Re: CD and Web Accessibility

At 08:14 PM 10/25/2000 , Anne Pemberton wrote:
> >* Provide enough illustration so that a user who is unable to
> >   read the text of the page can at least guess at the functionality
> >   from the graphics with a high degree of reliability
>More than the functionality, the user needs to know what the topic of the
>page is. 

Sorry, I wasn't clear -- I consider "conveying the information about
a certain topic" to be a "function" of a page.

> >* Design to allow navigation via graphics by non-textual users
>The best navigation graphics will have text on them so there is no
>ambiguity. An arrow for "forward" or "back" should have the word "next",
>and "back" on the arrows. The reason for this is a tendency with a lot of
>learning disabled persons to have difficulties with direction. Putting the
>word with the icon "cements in" what is there.

I agree.  In fact, I think icons without text labels are pretty
worthless.  (I read a book about this recently.)

>(Hmmmm... will this re-open the debate on what text in graphics needs to be?) 

AIE

(that's a scream of horror)

> >* When providing "raw information", consider ways to add graphics
> >   to aid in comprehension -- for example, add icons in additional
> >   to textual information in tables
>Good addition, Kynn ...

Thanks!  I could benefit from this myself, if the icon is easy
enough to understand.  (We will need to give people pointers to
good icon references so they know how to make them correctly.)

> >>2) write in the simplist language possible,
> >What sort of guidelines can we write for this?
>Hmmmm.... avoid passive voice, for starters ...

Passive voice should be avoided.

Er, wait.  (Sorry, that's my idea of humor.)

> >* Create a simple summary of content which is longer than (some
> >   measure of length); include this length as both a visible summary
> >   and in the META DESCRIPTION tag for the page.
>Yes, yes, yes ... As a minimum the summary could be a solid sentence as a
>single paragraph, or a moderate paragraph,  preceding and separated from
>the rest of the document perhaps by size, color, etc. 

I've always been frustrated by web sites where I go there and I
can't understand what the site is about by looking.  I believe that
a short paragraph is _vital_ to any well-designed site, even apart
from CD issues.

For example, the Idyll Mountain Internet site (www.idyllmtn.com)
contains a quick summary of what we're about as the first item on
the home page:

      "Idyll Mountain Internet is a Fullerton, California web
       design and hosting company founded in 1995 by Liz and Kynn
       Bartlett."

The rest is just further explanation plus marketing pitch.  (Don't
pick on the lack of graphics please. ;)  We're still working out
the issues now on that!)

I also urged the same for the WAI site and the W3C site, as well
as the HWG site.

>Hmmmmm.... I guess it depends on whether the page is mostly information, or
>mostly access to other sites ... or becomes half and half ... Maybe it's
>because the first use I ever saw of hyperlink (Mac hyperstack) showed an
>instructional text in which all "vocabulary words" were defined wherever
>they appeared in the "glossary" ... and it's rare to find use of glossary
>since the early days of the web ... sadly ... 

Yeah, glossaries are uncommon these days, but they should be used more
often than they are.

Ideally, the situation should work like this:

(a) The web page is encoded with a reference to a glossary page.
     That glossary page has anchors defined which are specific
     words.  This is attached to the main page with a
     <link href="glossary.html" rel="glossary" /> link tag.
(b) The user agent parses the glossary upon loading and creates a
     table of words.  These words are then highlighted using a
     set style -- maybe underline green squiggles -- that let the
     user know they can click (right click, doubleclick, something)
     on the words to go to the glossary page.

That's an ideal solution for me.  In practice, it will take some thought
and consultation with web designers about the best way to present this
information.

> >Now, here's the next topic for us to ponder:
> >      How can we make web interactions -- such as forms, searching,
> >      e-commerce -- more accessible to people who have cognitive
> >      disabilities or reading difficulties?
>Let me think on this and the rest of your questions, and talk to hubby and
>his sister, who both use the web, tho neither has ever made an e-commerce
>transaction, tho each's spouse has ... 

Cool, thanks.

>As to forms, I'm the form filler-outer in the family, whether the form is
>on paper or the web ... tho hubby will do phone menus which I hate ... As a
>high school teacher, I used to discuss with students the merits of marrying
>someone with an different type of dysability ...

Heh. :)  We're going to need to have some way to do various types
of forms, even if it's just checkboxes and text fields, so that we
can make sure we are making them as accessible as possible.

--Kynn

-- 
Kynn Bartlett  <kynn@idyllmtn.com>                    http://kynn.com/
Director of Accessibility, Edapta               http://www.edapta.com/
Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain Internet   http://www.idyllmtn.com/
AWARE Center Director                      http://www.awarecenter.org/
What's on my bookshelf?                         http://kynn.com/books/

Received on Wednesday, 25 October 2000 20:46:33 UTC