Subject: Re: User Testing of Accessiblity Features

What a huge question I have trying to answer by example for years 
always falling short of the goal:

Validate your code.
Use automated accessibility testing.
Meta tags in header with links to accessibility statement help page
A good default error 404 page with a search function with easy tab 
index into the search fields
Alt tags. londesc of images
Tab index order through the page.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Skip Navigation links
Relative Font size percentages or em
Consideration for colour blindness as well blue is the rarest form
Voices for CSS for when they are supported?
Provide an accessibility statement etc etc

http://www.hereticpress.com/Dogstar/Access/index.html#skipnav

Tim

others have written:
Olivier :
you will also have to explain the graphical choises of the website,
because a website that uses sharp lines has not the same emotive
sense that a website that uses round corners...


Alastair
I don't believe so. If you wanted to give a sense of the design of the
site, you would do it once, perhaps something hidden on the homepage.


As a visual designer, if I choose to give a web page round corners and 
bright colors to convey a sense of friendliness and youth, I think it's 
part of the important communication on the page. Even colleagues who 
don't value visual design will be somewhat influenced by a competent  
designer's choices. If those colors and corners are described in text 
anywhere on the page, the fact of their existence is communicated but 
the purpose of their existence isn't conveyed. And that purpose is what 
folks like me are sought after and paid for.

So help me. What would it take for a communicator to convey a sense of 
(at least in this imaginary instance) friendliness and youth to someone 
with limited or no vision? Surely time wasting bits of descriptive text 
may have the opposite effect. Friendliness would be implied by 
usability, I would think. So as a visual designer, how can I ply my 
craft effectively to someone who can't, and perhaps never could, see? 
What sort of additional layers of not verbal information can I use?

The Editor
Heretic Press
http://www.hereticpress.com
Email dogstar27@optushome.com

Received on Thursday, 30 August 2007 15:05:06 UTC