Disabled people should to be able to use websites. Replacing XHTML with
JavaScript can cause accessibility issues.
Accessibility is the research and practice of making websites usable to as
diverse a user base as possible, including people with hearing, visual and
mobility disabilities, by removing obstacles and offering alternatives.
(Loranger Nielsen 2006)
WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) develops accessibility guidelines, which are
generally internationally accepted. Online tools for testing website
accessibility are available from them. (W3C, 2009)
WAI also suggests manual testing to assess accessibility using text-based
browsers, such as Lynx. Lynx emulates the environment of screen readers, used
by sight-disabled users. Testing the slideshow like this would tell us how
accessible it is. Also, feedback from involving disabled testers could help.
Developers can access accessibility during testing by turning CSS and
JavaScript off in their browsers to determine what alternatives are available.
This could guide us to "adding to" hyperlink navigation with a dynamic menu,
rather than replacing it.
Additionally, we could also ask the RNIB to do an accessibility assessment for
us. A Royal National Institute of Blind People "See it Right" audit would use
human auditors to help us. (RNIB, 2009)
Nearly any code can be implemented within the law. We can ensure alternatives
are available for all disabled people. Why and to what level we should do this
can be seen from different perspectives.
Firstly, the Disability Discrimination Act (1995) is British law. Web-designers
have a duty to advise owners of any website they work on to make "reasonable
efforts" to provide services, of the same standard for the disabled, as you
provide for the public. Secondly, it makes business sense. 10% of internet
users have a disability. If you have a shop and your door only opens for 9 in
10 of your customers you effectively have closed shop to 1 in 10.
However, making your site accessible will cost designers time and thus the
clients money. There are few presidents in British legal history of websites
being taken to court and charged under the DDA (2005). So "reasonable efforts",
whatever that means, may suffice. Additionally, if your website is
in-accessible does that really mean 10% of people can't use it? There are no
concrete figures relating to internet users who require fully accessible
websites. So, we could wait until the site is more popular to make it
financially viable.
Kevin Ireson
MD Hotels in London Ltd http://www.hotels-london-hotel.com
Hotels in Edinburgh Ltd http://www.hotels-edinburgh-scotland-hotels.com
From: Nick Stone
Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 9:13 PM
To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
Subject: Re: [WSG] CSS "rollovers" for images + Feedback Sources??
Leslie,
This is such valuable feedback.
Thanks very much!
Does anyone have suggestions on how to obtain website usability feedback from
various members of the disabled community?
Thanks in advance,
Nick
--
Nick Stone, MBA
SEO, Web Accessibility, Web Development
http://nick-stone.com/
Good idea, but please remember that for someone with problems of co-ordination
or fine muscle control, hovering can be extremely difficult. I've encountered
javascript image galleries which work like this, and on a bad day I find them
completely unusable.
Lesley
On 19/10/10 21:13, cat soul wrote:
Any thoughts on using CSS hover properties to show larger images?
The scenario I'm envisioning is one where you'd have small thumbnails of
samples, and hovering the mouse over them would invoke a hover state in
which a larger version of that same image would appear..."Larger"
meaning 400x600 pixels, or in that neighborhood.
Is this not wise from a coding perspective? How about usability? Do web
page visitors not expect this kind of behavior..would it be confusing to
them as to what they're supposed to do, or what to expect?
I'm wanting to use CSS to do what javascript rollovers do, only without
the javascript.
thanks for any feedback or opinions.
cs
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