Re: Accessibility Options

Hi Jukka,

On Thu, 14 Nov 2002 10:48:51 +0200, Jukka Korpela wrote:
> They try to solve users' problems with browsing on a per-site (or
> even per-page) basis. If my problem is, say, that the default
> font size of my browser is too big or too small, then I need to
> fix that, or have someone fix it for me. It helps remarkably little
> if different sites have different techniques for fixing such things
> for each site. It takes time and effort to understand how they work
> and to use them, typically even more than learning how
> to change browser settings and change them.

I agree that it is a problem - if only there was some way to identify 
someone's requirements when they visit your site, it would make life a lot 
easier.

We run a site aimed at the UK charity sector that provides facilities for 
charities to setup their own free websites and it's the template for those 
that I am working on at the moment.

We have configured it so that once a user sets their preferences on one of 
the free sites, it will automatically be applied across all of them.  We are 
also hoping in the coming weeks to extend this to our main site.

We have been looking at a way that this can be applied to all sites, but as 
you say it would be easier to educate the users about using their own custom 
stylesheet.

> I'm afraid several speech browsers would read that whenever a user
> visits any of the pages, before getting at the page content.
> It gets a bit boring. If you want to put the full address on every
> page, it's best to make it _last_, even if you decide to use CSS
> positioning to make it appear visually e.g. in the upper right corner.
> Short texts like "accessibility options" at the start of each and
> every page are less distracting, but distracting anyway.

OK, good point, I will try to move the heading layer down the running order 
- also note that the warning will be a once off affair on first visit.

> Besides, on Opera the site http://www.sample.charityskills.net/ does
> not work at all except in "user mode". In "document mode", I get
> huge text size, and "Accessibility Options" (which covers about half
> of the screen) appears as underlined but does nothing when clicked on.
> So there might be some technical problems too.

Thanks for spotting that - hadn't got around to Opera testing yet.

> To some extent, these can compensate for each other, but not very much.
> If the user does not know how to use the browser, he needs _general_
> help for that, not any site-specific help. If he needs a user style sheet,
> it should be written for _general_ use in his browsing.

OK, so are you agreeing that it is a good idea to provide a facility for 
creating a custom style sheet and help on how to use them?

Cheers,

Julian Voelcker

Received on Thursday, 14 November 2002 05:59:50 UTC