I agree because a accessible page is actually easier to make than a non accessible one. This isn't rocket science on the part of the developer. I don't want people considering accessibility in web development or software development to think we cost more. We don't require more, we require that it's done right the first time. Mary-lee I appreciate what Yahoo has done, but from the looks of the page they just made a cell phone friendly version and called it our accessible page. This really bugs me having to beg and threaten companies to follow standards not to mention the law. I am fighting so hard for accessibility at minimum cost because if we don't educate them then who will. People we need to take our complaints off list and put them in the hands of the people that make the choices. Certified letters work when e-mail is ignored. Sorry for this rat hole but this look at what we did for the blind crap that Yahoo is pushing is BS.
On Dec 2, 2007, at 6:10 PM, Travis Siegel wrote:
Yeah, but my point is, that a properly designed page needs no special versioning to make it accessible. There's no reason these days to maintain two separate versions of the same page. Design the thing properly at the outset, and it's accessible to everyone. I'd think that would be more important than paying double for the same work, not to mention, when pages get updated, guess which one gets done first.And the accessible version gets updated later (if at all)With modern screen readers, web guidelines, and moderately compitent designers, there's absolutely no reason why this blind friendly version of the page should be necessary at all.That's all I'm saying.But as I said before, making such a big deal out of this is going to make folks think that blind users *require* special pages, which is going to make it even harder for us to get them to design their pages properly in the first place. I understand what they did, and yes, perhaps congratulations are in order, but from where I'm standing, this is going to do more harm than good in my opinion.Just an observation, nothing more.Let yahoo have their speech friendly pages, it still won't make me go back there again, their regular pages are so crammed with junk that isn't the least bit useful, I have no desire to wade through to get to the meat of the page, I doubt this new version is a whole lot different, so that means I have no reason to visit.On Dec 2, 2007, at 2:43 PM, MaryLee Perkins wrote:Most web mail pages are a royal pain for screen reader use. Just getting signed in can be a problem. Comcast is possibly the worst I've come across. The people who write the pages have, for the most part, never thought about how a person would use the page if they heard and didn't see the page. When I taught a class in Microsoft Front Page, my students had never heard about alt tags until I explained why they were important for a screen reader user. I just finished a web site for my brother's business www.scootersaroundtown.com , but I didn't write the page, I used a template that Godaddy provided. When I went to check the site with VO, I couldn't read the text that I know is there. The template put in things that I never intended, and I have no control over this. The result is a site that is only partly accessible. I made sure that all the graphics had alt tags, and I tried to leave out any fancy stuff, but... What I think Yahoo is doing is to leave all the fancy glitz for the average folks, and make the classic mail page much more screen reader friendly. I agree that they should have done that in the first place, but let's not nock them for doing it now.MLPClick on the link below to go to our homepage. http://www.icanworkthisthing.comManage your subscription by using the web interface on the link below.//www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover Users can subscribe to this list by sending email to macvoiceover-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxwith 'subscribe' in the Subject field OR by logging into the Webinterface at //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceoverClick on the link below to go to our homepage. http://www.icanworkthisthing.comManage your subscription by using the web interface on the link below.//www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover Users can subscribe to this list by sending email to macvoiceover-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxwith 'subscribe' in the Subject field OR by logging into the Webinterface at //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover
Click on the link below to go to our homepage. http://www.icanworkthisthing.com Manage your subscription by using the web interface on the link below. //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceoverUsers can subscribe to this list by sending email to macvoiceover-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'subscribe' in the Subject field OR by logging into the Web interface at //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover
