law.

NUI Maynooth have put quite an effort into making their site accessible www.nuim.ie. I know a student there who is blind who reports that the site is very navigable with his screenreading software. I've heard similarly good stories about Trinity's site www.tcd.ie

Just lay off the Flash!

Peter McC

Thanks for those links merritt.

The style sheet switching (changing font size, colour etc.) is something I'm familiar with but have not used to date. I will use it were possible in future.

I wonder if you or your friend could recommend good screenreading software that is available as a demo, opensource or inexpensive.

If I experience using websites relying on screenreading technology, I'll get a better idea of the frustrations that visually impaired users come up against. I think this will be the best way for me to understand what improvements need to be made my future website designs.

On the subject of flash: Is flash a problem if it's incorporated as elements in a page or is it only a problem if the site is constructed completely with flash? I don't tend to use too much flash these days but good to know for future reference.

Thanks again for your feedback!

gamblingIRE

you should check out the dda [disability discrimination act] and check out the wcag initiative if you want to learn more about accessibility.

screenreading: try JAWS - it has a free trial.

flash needs to be done using the new accessiblity interface in new flash, java needs to be done with java accessibility api ...

pain in the ass for devs but good for trying to address the ever expanding amount of dynamic diversity shown by users.

Amz

I'm visually impaired, and because of my increased use of the net/web resources for academic and leisure time I've become more aware of what I'd like to see more of etc.

What really was a godsend for me were new browsers like Firefox and Opera as they gave me greater control over font size and image size etc. IE is absolute cack (I'm being kind here) when it comes to things like that. Its "Largest" font size doesn't even come close to what I'd require on most sites. Now in work I do a lot of working on computers and for company reasons I can't dowload a different browser so my eyes are in bits now.

I hate tha magnifier that comes on windows machines and to be honest I'm not going to be in the job long enough to make a big stink over software etc. but if web developers and people who develop the likes of Internet explorer just increased font size and the ability to adapt image sizes etc. more then life would be so much easier. The current features are too restrictive.

Even the NCBI's site is horrible when I have font size with Firefox increased. I have e-mailed them about it, but they're obviously not too interested in making their site accessible, which is ironic really.

I haven't time to write a proper reply, this is just a few musings.

snorlax

i'd actually be interested in doing some kinda of postgrad in computor/ internet accessibility or assistive technology when i finish my course (just found out i got into final year occupational therapy yesterday) as i v a particular interest in making websites accessible and i think as it stands the internet is not very accessible to those with a visual impairment.

my uncle is slowly losing his sight and has had to stop driving and can no longer read without an aide. i would love to see the internet leading the way in making information accessible for people like my uncle.

Peter McC

Hi guys thanks for the feedback and info. I’d intended to respond earlier but I’ve been up to my ears.

I’ll download JAWs for the trial. I think the experience of using the screen reader will give me a feel for what it’s like for users who depend on them for work and leisure.

Using the new flash version will mean a lot of people won’t be able to access content on the site as many still use the older versions. It’s a tough one to get around and to be honest has put me off using flash from time to time.

I’ll check out DDA and WCAG as you advise.

I know that some developers would rather just make sites that suit the majority of people (and sometimes themselves too) but on the whole I think there is a genuine interest from developers in doing accessible sites and doing them right.

Major stumbling blocks are time and finances. I’m looking into this in my own time and at my own expense which slows progress. I want to do more than just learn and follow WAI guidelines; I want to understand the user experience.

Your feedback is extremely helpful and important to what I’m trying to do. Especially yours Amz, as you are talking from your own direct experience.

Anymore comments and advice please pass them on.

RainyDay

Oodles of info available at http://accessit.nda.ie/

Peter McC

Cheers RainyDay, excellent resource.

Peter McC

gamblingIRE wrote:

screenreading: try JAWS - it has a free trial.QUOTE]

I downloaded the trial version of JAWs screen reader and gave the software a test drive online.

Now I can appreciate the importance of Skip Navigation buttons. Having to listen to each link being read again and again soon became annoying; even for the short time that I used the screen reader.

Accesskeys worked well on all navigation and links to external website. It took a minute to realize I needed to hold the shift key and enter to launch external website links (my fault for not reading through the help guide or whatever, still haven’t yet).

The JAW’s demo only runs for 40 minutes at a time and then it’s necessary to restart the computer. I’ll use it every day for 40 minutes over this week while researching on the web.

To be honest I didn’t rely solely on the reader today or yesterday as I found it so different and confusing relying on sound only to navigate the site. Tomorrow I’ll do it properly and every other day after that this week.

At the end of that time I’ll report here about the experience. But so far, the uniform use of accesskeys especially for fixed internal site navigation is obviously an important element in site design for people depending on screen readers. Skip Navigation keys are of equal importance.

Talliesin

Peter McC wrote:

So far the information I have relating to web accessibility is from books and other designers who follow the standards. That's fine and good but I doubt many of them ever really get feedback from the users of their sites for whom this is an issue.

Why do you doubt that? All the authors on this subject that I can think off do extensive testing with real users with a variety of abilities and disabilities using a variety of assistive technologies.

Sure, those of us coding sites have time and budget restraints that affect how much we can test a given site, but the issues and solutions in the literature come from real world testing.

Peter McC wrote:

At the end of that time I’ll report here about the experience. But so far, the uniform use of accesskeys especially for fixed internal site navigation is obviously an important element in site design for people depending on screen readers. Skip Navigation keys are of equal importance.

Check out the archives of the WAI-IG list. For the most part accesskeys have proven to be a big disappointment in real world applications, and are considered by many to be a largely failed idea.

They have benefits in the case of sites that people would be using heavily (say a web application someone might spend hours every day using as part of their job), but not much beyond that - there's no hope for universal consistency across the web, and just about every key is already in use by some browser/AT combo out there, causing clashes.

Long term achieving a greater degree of consistency amongst names used with the link element, and then having bindings to those names from keys that would be browser/AT/user-preference dependant seems to be the way people are looking at solving this issue.