[bcab] Re: More accessible google, possibly

Phil, I've just tried a quick experiment comparing the accessible Google with the regular one.I searched in both cases for IT job search UK, which seemed like the sort of workaday search a lot of people might want to do. The test was - how would the sites Google found in each case work with the simpler screen readers, Thunder and System Access.

Without labouring every detail, yes, the results were quite different, with JobSite at the top of the accessible search and something I'd never heard of at the top of the regular one. The accessible search yielded sites I had heard of, and that could be because I'd graduated to them myself as sites that I could use.

JobSite does work remarkably well with both of the screen readers I was using, very well indeed with System Access. So maybe these are the first hints that Google have somehow done a pretty good thing here. It sounds like a horrendous task getting it right, because of the myriad interpretations we blindies have of "accessibility", but it looks quite promising on the strength of this rather folky research!

Vince.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Phil Rigby" <philip.rigby@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: "'BCAB list'" <bcab@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2006 8:50 PM
Subject: [bcab] More accessible google, possibly


Hi,

Something I stumbled across that I thought might interest you. The link
below is to a version of the google search engine which, apparently, applies
algorithms to the results returned from the search and attempts to order the
results from most to least accessible site. I just heard about it so haven't
played with it much. Perhaps someone out there would like to try and let us
know how much of a difference it really makes.

http://labs.google.com/accessible/


Cheers,
Phil.

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