RE: Your site's easy to navigate? You Think so?
Kola, as I said earlier - the quickest short cut to this is to download Lynx (text only flavour browser) (http://lynx.browser.org/) - as this will act as a "text" reader (which is how voice browsers work in effect - they usaully read out from top let across the page to top right, then down a line, etc) - if you can navigate a website with Lynx (which is free) then a voice browser *should* work too - if you can't navigate a site with Lynx then a voice browser will DEFINATELY not work. Which is a starting point. Secondly, if it "works" on Lynx then run bobby over it to generate a report that will give you errors in order of preference. The WAI guidelines are just that - in that they suggest a minimum methodology, but also suggest a tiered approach to development. If you are interested in this methodology also try doing some research on the web about it - as a starter use something like Betsie (created back in 1998 in collaboartion between the BBC and the RNIB in the UK) which is a free tool that creates "text" only versions of sites. If you don't want the hassle of re-training youself or your staff into creating hand code, etc. that is WAI compliant then use lynx - bobby - betsie (all are free) as a road map in checking, testing, creating a text only version of a site - then add a link to the text only version at the top-left first code on every page of your site/s - it's a crude but working methodology - when creating a site in CF that is template/dynamicly driven you can also bear in mind these issues - we pull all our content in from flat text/html formatted pages then depending on global variables set display the text with a graphic or non-graphic wrapper. James -Original Message- From: Kola Oyedeji [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 04 June 2001 11:03 To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: Your site's easy to navigate? You Think so? Is there an industry standard tool used by people with disablities to browse web sites, i've just brought this issue to the attention of my boss, and we may want to purchase such a package to test our sites. Thanks Kola -Original Message- From: Michael Kear [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 04 June 2001 04:44 To: CF-Talk Subject: Your site's easy to navigate? You Think so? I have just come out of a most enlightening session with a blind user, running though a client's web site with JAWS, a screen reading program that turns the web page into synthesised voice. I thought I was quite aware of accessibility issues before, and was comfortable in thinking that my sites were better than the average in providing access to the blind and people with other disabilities. This session was educational to say the least. I am still convinced my sites are better than average, but I am bound to inform you that the average is pretty damn poor. I know some people are really concerned about accessibility for the disabled and others have decided that the disabled are such a small portion of their userbase, it's not worth changing everything to allow for them. I'm here to tell you that it's not difficult to design a good site to allow for access, it just takes a little understanding of how programs like JAWS works. To be truthful, I think that if I were blind, I'd go stark raving mad at all the frustrations of life but trying to surf the web wouldn't make life any easier that's for sure. For example, he took us through a page of our bookshop. And we'd arranged things to look nice on the page, but there were parts of the catalogue page where he didn't know what the "add to basket" graphic was referring to - this book or the previous one. And some nested tables were simply awful and impossible to work round.We all think putting navigation buttons on the top of every page makes for easy navigation, but blind people have to wade through (in our case) 50 navigation links before getting to the guts of the page. On a search of our site, the resulting page has a nice header at the top with links to all our site's catgegories and sub-categories and then a sidebar with links to other parts of the site, and finally the search results itself. Visually it looks fine - quick and simple to move around the site. But using the screen reading software it took **AGES** to get to anything related to the search. By just laying out the page differently, we could have made this page FAR easier to navigate for him. I'm not suggesting we should all go about redesigning our sites just for the relatively few blind users, but just understanding how the software works, has made me re-think many of the forms I build. The user also said that Government sites tended to be the worst of all. I'm not sure if that's because they're designed by developers with an eye on the government money or because they are specified by bureaucrats. Certainly of
RE: Your site's easy to navigate? You Think so?
Just a quick thought/question... not just for the case of the blind but also those on low bandwidth and other "alternate" web browsing choices, would a good solution for all this be to build a "site of many faces", using CF and the CGI.HTTP_USER_AGENT to switch between faces. I've seen this done for WAP in an example mode but haven't really seen it. The concept would be something along the lines of an auto-switch instead of having the user click on "High Bandwidth" and "Low Bandwidth" at a splash page. Granted, it's more development time, but it's also a great selling point! Just my two cents. Hatton Humphrey > -Original Message- > From: G [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Monday, June 04, 2001 9:29 AM > To: CF-Talk > Subject: Re: Your site's easy to navigate? You Think so? > > > One of the main restrictions of many of the reader's used by > blind people is > that they do not support javascript (or other active scritps i > assume). As a > result, any page that contains javascript functionality, must have an > alternate way of performing the same or similar type function. > So what this > really comes down to, is programming your site to work for > browsers that do > not support active scripting, or that may have that feature disabled. This > is something that's not a bad idea to do anyway. > > Brian > - Original Message - > From: "Kola Oyedeji" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "CF-Talk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Monday, June 04, 2001 8:10 AM > Subject: RE: Your site's easy to navigate? You Think so? > > > > >>using Javascript to submit a form (now a no-no). > > >> > > > > Why is that? > > > > KOla > > > > > ~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
Re: Your site's easy to navigate? You Think so?
One of the main restrictions of many of the reader's used by blind people is that they do not support javascript (or other active scritps i assume). As a result, any page that contains javascript functionality, must have an alternate way of performing the same or similar type function. So what this really comes down to, is programming your site to work for browsers that do not support active scripting, or that may have that feature disabled. This is something that's not a bad idea to do anyway. Brian - Original Message - From: "Kola Oyedeji" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "CF-Talk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, June 04, 2001 8:10 AM Subject: RE: Your site's easy to navigate? You Think so? > >>using Javascript to submit a form (now a no-no). > >> > > Why is that? > > KOla ~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: Your site's easy to navigate? You Think so?
>>using Javascript to submit a form (now a no-no). >> Why is that? KOla -Original Message- From: G [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 04 June 2001 13:56 To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: Your site's easy to navigate? You Think so? As Michael suggested, Kola, take look at the Bobby tool. To just expand on this issue, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act has defined a set of standards that must now be met by web sites developed for US government agencies to ensure that people with disabilities can adequately navigate the site. While it is a bit of a burden (re-writing old sites is never fun), the changes really aren't that extensive or intrusive. There are a few restrictions that have caused us problems though, namely, using Javascript to submit a form (now a no-no). I thought it was interesting that Mike said that the government sites seemed to be the worst. The standards laid out in section 508 should address this problem. While the standards are specifically targeted for government websites, they provide a good set of guidelines for the average developer who is interested in making their websites available for everyone. For more info on these standards, check out: http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/508/web.htm Brian - Original Message - From: "Kola Oyedeji" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "CF-Talk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, June 04, 2001 5:02 AM Subject: RE: Your site's easy to navigate? You Think so? > Is there an industry standard tool used by people with disablities to browse > web sites, i've just brought this issue to the attention of my boss, and we > may want to purchase such a package to test our sites. > > Thanks > > Kola > > -Original Message- > From: Michael Kear [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: 04 June 2001 04:44 > To: CF-Talk > Subject: Your site's easy to navigate? You Think so? > > > I have just come out of a most enlightening session with a blind user, > running though a client's web site with JAWS, a screen reading program > that turns the web page into synthesised voice. > > I thought I was quite aware of accessibility issues before, and was > comfortable in thinking that my sites were better than the average in > providing access to the blind and people with other disabilities. This > session was educational to say the least. > > I am still convinced my sites are better than average, but I am bound to > inform you that the average is pretty damn poor. I know some people are > really concerned about accessibility for the disabled and others have > decided that the disabled are such a small portion of their userbase, it's > not worth changing everything to allow for them. > > I'm here to tell you that it's not difficult to design a good site to > allow for access, it just takes a little understanding of how programs > like JAWS works. To be truthful, I think that if I were blind, I'd go > stark raving mad at all the frustrations of life but trying to surf the > web wouldn't make life any easier that's for sure. > > For example, he took us through a page of our bookshop. And we'd > arranged things to look nice on the page, but there were parts of the > catalogue page where he didn't know what the "add to basket" graphic was > referring to - this book or the previous one. And some nested tables > were simply awful and impossible to work round.We all think putting > navigation buttons on the top of every page makes for easy navigation, but > blind people have to wade through (in our case) 50 navigation links before > getting to the guts of the page. On a search of our site, the resulting > page has a nice header at the top with links to all our site's catgegories > and sub-categories and then a sidebar with links to other parts of the > site, and finally the search results itself. Visually it looks fine - > quick and simple to move around the site. But using the screen reading > software it took **AGES** to get to anything related to the search. By > just laying out the page differently, we could have made this page FAR > easier to navigate for him. > > I'm not suggesting we should all go about redesigning our sites just for > the relatively few blind users, but just understanding how the software > works, has made me re-think many of the forms I build. The user also > said that Government sites tended to be the worst of all. I'm not sure if > that's because they're designed by developers with an eye on the > government money or because they are specified by bureaucrats. Certainly > of all the sites that ought to know about accessibility, Government sites > ought to be the leaders, and apparently they aren't. > >
Re: Your site's easy to navigate? You Think so?
As Michael suggested, Kola, take look at the Bobby tool. To just expand on this issue, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act has defined a set of standards that must now be met by web sites developed for US government agencies to ensure that people with disabilities can adequately navigate the site. While it is a bit of a burden (re-writing old sites is never fun), the changes really aren't that extensive or intrusive. There are a few restrictions that have caused us problems though, namely, using Javascript to submit a form (now a no-no). I thought it was interesting that Mike said that the government sites seemed to be the worst. The standards laid out in section 508 should address this problem. While the standards are specifically targeted for government websites, they provide a good set of guidelines for the average developer who is interested in making their websites available for everyone. For more info on these standards, check out: http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/508/web.htm Brian - Original Message - From: "Kola Oyedeji" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "CF-Talk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, June 04, 2001 5:02 AM Subject: RE: Your site's easy to navigate? You Think so? > Is there an industry standard tool used by people with disablities to browse > web sites, i've just brought this issue to the attention of my boss, and we > may want to purchase such a package to test our sites. > > Thanks > > Kola > > -Original Message- > From: Michael Kear [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: 04 June 2001 04:44 > To: CF-Talk > Subject: Your site's easy to navigate? You Think so? > > > I have just come out of a most enlightening session with a blind user, > running though a client's web site with JAWS, a screen reading program > that turns the web page into synthesised voice. > > I thought I was quite aware of accessibility issues before, and was > comfortable in thinking that my sites were better than the average in > providing access to the blind and people with other disabilities. This > session was educational to say the least. > > I am still convinced my sites are better than average, but I am bound to > inform you that the average is pretty damn poor. I know some people are > really concerned about accessibility for the disabled and others have > decided that the disabled are such a small portion of their userbase, it's > not worth changing everything to allow for them. > > I'm here to tell you that it's not difficult to design a good site to > allow for access, it just takes a little understanding of how programs > like JAWS works. To be truthful, I think that if I were blind, I'd go > stark raving mad at all the frustrations of life but trying to surf the > web wouldn't make life any easier that's for sure. > > For example, he took us through a page of our bookshop. And we'd > arranged things to look nice on the page, but there were parts of the > catalogue page where he didn't know what the "add to basket" graphic was > referring to - this book or the previous one. And some nested tables > were simply awful and impossible to work round.We all think putting > navigation buttons on the top of every page makes for easy navigation, but > blind people have to wade through (in our case) 50 navigation links before > getting to the guts of the page. On a search of our site, the resulting > page has a nice header at the top with links to all our site's catgegories > and sub-categories and then a sidebar with links to other parts of the > site, and finally the search results itself. Visually it looks fine - > quick and simple to move around the site. But using the screen reading > software it took **AGES** to get to anything related to the search. By > just laying out the page differently, we could have made this page FAR > easier to navigate for him. > > I'm not suggesting we should all go about redesigning our sites just for > the relatively few blind users, but just understanding how the software > works, has made me re-think many of the forms I build. The user also > said that Government sites tended to be the worst of all. I'm not sure if > that's because they're designed by developers with an eye on the > government money or because they are specified by bureaucrats. Certainly > of all the sites that ought to know about accessibility, Government sites > ought to be the leaders, and apparently they aren't. > > > I think as web developers, you'd all be doing A Good Thing if you arranged > for a meeting like we just had at Australian Consumers Association - have > a blind person come and work your site for you using their screen reading >
RE: Your site's easy to navigate? You Think so?
Is there an industry standard tool used by people with disablities to browse web sites, i've just brought this issue to the attention of my boss, and we may want to purchase such a package to test our sites. Thanks Kola -Original Message- From: Michael Kear [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 04 June 2001 04:44 To: CF-Talk Subject: Your site's easy to navigate? You Think so? I have just come out of a most enlightening session with a blind user, running though a client's web site with JAWS, a screen reading program that turns the web page into synthesised voice. I thought I was quite aware of accessibility issues before, and was comfortable in thinking that my sites were better than the average in providing access to the blind and people with other disabilities. This session was educational to say the least. I am still convinced my sites are better than average, but I am bound to inform you that the average is pretty damn poor. I know some people are really concerned about accessibility for the disabled and others have decided that the disabled are such a small portion of their userbase, it's not worth changing everything to allow for them. I'm here to tell you that it's not difficult to design a good site to allow for access, it just takes a little understanding of how programs like JAWS works. To be truthful, I think that if I were blind, I'd go stark raving mad at all the frustrations of life but trying to surf the web wouldn't make life any easier that's for sure. For example, he took us through a page of our bookshop. And we'd arranged things to look nice on the page, but there were parts of the catalogue page where he didn't know what the "add to basket" graphic was referring to - this book or the previous one. And some nested tables were simply awful and impossible to work round.We all think putting navigation buttons on the top of every page makes for easy navigation, but blind people have to wade through (in our case) 50 navigation links before getting to the guts of the page. On a search of our site, the resulting page has a nice header at the top with links to all our site's catgegories and sub-categories and then a sidebar with links to other parts of the site, and finally the search results itself. Visually it looks fine - quick and simple to move around the site. But using the screen reading software it took **AGES** to get to anything related to the search. By just laying out the page differently, we could have made this page FAR easier to navigate for him. I'm not suggesting we should all go about redesigning our sites just for the relatively few blind users, but just understanding how the software works, has made me re-think many of the forms I build. The user also said that Government sites tended to be the worst of all. I'm not sure if that's because they're designed by developers with an eye on the government money or because they are specified by bureaucrats. Certainly of all the sites that ought to know about accessibility, Government sites ought to be the leaders, and apparently they aren't. I think as web developers, you'd all be doing A Good Thing if you arranged for a meeting like we just had at Australian Consumers Association - have a blind person come and work your site for you using their screen reading software. At the risk of being accused of making an off-colour joke, it's a real eye-opener. Cheers, Mike Kear AFP Webworks, Windsor, NSW, Australia. ~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: Your site's easy to navigate? You Think so?
You should take a look at bobby and the WAI guide. Bobby is a collaboration project between (amongst others) SUN microsystems and Microsoft (gasp!) (http://www.cast.org/bobby/) - you can either download the java based tool or use the website to check a website you have built for accessibility, while the WWW Consortioum have been working on the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) since the mid nineties (http://www.w3.org/WAI/) which gives web designers guidelines as how to build sites. The key to designing sites for accessibility is to allways offer an alternative - in that if you have a flash site, then do it in plain html, if you have a graph then write a description of the data on a seperate page and add the link to it next to the image, etc. Always use alt tags and never use frames. From the outset it can take a while to get into the working practice of designing for accessibility, but once you take into consideration the guide (above) and test you sites then their should not be a problem - as a guide also get hold of Lynx the text only browser and check you site/s on this too (for as a rule of thumb that is how voice browsers will "read" you site) - if you can't navigate your site with Lynx then a blind user will never be able to use you site. HTH James -Original Message- From: Michael Kear [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 04 June 2001 04:44 To: CF-Talk Subject: Your site's easy to navigate? You Think so? I have just come out of a most enlightening session with a blind user, running though a client's web site with JAWS, a screen reading program that turns the web page into synthesised voice. I thought I was quite aware of accessibility issues before, and was comfortable in thinking that my sites were better than the average in providing access to the blind and people with other disabilities. This session was educational to say the least. I am still convinced my sites are better than average, but I am bound to inform you that the average is pretty damn poor. I know some people are really concerned about accessibility for the disabled and others have decided that the disabled are such a small portion of their userbase, it's not worth changing everything to allow for them. I'm here to tell you that it's not difficult to design a good site to allow for access, it just takes a little understanding of how programs like JAWS works. To be truthful, I think that if I were blind, I'd go stark raving mad at all the frustrations of life but trying to surf the web wouldn't make life any easier that's for sure. For example, he took us through a page of our bookshop. And we'd arranged things to look nice on the page, but there were parts of the catalogue page where he didn't know what the "add to basket" graphic was referring to - this book or the previous one. And some nested tables were simply awful and impossible to work round.We all think putting navigation buttons on the top of every page makes for easy navigation, but blind people have to wade through (in our case) 50 navigation links before getting to the guts of the page. On a search of our site, the resulting page has a nice header at the top with links to all our site's catgegories and sub-categories and then a sidebar with links to other parts of the site, and finally the search results itself. Visually it looks fine - quick and simple to move around the site. But using the screen reading software it took **AGES** to get to anything related to the search. By just laying out the page differently, we could have made this page FAR easier to navigate for him. I'm not suggesting we should all go about redesigning our sites just for the relatively few blind users, but just understanding how the software works, has made me re-think many of the forms I build. The user also said that Government sites tended to be the worst of all. I'm not sure if that's because they're designed by developers with an eye on the government money or because they are specified by bureaucrats. Certainly of all the sites that ought to know about accessibility, Government sites ought to be the leaders, and apparently they aren't. I think as web developers, you'd all be doing A Good Thing if you arranged for a meeting like we just had at Australian Consumers Association - have a blind person come and work your site for you using their screen reading software. At the risk of being accused of making an off-colour joke, it's a real eye-opener. Cheers, Mike Kear AFP Webworks, Windsor, NSW, Australia. ~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
RE: Your site's easy to navigate? You Think so?
Michael, put simply this a very important and illuminating email. I, like many people, am fortunate enough to have my sight. As we are all consumed in the day to day rigors of surviving in difficult times it is easy to ignore deviations like making sure those without sight can get around on the web. Even if it costs time and money to do this, I personally believe those who take the time to care will find reward. Kind Regards - Mike Brunt Macromedia Consulting -Original Message- From: Michael Kear To: CF-Talk Sent: 6/3/01 11:43 PM Subject: Your site's easy to navigate? You Think so? I have just come out of a most enlightening session with a blind user, running though a client's web site with JAWS, a screen reading program that turns the web page into synthesised voice. I thought I was quite aware of accessibility issues before, and was comfortable in thinking that my sites were better than the average in providing access to the blind and people with other disabilities. This session was educational to say the least. I am still convinced my sites are better than average, but I am bound to inform you that the average is pretty damn poor. I know some people are really concerned about accessibility for the disabled and others have decided that the disabled are such a small portion of their userbase, it's not worth changing everything to allow for them. I'm here to tell you that it's not difficult to design a good site to allow for access, it just takes a little understanding of how programs like JAWS works. To be truthful, I think that if I were blind, I'd go stark raving mad at all the frustrations of life but trying to surf the web wouldn't make life any easier that's for sure. For example, he took us through a page of our bookshop. And we'd arranged things to look nice on the page, but there were parts of the catalogue page where he didn't know what the "add to basket" graphic was referring to - this book or the previous one. And some nested tables were simply awful and impossible to work round.We all think putting navigation buttons on the top of every page makes for easy navigation, but blind people have to wade through (in our case) 50 navigation links before getting to the guts of the page. On a search of our site, the resulting page has a nice header at the top with links to all our site's catgegories and sub-categories and then a sidebar with links to other parts of the site, and finally the search results itself. Visually it looks fine - quick and simple to move around the site. But using the screen reading software it took **AGES** to get to anything related to the search. By just laying out the page differently, we could have made this page FAR easier to navigate for him. I'm not suggesting we should all go about redesigning our sites just for the relatively few blind users, but just understanding how the software works, has made me re-think many of the forms I build. The user also said that Government sites tended to be the worst of all. I'm not sure if that's because they're designed by developers with an eye on the government money or because they are specified by bureaucrats. Certainly of all the sites that ought to know about accessibility, Government sites ought to be the leaders, and apparently they aren't. I think as web developers, you'd all be doing A Good Thing if you arranged for a meeting like we just had at Australian Consumers Association - have a blind person come and work your site for you using their screen reading software. At the risk of being accused of making an off-colour joke, it's a real eye-opener. Cheers, Mike Kear AFP Webworks, Windsor, NSW, Australia. ~~ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-talk@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
