Re: testing Web Page Accessibility in respect to a student essay

Dear Yann Hoog,
The W3C guidelines are really meant for web-designers, so it is not surprising that you found it confusing if you are not a web-designer yourself.  Also automated testing tools are not reliable and can be even more confusing. However there are some simple things you can do yourself to test a website. 1) try to use the site without using your mouse, use the tab key to jump through links and the arrow keys to move up and down the page. 2) Next, if you go into your browser settings you can set it so that images are not displayed (In Internet explorer go to tools/advanced and remove the ticks against “show pictures”). Does the page still make sense?. 3) Next go to tools again and in the general tab select the accessibility button and tick to ignore all the formatting. Tick to format using your own stylesheet and browse your computer for any small text file (it need not be a stylesheet). This will stop the website stylesheet working so now you can “see” the page roughly how a blind person “hears” the page.

The best way, however, is to ask a blind person to use their screen-reader to view the page and let you know what they found. As a management student you should be able to use your “contact” skills to find another student (who is blind) to help.

Good luck
Richard Warren
Userite
http://www.userite.com




From: Yann Hoog 
Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 6:09 PM
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org 
Subject: testing Web Page Accessibility in respect to a student essay



Hello



My name is Yann Hoog and I am a student at the univerity of St.
Gallen, Switzerland, in management & economics. I am currently

writing an essay on a project in order to maybe improve the
accessibility of our online study platform regarding only disabled
people with visual problems. I am not trying to improve our Web Page
because this will considerably increase the area of the study. It is
more likely in my interest to examine the different problems that
could result out of this study.

I have spent a lot of time on the W3C in order to find a way to test
our Web page, called http://www.unisg.ch/, on its accessibility regarding
people with visual disabilities. But I find difficult to understand
all the issues that follow the testing. Indeed I have tried to use an
automatic test but the results are for me very hard to understand,
since I am not an expert. I need to know if the hompage of the University

of St. Gallen meets the guidelines of the WAI or not. If it does not,

I need to be able to explain where there is a lack of conformity and why.

What I am trying to tell you is, could you, if you are the right
person to such a question, indicate me how to quickly and efficiently
test a Web page based on the WCAG 2.0 and how to interpate the
testing?

Kind Regards,


Yann Hoog


Student
Universität St. Gallen, HSG
yann.hoog@student.unisg.ch <mailto:yann.hoog@student.unisg.c