[real-eyes] Re: Blind Americans demand Web access; Target fights back
- From: "Reginald George" <sgeorge@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 05:46:46 -0600
Well Jim, you are a smart cookie. I wanted to send the printer friendly
link to this very interesting article so folks could read it all from the
same page but, as you already knew, it won't work unless you start from the
actual article page itself. Everyone remember to look for the print link on
pages with articles like this to give yourself a happy reading experience.
We can't paste in the direct printer friendly link to an E-mail in this case
because the page relies on a script to paste the article into the plain text
format when you click on it.
Here's the last side bar from that article with thirteen quick tips for
making sure your web site is accessible.
Can the blind, and other disabled people, use your Web site?
Here are 10 quick tests to check accessibility:
1
Make sure informational images (like your organization's logo) have
alternative text. Place the cursor over the image. A box should appear with
a brief,
accurate description.
2
Check decorative images for alternative text. If the image has no function
other than to look nice, it should not have any alternative text.
3
"Listen" to audio and video content with the volume turned off. This is the
situation faced by a deaf person. Make sure your Web site supplies written
transcripts
for all audio content.
4
Make sure forms are accessible. Each item in a form should have a prompt
text. When you click on the prompt text, a flashing cursor should appear in
the
box next to the text.
5
Check that text can be resized. In Internet Explorer go to View>Font
size>Largest. If the text does not increase in size, your site may be
inaccessible
to users with low vision.
6
Check your Web site in the Lynx browser. This is a text-only browser. If a
site makes sense in Lynx, it probably fulfills many accessibility
guidelines.
7
Use your Web site without a mouse. If you can't navigate your site using
just tab, shift-tab, and enter, then neither can people using only a
keyboard or
voice recognition software.
8
Make sure there is a site map
9
Make sure alternative text associated with links make sense out of context.
Blind users often jump from one link to the next with the tab button.
10
Check your Web pages with an automated program, such as
WebXACT
or
Wave.
11
Use ASCII text that screen access software can convert to speech or Braille.
12
Provide meaningful text labels for hypertext links. Labels like "click here"
aren't good enough.
13
Make sure tables and multi-column text does not prevent screen access
software from rendering pages in an intelligible and useful manner. Even
sophisticated
screen access software has trouble with tables that contain many columns,
such as bus and train schedules.
Source: Webcredible, London
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