1 Great Overview

Great overview of web accessibility and the type of users we should pay attention to when designing accessible web sites.

I just wish there were lower-cost developer versions of popular screen readers such as IBM Home Page Reader and JAWS.

posted at 03:37 pm on April 30, 2004 by Andrew

2 Dive Into Accessibility

http://www.diveintoaccessibility.org/ is the ultimate real-life guide to web accessibility. I reccommend it to everyone that has any interest in this ALA article.

posted at 05:47 pm on April 30, 2004 by Asbjørn Ulsberg

3 Good overview. But...

Good overview.

But 2 points:

1) Categories.

In “other users” area we cannot found:

1. Web users from outside your industry who may not understand industry jargon or acronyms

1. Web users whose first language is not English and who may not be able to comprehend complicated language

… as far as they are not disabled.

My first language is not English and I don’t have any kind of disability because of that. :)

Maybe we can talk about mentally disabled people here too but I have no info neither knowledge about this subject.

2) Flash. I miss some words about the current situation of Flash accesibility for disabled users.

I have found an old article here, http://www.alistapart.com/articles/flashmxmoving/

posted at 07:24 pm on April 30, 2004 by Joaquin Duaso

4 Great Article

Web accessibility has always been on the edge of my mind when I build a website, but lacking motiviation I’ve never actually looked deeply into the subject. This is a great rundown of everything a developer needs to keep in mind.

posted at 07:54 pm on April 30, 2004 by Allyn Edwards

5 very interesting views

Hi, although I’m not mainly targeted on the english-speaking webuser, I found it very interesting to “get kicked” in my mind the problem regarding WebTV – I didn’t know this technic is so limited in viewing – thanks for this hint – I always try to design websites like if the user’s having my old slow connection from years ago (I think it’s helpful to have a personal “internet-past” while designing – the kidz designing today often don’t even know the problem of slow connections I think). Greetings from Germany & please excuse my non-perfect-english, thanks Dave.

posted at 10:54 pm on April 30, 2004 by Dave

6 Deaf users

I was reviewing the findings of some usability testing of a UK site yesterday. We’d focussed specifically on the content and navigability of the site among users with different disabilities and a few surprising things emerged which aren’t covered in the article:

- though it makes sense intuitively, it’s not correct to say that “Deaf users are able to access the Internet in much the same way as non-deaf people” except for audio content. That’s fine for those deaf people who learned a spoken or written language, but for those whose primary language is sign language, large blocks of text are intimidating and difficult to deal with

- how about learning difficulties? Again, there’s a significant portion of the web audience who struggle with large blocks of text, in some cases because reading words in order is difficult, or for others because the text appears to ‘shimmer’ when they look at it. There are steps designers can take through colour combinations and paragraph structures to help these users

- how about user with multiple disabilities?

The W3C specs and checkpoints are tricky, but their case study/typology examples are great – I found them a great way to avoid the trap of thinking about accessibility solely from the point of view of technical solutions.

posted at 11:57 pm on April 30, 2004 by Steph Gray

7 Google

One of the main reasons I always include DDA requirements into sites I develop is that the biggest ‘blind’ users are search bots. If you follow structured mark up for your content adding extra peices for accessability should come as second nature.

posted at 11:58 am on May 1, 2004 by Simon Cox

8 accessibility for NGOs

thanks. this article helps in reminding that semantic markup doesn’t equal accessibility, though we’d like it to because WE CAN SELL accessibility while having our css fun.

sadly but truely, the article implies it ain’t free. I mean, can a customer buy you an accesible website?

Maybe so if it’s a 10 page site. But what about a large + periodically updated one? Does it need an accessibility-wise person in charge? Fine, you’ll say “educate someone, pay a qualified person”, etc. Hey, you can even convince a client to do that! (doug and dan come to mind)

But what if it is a non-profit, NGO, where volunteers might
1. work part-time, not having time to write good alt text at least
2. change so often you can’t teach them the basics?

maybe someone can share some experience here ahem amnesty ahem

posted at 08:53 pm on May 1, 2004 by manuel

9 My 2 cents...

Beautiful article.

To be honest, this article and a few related previous articles provided the oppurtunity and also direction to some of my lastest work.

But usually I faced a lot of head-scratching over the idea of: “selectively degrading a display to show the content in a proper and legible format for a given display and requesting device”. Usually from my clients who come with a idea of having – Rich GUI website (and have no clue what it is all about)

So I would suggest a sample case-study, where a rich GUI is made standard complaint and accessible – with possible inputs and tips from the various experts here.

Would be a great help, especially to say: “.. and if you still have any doubts, check out this link which does all this…”

;) food for thought – article 3 maybe…

posted at 09:55 am on May 2, 2004 by Sunny

10 6%???

Of those 6% I’d say that only 2% are real users. The other 4% are search engine spiders and/or spambots.

I liked how you said that 6% of UAs have JS turned off without ranting about how only silly script kiddies use it and that any site that uses JS is innaccessible. Good job, Trent.

posted at 10:17 am on May 2, 2004 by Dante

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