RE: A different approach for web page accessibility

Thank you for the suggestions.

I am interpreting these as general usability tips.  They make things easier.
The Web Content guidelines are focused on how _not_ to make the content
_unusable_ by people with disabilities.  These two ideas are closely
related, but not exactly the same.

If you read the document carefully, you will find that all of these ideas
are represented there, aside from the search suggestion.  This is a good
idea but is considered a server capability outside the scope of the web
content.  That raises a good point for us to think about.

Al 

At 10:43 AM 3/28/99 -0500, you wrote:
>There are a few different ways that you can help make accessing web data
>easier.
>
>1. You could make you web pages shorter.  A good size page is 640 x 480.
>This eliminates a lot of scrolling down the page to get to the good stuff.
>2. You good provide .doc and .pdf links that will allow the person to
>download the data to their own computer.
>3. You could put some hyper links to different items within your page.
>(Example:  If you have a page on cars, you could have a link to each type of
>car at the top of you page.  This will also help people get the data
>quickly.)
>4.  You could put some search features on your page to help people quickly
>locate items.
>
>I hope these suggestions help.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:	w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org] On Behalf
>Of Al Gilman
>Sent:	Sunday, March 28, 1999 10:06 AM
>To:	Scott Luebking; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
>Subject:	Re: A different approach for web page accessibility
>
>Some background for people interested in this technique:
>
>Checkpoint 13.6 as found in
>
>  Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
>
>  http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/#gl-facilitate-navigation
>
>is intended to address the same need that this technique addresses.  We
>need to flesh out the techniques in this area, both in terms of HTML
>techniques such as the internal bypass link found at <http://www.acb.org>
>and user-agent techniques such as skip-block.
>
>Scott, can you write the script so that it edits the page, such that if the
>script doesn't run one leaves in place an HTML fragment containing an
>explicit skip-link and if the script does run one replaces this with an
>active widget offering a minimized navbar?
>
>Al
>
>At 07:03 PM 3/27/99 -0800, Scott Luebking wrote:
>>Hi,
>>A complaint that I've heard from various blind web page users is that
>>they often have to read through all sorts of navigation links before
>>they can get to the "meat" of the page.  This means that they can
>>be less efficient than their sighted counter-parts.  (Since
>>I'm of the school of thought that accessibility must include
>>efficiency, I believe that this is an important aspect to consider
>>for web page accessibility.)
>>
>>Dynamic HTML is becoming more popular for web pages.  I figured it might be
>>interesting to use dynamic HTML to improve the efficiency of blind
>>people navigating through a web page.  By incorporating features
>>of dynamic HTML, I re-wrote one of BART's web pages so that the navigation
>>bars are invisible.  This means that there are much fewer links to read
>through.
>>Two links are provided to show the navigation bar.  One shows a graphic
>>version while the other shows a text-only version.  If you would like
>>to take a look at this version of the web page, the URL is:
>>
>>  http://members.aol.com/criptrip/alt_bart_page.html
>>
>>There are some interesting benefits to the approach.  The page becomes
>much simpler
>>to read for blind people and people with certain types of learning
>>disabilities.  More screen real estate is freed up.  The pages are easier
>>to write since less effort is needed to find visually pleasing ways

>>to include links.  The pages can look less clutered.
>>
>>There might be some problems to this approach.  Some screenreaders
>>are not up to handling dynamic HTML.  Some non-disabled may not want
>>to do an extra mouse click to see the navigation bar.  Lynx users may have
>>a problem with dynamic HTML.
>>
>>Let me know what you think.
>>
>>Scott
>>
>

Received on Sunday, 28 March 1999 11:26:26 UTC