Re: Accessible On Line Chat Application

Hi Jon,

> University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign has developed a web 
> based interface to the IRC chat system.  You are free to try 
> it and let me know what you think.

THanks for that.

OK, I can see what they are doing, basically one single page that is 
either refreshed manually or automatically every two minutes.

How does it come out via a screen reader or other assistive technology 
- I would imagine there would be issues with the new messages being 
tacked on at the end of the list and no way to jump to them.

I would be inclined to be more flexible with the refreshing, allowing 
the user to set the refresh rate.

I know many aren't keen on the use of frames, but what are the veiws of 
the panel here on the use of frames in this instance with one frame for 
the latest messages, one frame for posting messages and then a third 
listing the people involved in the chat?

The reason I am keen on frames is that helps reduce the server load a 
fair bit if you have several chat sessions running at once with several 
people involved in each session.

Cheers,

Julian Voelcker
Cirencester, United Kingdom

Received on Wednesday, 26 October 2005 15:58:48 UTC