Re: not jaws, just inaccessible:Fw: Inaccessible Web sites

I am sometimes amazed at how differently people feel about level of
accessibility of web sites.  It really is amazingly subjective.  For
instance, the http://www.canada.com/Ottawa site has a big image map at the
top (at least as JAWS reads it).  This image map has no labels on the
various links which one could immediately condemn as being utterly
inaccessible.  On the other hand, the names of the files comprising the map,
the files the different parts of the map link to, are very clear and simple.
Therefore, since JAWS reads the text of the main part of the filenames as an
attempt to provide some access to the map, a JAWS user hears a list of quite
clear, lucid links to various parts of the site.  This means that the site
is inaccessible in strict terms, but the work-arounds in JAWS work
startlingly well in this particular case.  The CBC's site is similar.  There
is a lot of map action, and I suspect the map links aren't all repeated
elsewhere on the page.  The maps aren't labeled, but the screen reader
tricks of reading the names of the files linked to are, again, pretty
effective here.  Even the unlabeled graphics indicating that audio is
available are pretty clear in JAWS.

So, as a JAWS user, I don't think WindowEyes has it over JAWS here, but,
even though both screen readers deal as well as they do with these sites,
it's only because of the tricks in the screen readers, and other
combinations of browser and technology would probably fall on their faces at
these sites.

Regards,
Jerry

----- Original Message -----
From: "Aaron Smith" <aaron@gwmicro.com>
To: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Friday, May 24, 2002 9:43 AM
Subject: RE: not jaws, just inaccessible:Fw: Inaccessible Web sites


> I just reviewed these sites with the latest version of Window-Eyes (4.2
Pro
> under XP Pro), and they read well. I'm curious as to what is making these
> sites inaccessible to JAWS users, but not to Window-Eyes users.
>
> >Resent-Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 13:32:43 -0400 (EDT)
> >Reply-To: <wfraser@sympatico.ca>
> >From: "Wendy Fraser" <wfraser@sympatico.ca>
> >To: "'wai-ig list'" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
> >Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 13:32:37 -0400
> >Organization: BWM Virtual Innovations
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> >Subject: RE: not jaws, just inaccessible:Fw: Inaccessible Web sites
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> >
> >Examples I use in my Creating Accessible Web Sites course are any news
> >sites.  Some really good examples (although they are Canadian) are
> >www.canada.com/ottawa, www.cbc.ca, www.canada.com
> >
> >Sports sites are also good examples of inaccesibility,
> >
> >www.nascar.com
> >
> >Hope some of these help,
> >
> >Wendy Fraser
> >Instructor
> >Internet Institutute

Received on Friday, 24 May 2002 10:17:47 UTC