All, first I must apologise for the cross posting of this note. I feel very strongly abut it and wanted it to reach the widest possible audience. I am a member of the Hertfordshire Society for the Blind and attended it's A.G.M. on 17th November. One of the activities at this event was the launch of their new web site on www.hertsblind.com on that day.. It was very difficult at this time to fully review the site, but I did so when I got back to a PC with full access to a screen reader, in my case Window-eyes. I found that the site was not properly accessible to people using a screen reader, in fact an issue which was known about and published on the site itself. That day I pointed out, in e-mail, the access problems with the site and requested that something be done abut it urgently. Despite protestations from the senior staff of HSB that they had taken the needs of visually impaired people into account and that they would fix the site the issue is not being dealt with in the manner which I would expect. Today I was notified that it may be corrected by the end of January. I am sorry, but the message that this gives out is that the needs of visually impaired people who use the internet are very much secondary to some other greater need. I find this totally unacceptable from a body designed to help visually impaired people. I am told that the HSB does not have vast funds and so cannot do what larger charities do with their web sites; a very cursory inspection of the site would show that the access changes required are not great, but would then enable it to be useable. For a reason I do not understand HSB have been advised that the site builder requires a new piece of software in order to make it compatible with screen readers and that this will need to be learnt before it can be put in place. I don't buy this excuse! Some examples of the issues on the site (which I have informed HSB about): On many pages, if not all there are what I take to be links to other information which are not accessible. These are the usual navigation links. They have been set up with a graphical link rather than what I believe is the standard kind of link which screen readers can use. On the front page Window-Eyes reports 5 links, where I believe there are in excess of 22 on it. It is actually fairly difficult for a user with a screen reader to Comment on the site as the link to the Contact Us and Comments sections are not accessible. There are a number of documents which can be downloaded for subsequent use. They appear to be some sort of protected Word document. Once downloaded, due to the protection you cannot use the cursor to navigate around them. Some access is available with a virtual mouse, but that is far from properly accessible. A PDF document would have been much better. It would be nice if the site were to make a little more concession to Its VIP readers and accommodate changing of font size and colour to allow for easier reading for those with some sight. By means of this e-mail I would hope that the HSB would receive a greater deal of lobbying in order to make their site accessible in a more acceptable time frame. Regards, John. John Farley Personal Contact Work contact Phone : 01442 259243 01442 437731 Mobile: 07815 056076 07785 928755 Fax : 01442 437909 E-Mail: john_farley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx john.farley@xxxxxxxx *********************************************************************** ** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:- ** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe] ** If this link doesn't work then send a message to: ** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ** and in the Subject line type ** unsubscribe ** For other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the ** immediately-following link:- ** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=faq] ** or send a message, to ** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the Subject:- faq