Re: Testing web page accessibility by phone

Hi,

Web developers, like programmers, can do the darndest things.  Programmers
can write code which will be syntactically correct and take ten times
longer to run than needed.  Or they can write syntactically correct code
which is near unintelligble to other human beings, but syntax checkers
can have a hard time determining that it isn't readily understandable.

You should see some of the HTML that students can write which will validate
but creates awful web pages.

Scott

PS  A number of blind people that we've tested have pretty easily
tested web pages while on the phone.  It often is not that dissimilar
from being on the phone with a customer and needing to look up
information to give them using a screen reader.  But like any methodology,
there are probably some people the methodology may not be approrpriate for.

> the kind of validation I am referring to here is inclusive and begins
> with what is usually thought of as validation.  It goes like this.
> Write your pages to speck, validate the pages to make sure they are
> written to speck and while you are writing to speck, include in the
> speck known factors that make pages usable/accessible and when you
> validate the final product, use tools that will check for known
> usability and accessibility factors and also that will allow you to
> examine other issues that may be relevant.
> 
> People are important in the mix too but it all starts with a well laid
> plan and when the users finally test the pages, they should find
> insugnificant things that you may have missed or hadn't thought of but
> that wound not necessarily break the accessibility/usability of the
> pages.  I cannot talk on the phone and test a web page at the same time.

Received on Wednesday, 29 May 2002 21:52:41 UTC