From: "Philipp Lenssen" <phil@mrinfo.de>
Newsgroups: alt.html,alt.html.web-accessibility,comp.infosystems.www.authoring.site-design
Subject: Re: Accessibility of sites for blind users
Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2001 11:08:39 +0100
Message-ID: <9ukrkb$e9j$1@swifty.westend.com>
Newsgroups: alt.html,alt.html.web-accessibility,comp.infosystems.www.authoring.site-design
Subject: Re: Accessibility of sites for blind users
Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2001 11:08:39 +0100
Message-ID: <9ukrkb$e9j$1@swifty.westend.com>
"DRN" <donaldrnoble@NOSPAM.yahoo.com> wrote in message news:9uiv7g$mc$1@purple.gradwell.net... >.. > I am updating our site, and am trying to make it more accessible to all > users, especially the blind. > I have read some guidelines on positioning of elements, for example > menu ~ top left, search ~ top right > > Having downloaded IBM's Home page reader and tested our site I found that > having the navigation at the top may not be the best way for screenreaders. >.. It's become common here in client presentations to present an alternative access to our web pages by using a text-to-speech plug-in. We start out by letting it read a random WWW page (well, first time we chose it randomly, now we stick to it -- it's a german Microsoft site, and it will take about 5 minutes of mumbling weird navigational things... you will never actually make it to the content). We continue by letting it read one of our pages, following the standards of XHTML1 Strict + CSS2 and the accessibility guidelines. It will start with the headings in the order they are intended (h1, h2, h3), then go to the content; even when these elements are positioned all over the page. With CSS2, you won't give up the control of linear context flow even if you want to have the menu on the left. In other words, these can -- and should -- become two seperate issues if you want to optimize your page for the blind. Or smaller screens/ hand helds, search engines, and so on. I always put the heading and main contentual part at the top of the linear flow, and navigation at the end. On the screen, it's usually: navigation on the left and/ or top, content following after; it's much faster to "skip ahead" with eye focus. Especially when you optimize white space in a way to make it easy for the client to focus actual content in the first instant; (eye movement for a web page is not as simple as starting out in the upper left). -- Philipp Lenssen M+R Infosysteme http://www.mrinfo.de