(from the accessibility_sig mailing list)
As part of a TCDD funded project called AccessWorks, Knowbility has been able to hire interns with disabilities to perform web site accessibility assessment, to research employment and disability related topics on the web, and to blog about their experiences. While our interns have found a great deal of documentation out there about barriers to accessing information online, much less is available about how people with disabilities are producing content and successfully posting to the web. Expect to hear from them about that and other related topics.
Check it out at www.universallydesigned.net
One excerpt, posted by Desiree: “This is my first experience with blogging, although I have read lots of other people’s stuff. I am totally blind, using jaws and have experienced a few slight barriers. First off, I hope I am putting this text in the correct area, because jaws doesn’t tell me much about where I am. I also found that when viewing posts, I have to scroll past all of the top text to see the post’s content.”
I have to admit accessibility isn’t something I’ve considered, other than a brief thought about how my site might look on a cell phone’s browser.
I wonder if there is a way to trigger jaws about where comments should be typed. Also, I wonder what “top text” she is talking about . . . the header on most blogs doesn’t involve much text.
BTW. I see from your sidebar you must have just graduated. Congratulations! It must feel great. I’m in the final stages of a Masters in English myself. Actually, I should really be working on my thesis right now . . . but since I’m using it to explore how the web has effected literature and literary criticism, I find a way to justify a certain amount of surfing. LOL
Hello Terry, thanks for the comment.
A few weeks ago was “CSS Naked Day”, when site maintainers were encouraged to turn off their style sheets. That actually more closely mimics what someone listening to a screen reader would be exposed to. What happened on my blog (and I now want to change) is that everything in the left sidebar appeared before the actual content. Since someone listening to the site doesn’t really know how things are presented, they wouldn’t know that that’s a sidebar, of smaller font, less important. They would perceive it as coming before (”above”) the bulk of the content.
There are ways to represent that information later in the actual HTML, but use the CSS to position it to the left, and that’s how I should recode my site. I simply hadn’t considered it..
Hi Andrea,
You can get the same information about your site by viewing the page source. You’re right, it’s something most bloggers don’t think about when selecting a theme.
I wondered if that was what Desiree meant when she talked about header text; she wouldn’t have any way to know if it was the header or a left handed sidebar.
I use a theme by Chris Pearson for that very reason. It shows a left sidebar but in page view the posts come first. I think that’s one reason you see so many blogs with two right-handed sidebars; but that isn’t necessary.
Andrea, this was very cool to read about, thanks for sharing. Way back in college I had a job working for students with various disabilities — took notes for some in their classes, read books or materials for others onto tape recorders — but it was a long time ago. I have never given much thought to differently-abled people and how they interact with the Internet. I am glad to hear these things are improving and making it possible for all of us to interact and engage in the social sphere.
Welcome, Lara!
One of the most eye-opening experiences for me was at the @Media conference in London a few years back. Robin Christopherson from AbilityNet was showing a packed conference hall how he used a screenreader - and the thing crashed. Guess what happens when a screen reader crashes? Well, it doesn’t tell you anything, it just throws up the nice windows error message we all know and love. So the hundreds of people watching knew why Robin was unable to show us his presentation, but he didn’t, and someone had to come up to help him. If he’s an expert in these tools, I can’t imagine how challenging it is for someone who doesn’t spend most of their daily lives on a computer…