Norman L. DeForest
2005-05-01 20:29:43 UTC
[quoting trevor's original post without comment with alt.comp.blind-users,
alt.disability.blind.social and alt.html.web-accessibility added to the
distribution.]
Question, should followups be to alt.www.webmaster where the thread
started or would alt.html.web-accessibility be more appropriate (and
put some life back into that newsgroup)? No followups currently set.
alt.disability.blind.social and alt.html.web-accessibility added to the
distribution.]
Question, should followups be to alt.www.webmaster where the thread
started or would alt.html.web-accessibility be more appropriate (and
put some life back into that newsgroup)? No followups currently set.
well, some folks liked the last post so i'll try and feed info in as our
thoughts come together.
FIRST OFF: we're looking for more blind websurfers to participate in this
project. please put out the word. not blind people who want to be
websurfers, present day blind websurfers.
the primary objective of this project is to create a website that can be
read and navigated as easily for the sighted as for the blind. we've
already run into trouble with the issue of calling things "visible" to
blind people and how they "see" webpages. i've decided to work it this
way: the blind speak in terms of "seeing" and "how things look" because
they are relating in metaphorical terms to the way the world is for "most
of us". we will resolve this on the benefit of the user: they get to talk
about how it "looks" and we get to talk about how it "looks" to them. for
this project, we'll use terms like "photo-visible" or "photo-visual
quality" to distinguish our visual experience from those of sightless
persons.
we've done some discussion and are preparing some tests. we've got the
idea that textual navigation is like_totally_key and we learned about
skip navigation, which, to recap, are text links that supply a sort of
top-level navigation for the page.
the base reference site is www.dataSpheric.com. surfing our site, the
blind user is forced to listen to the navigation and all the self-
congratulatory "preamble" text beneath. it get's old fast.
1. page title
2. linked banner with alt text
3. skip links indicating navigation, "preamble" and main content
4. the nav and "preamble" then content
5. "back to top" links at every paragraph bottom and page bottom
6. "back to nav" link at page top
by using this format on every page, we hope to provide "audible
landmarks" that will be consistant from page to page so that users can
orient themselves quickly on any page in the site.
this will be especially important with inline links or named anchors,
which may plop the user down in the middle of a page. the user will
hopefully trust that all they have to do is make it to the end of the
paragraph, then they can click to top, then click to nav and reorient.
since "Site Map" is a ubiquitous element in our nav, and since this site
map is semmantically rather than visually organized, our demographic can
theoretically apprehend the entire site structure and navigate easily.
we'll also experiment with content-skip navigation such as we commonly
see in a linked table of contents at page tops. we think this is right
inline with where it's going, not only as a navigational aid, but as a
verbal semmantic introduction to page content.
we'll try a blend of links visible to the sighted as well as hidden links
especially for the sightless. these may be achieved by placing text links
the same color as the background. we'll ignore potential SEO impact of
this for now.
we expect to learn several things in this first experiment: to verify the
idea that semmantic organization is the equivalent of visual organization
for the sightless, to test the functionality of alt text and photo-
invisible links for this purpose and learn to what extend "what is good
for disabled persons is good for users in general", a prevallent theme in
the standards community.
we also have to resolve the issue of CSS-drawn images. highly fasionable
as a standards-based technique, this is rendering ALT text impractical,
forcing us to consider "stacking ALT texts" or some other method.
effective ALT text can make use of many other sensual descriptions. our
Section 508 page at www.dataSpheric.com/services/508/ features a flag
image to which we attached the ALT "The flag of the United States Of
America fluttering and snapping in the breeze of a clear sky." of course,
the "appearance" of the American flag has little significance for a blind
person unless they have palpated the shapes in their rellative position
in 3 dimmensional space. we do, however, evoke the sensory experience of
experiencing the flag in auditory terms and a bit about the setting which
may evoke associations with sunshine or a pleasant environment.
copywriting for the blind: sentence headings should be complete sentences
WITH PERIODS AT THE END otherwise some speech-recogs will treat it as
part of the next sentence. use commas liberally, commas are respected by
speech recognition software with a slight delay, preserving the rhythmic
flow of sentences. commas are your friend. quotes and other characters
are not interpolated, they are stated. thus, "trevor is a rock-star" may
be read as "open quote trevor is a rock hyphen star end quote". other
special characters and especially snippets of HTML code sound like utter
hell on speech-recog but can be made much better with commas. as such,
<p>hello</p> can read
lessthanpgreaterthenhellolessthanforewardslashpgreaterthan or it can read
lessthan p greaterthan hello lessthan forewardslash p greaterthan. also,
SHOUTING DOESN'T WORK. words in uppercase are usually interpreted as
acronyms: S-H-O-U-T.
you know, i might just as well set up a blog for this. anywho, TTYL,
trevor
thoughts come together.
FIRST OFF: we're looking for more blind websurfers to participate in this
project. please put out the word. not blind people who want to be
websurfers, present day blind websurfers.
the primary objective of this project is to create a website that can be
read and navigated as easily for the sighted as for the blind. we've
already run into trouble with the issue of calling things "visible" to
blind people and how they "see" webpages. i've decided to work it this
way: the blind speak in terms of "seeing" and "how things look" because
they are relating in metaphorical terms to the way the world is for "most
of us". we will resolve this on the benefit of the user: they get to talk
about how it "looks" and we get to talk about how it "looks" to them. for
this project, we'll use terms like "photo-visible" or "photo-visual
quality" to distinguish our visual experience from those of sightless
persons.
we've done some discussion and are preparing some tests. we've got the
idea that textual navigation is like_totally_key and we learned about
skip navigation, which, to recap, are text links that supply a sort of
top-level navigation for the page.
the base reference site is www.dataSpheric.com. surfing our site, the
blind user is forced to listen to the navigation and all the self-
congratulatory "preamble" text beneath. it get's old fast.
1. page title
2. linked banner with alt text
3. skip links indicating navigation, "preamble" and main content
4. the nav and "preamble" then content
5. "back to top" links at every paragraph bottom and page bottom
6. "back to nav" link at page top
by using this format on every page, we hope to provide "audible
landmarks" that will be consistant from page to page so that users can
orient themselves quickly on any page in the site.
this will be especially important with inline links or named anchors,
which may plop the user down in the middle of a page. the user will
hopefully trust that all they have to do is make it to the end of the
paragraph, then they can click to top, then click to nav and reorient.
since "Site Map" is a ubiquitous element in our nav, and since this site
map is semmantically rather than visually organized, our demographic can
theoretically apprehend the entire site structure and navigate easily.
we'll also experiment with content-skip navigation such as we commonly
see in a linked table of contents at page tops. we think this is right
inline with where it's going, not only as a navigational aid, but as a
verbal semmantic introduction to page content.
we'll try a blend of links visible to the sighted as well as hidden links
especially for the sightless. these may be achieved by placing text links
the same color as the background. we'll ignore potential SEO impact of
this for now.
we expect to learn several things in this first experiment: to verify the
idea that semmantic organization is the equivalent of visual organization
for the sightless, to test the functionality of alt text and photo-
invisible links for this purpose and learn to what extend "what is good
for disabled persons is good for users in general", a prevallent theme in
the standards community.
we also have to resolve the issue of CSS-drawn images. highly fasionable
as a standards-based technique, this is rendering ALT text impractical,
forcing us to consider "stacking ALT texts" or some other method.
effective ALT text can make use of many other sensual descriptions. our
Section 508 page at www.dataSpheric.com/services/508/ features a flag
image to which we attached the ALT "The flag of the United States Of
America fluttering and snapping in the breeze of a clear sky." of course,
the "appearance" of the American flag has little significance for a blind
person unless they have palpated the shapes in their rellative position
in 3 dimmensional space. we do, however, evoke the sensory experience of
experiencing the flag in auditory terms and a bit about the setting which
may evoke associations with sunshine or a pleasant environment.
copywriting for the blind: sentence headings should be complete sentences
WITH PERIODS AT THE END otherwise some speech-recogs will treat it as
part of the next sentence. use commas liberally, commas are respected by
speech recognition software with a slight delay, preserving the rhythmic
flow of sentences. commas are your friend. quotes and other characters
are not interpolated, they are stated. thus, "trevor is a rock-star" may
be read as "open quote trevor is a rock hyphen star end quote". other
special characters and especially snippets of HTML code sound like utter
hell on speech-recog but can be made much better with commas. as such,
<p>hello</p> can read
lessthanpgreaterthenhellolessthanforewardslashpgreaterthan or it can read
lessthan p greaterthan hello lessthan forewardslash p greaterthan. also,
SHOUTING DOESN'T WORK. words in uppercase are usually interpreted as
acronyms: S-H-O-U-T.
you know, i might just as well set up a blog for this. anywho, TTYL,
trevor
--
">> consider moving away from Front Page...."
">To what? Any suggestions?"
"Naked bungee-jumping. It's less humiliating <g>"
-- Matt Probert in alt.www.webmaster, March 20, 2005
">> consider moving away from Front Page...."
">To what? Any suggestions?"
"Naked bungee-jumping. It's less humiliating <g>"
-- Matt Probert in alt.www.webmaster, March 20, 2005