Re: Partially sighted Web user

I pulled this from wai-ig to discuss here in more detail.  It regards
designing pages to reduce need to do horizontal scrolling.

Potential thing to check for in ERT.

I'd suggest a placeholder.  In general, I'd like to see placeholders for
things that we don't have techniques for so it's all in one place.

Len


>From: Al Gilman <asgilman@iamdigex.net>
>Subject: Re: Partially sighted Web user
>Sender: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org
>
>Although it may not be obvious to the casual reader, most of the practices
>which gratuitously fix the pixel size of the content - such as using GIFs
>to display text - are discouraged in the WCAG.
>
>As Charles says, there are problems with images where contemporary media
>are not scalable and W3C has SVG under development to help.
>
>However, in the short term I would also suggest that she evaluate Opera for
>her use because it may make enough difference to be worth the change.
>
>Al
>
>At 02:35 PM 10/1/99 +0000, Julie Howell wrote:
>>I have been contacted by a partially sighted lady here in the UK  who is
>using a
>>particular Acorn Archimedes screen magnification system.
>>
>>She is experiencing problems when trying to view some Websites.  She is
>>under the impression that Web designers are able to code Webpages so that
>>horizonal scrolling will never be necessary by users of magnification
>software.
>>Here's what she says in a messasge to me:
>>
>>" Formatting.   I'm still concerned that this issue doesn't seem to be
>amongst
>>the ones you raise with designers.   Yet it's quite crucial for
>>anyone using screen enlargement,  like me.
>>I need to be able to format all text to about 50-character lines,  and a
>resolution
>>width of 440 pixels.   Do you take this into account when advising clients?
>>Some sites reformat automatically,  giving me line
>>lengths that fit my screen.   Others have a fixed
>>line length,  which makes me have to scroll across,
>> which is very bad for my eyes :-(
>>Can you add automatic reformatting to your
>>desired parameters,  please?"
>>
>>My response to this lady so far has been that I didn't believe it was
>possible to
>>fix the width of pages without the use of tables (which then causes
>problems for
>>other Net users).
>>
>>Doesn't all magnification software (such as Zoomtext) require horizontal
>>scrolling?  Is is realistic to expect all Web designers to put text with
>fixed-width
>>tables/frames (I think not!).
>>Am I missing something?  Or should I advise this lady that there is
>nothing that
>>can be done to help her and she should get some new software (which she is
>>very reluctant to do)?
>>
>>Thanks and best wishes
>>Julie Howell
>>Campaigns Officer (Access to Digital)
>>RNIB
>>JHowell@rnib.org.uk
>> 
>
>
>
-------
Leonard R. Kasday, Ph.D.
Institute on Disabilities/UAP, and
Department of Electrical Engineering
Temple University

Ritter Hall Annex, Room 423, Philadelphia, PA 19122
kasday@acm.org        
(215) 204-2247 (voice)
(800) 750-7428 (TTY)

Received on Friday, 1 October 1999 16:58:55 UTC