Web Accessibility Anyone?

Thanks very much for your help.

I will look out for a 2nd hand braille display. See what I find.

I live in England. Rehabilitation here is very much under funded so there is no chance of getting anything like that from them. I've aplied to charities in the past and have actually had a braille display from them that way when I used to function as almost totally blind. Now I have enough useful vision to use Zoomtext x8 I don't fancy my chances of anyone paying for me.

Hope you don't mind me asking,
what is rehabilitation like where you live? did you have rehabilitation services to help you learn to use the braille display with internet or did you have to figure it out by yourself? I'm curious as I have a friend who is totally deafblind and she can't figure out how to use the internet. She said she was shown a few times but lost confidence when her computer kept crashing.
 
Back when I was in chicago, we had the Guild for the Blind, which offered computing classes in JAWS and window-eyes, if I recall correctly. The services around here are available, but I just.. never saw reason, personally. I'm a learn by doing folk. :P

I figured out jaws by myself. There's oodles of sets of instructions online that help you figure out navigation tricks that save you time, like typing "e' to get to an edit box instead of wading through the entire page, ect. once you learn some basic keystrokes, figuring out the braille display (noting, this one -is- an older model, no fancy navigations) is as simple as testing out the very limited navigation keys on the device, reading it's manual, ect. I learned over time, eventually (and slowly) switching over from big fonts -> zoomtext -> braille as my vision got worst.
 
That's good. Your probably smarter then me to understand all that computer jargon. I just wished they would use plain english.


Since you've done both Zoomtext and braille displays would you say that Braille is much harder then zoomtext?

I did manage to surf the net with Zoom after failing with the braille display I used to own but then again the braille display arrived at a bad time when I was suffering from mental health problems. Also I had assistance when I first started using the supernova package at the public library. I very quickly adapted to the zoomtext from that.

Thanks again for introducing me to that service that turns PDF files into txt. I have now used it to access files which were previously unaccessable for me. It's great thanks :ty:
 
I'm glad the adobe site helped. I used to download courses from MIT's open course ware and it made me want to chuck my laptop through a window when all the lecture notes were in pdf format. I discovered that and fell in love. :)

To answer your question:

zoomtext is much easier to -learn- to use. It's pretty much install and select the power you need.

Braille displays require some learning at first (something I don't think should take casual web users more than a month or so to get down, especially for those who are already very good with braille)

Your speeds at first probably will be considerably slower than whatever you work with in Zoomtext, unless you happen to run it above 9-10x, in which case it's comparable or faster during the first few uses. You'll finally start experiencing -really- inaccessible web sites probably more than you did with zoomtext, which can be a disadvantage.


On the other end, reading documents or even books through sites like bookshare.org is made super easy. I found this one godsent, as I stopped having to deal with the ever popular "paper jammed" my printer loves to inform me of.

For many people, zoomtext is the ideal option (because they don't want to deal with navigating braille, can't hear/don't like listening to content, or just because they have enough usable sight for that to be clearly better) But for alot of others I know who started using readers and braille displays over magnification, the answer is a strong "I wish I'd stopped clinging to my vision a long time ago."
 
Aleser said:
I'm glad the adobe site helped. I used to download courses from MIT's open course ware and it made me want to chuck my laptop through a window when all the lecture notes were in pdf format. I discovered that and fell in love.
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I know the feeling. I got a little anoyed with a certain site that said they were committed to make things more accessable to VI visitors then had a lot of their information just on PDF (although they used to have the information on both PDF and normal internet pages.

I have however found one PDF file was to big to be translated. I just got a message saying it was too big. Is there anyway round very large PDF files? It's great for most of them though.

Braille displays require some learning at first (something I don't think should take casual web users more than a month or so to get down, especially for those who are already very good with braille)
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I was thinking about a totally deafblind friend who doesn't currently use the internet as she had bad experience with computer crashing when she last tried. She's intelligent although, like me, may have problems understanding computer jargan. If she put her mind to it, would it be possible to learn to use the internet, just with a braille display?

Your speeds at first probably will be considerably slower than whatever you work with in Zoomtext, unless you happen to run it above 9-10x, in which case it's comparable or faster during the first few uses. You'll finally start experiencing -really- inaccessible web sites probably more than you did with zoomtext, which can be a disadvantage.
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I use 8x magnification. In good lighting I have quite a lot of useful vision. I do have a very limited field of vision though. Which is probaby why I'm registared blind rather then partially sighted.




On the other end, reading documents or even books through sites like bookshare.org is made super easy. I found this one godsent, as I stopped having to deal with the ever popular "paper jammed" my printer loves to inform me of.
Click to expand...

I've not come across bookshare. I'll have to check it out though. My Juliet Pro doesn't jam as it's on one of those tracter things which means it needs special paper but it's got it's advantage as the paper doesn't keep needing to be changed. I can just let it get on with the job and do other things.

For many people, zoomtext is the ideal option (because they don't want to deal with navigating braille, can't hear/don't like listening to content, or just because they have enough usable sight for that to be clearly better) But for alot of others I know who started using readers and braille displays over magnification, the answer is a strong "I wish I'd stopped clinging to my vision a long time ago."
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I can very much relate to that as I was a bit like that when I first regained some of my sight. I'm afraid I actually sent the braille display I had back as I thought now I can see It should be given to someone without useful vision which was very nobel but extremely stupid of me I think. At one point I didn't even think I would be needing a guide dog any more, but walking without a dog or cane takes me quite a bit of concentrated effort. I know as that's how I was getting about when Jilli was off the harness but then I decided to start using my cane again and I walk much faster now.
 
I wouldn't know about large pdf files. Sorry.

As to answer the question about your friend, yah, I think she can do it. Having a friend who could initially help her read/understand the guides might be of use, though. It doesn't even need to be someone who's aware of assistive tech things, just someone with moderate computer skills.

I would suggest she start out with little steps, like first trying to write something in windows "notepad" (which for me, at least, requires typing winkey+p+a+n to get to) and saving them to -desktop-. To save a file you hold down control and the S key at the same time. You can tab around the box and use your arrow keys to navigate the dropdown box from there. To get back to your desktop, you want to hold down the "windows" key and "m" at the same time, and then you can use the arrow keys to move around.

Beyond that, there are some VERY easily accessible sites. For example, BBC NEWS | News Front Page would -only- require her to move up and down using either the arrow keys on her keyboard (at least in jaws-, although some braille displays have their own program to use instead, which i wouldn't know how it works) or the navigation bars that are below her thumb (usually) on a braille display, and hit enter to read articles.

To get to that, you'll want to hit the "windows key" and then i. Wait a little for internet explorer to load. Then you hold down "control" and "l" at the same time and type that address in. Hit enter, and you're ready to go.

As for the computer crashing, could it just be a problem with the computer? If so, she could take it into some computer repair shop and have them check it out.

I really think there's no excuse for there to not be easily accessible classes in using these programs. For -any- deafblind person, computers can become an incredibily useful medium in anything from being able to read the mornings news to emailing a friend to stay in communication. Some computers especially designed for the blind (pacmates) even can have a pedestrian GPS that gives you spoken or braille instructions when you're going around the city. That can't replace a cane/dog, but when you're in an unfamilar area, being able to figure out where food, a specific office, a park, ect is can be really useful- especially if you have difficulty communicating with others.
 
Aleser said:
I really think there's no excuse for there to not be easily accessible classes in using these programs. For -any- deafblind person, computers can become an incredibily useful medium in anything from being able to read the mornings news to emailing a friend to stay in communication. Some computers especially designed for the blind (pacmates) even can have a pedestrian GPS that gives you spoken or braille instructions when you're going around the city. That can't replace a cane/dog, but when you're in an unfamilar area, being able to figure out where food, a specific office, a park, ect is can be really useful- especially if you have difficulty communicating with others.
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I totally agree with this. It is a shame that blind and deafblind people aren't incouraged to use computers more. Here in England, I don't think a lot of these charities have their priorities right. There used to be a national rehabilitation centre which I thought was really good but the RNIB let it close down :pissed:
 
When setting up your page, put ALL of the formatting in CSS. If you have a common header, footer and/or navigation section, put them in <include>. Using CSS and <include> any changes you make to these, will change the whole site making it easy to maintain/update the site. Use HTML/HTML only for content. DON'T USE TABLES for formatting, use CSS.
 
dreama said:
I find too much graphics a problem. I have also difficulty reading PDF files. Is there any other deafblind here that can manage PDF. If so how do they do it? (Without using speech as I'm profoundly deaf).

When I first went on line I was also bothered by poor contrast and font styles. However I've since found a way round that by using the accessablility options on "internet options".
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I'm deafblind and use a Braille display. I also have trouble with graphical information and hidden links on websites and find them to be a real pain. :rl: I also have difficulty accessing PDF files and would much prefer that they be presented in text-only format. It would also be nice if websites had a more consistent presentation so that I don't have to wonder how text information will appear from one site to the next.
 
Aleser said:
I really think there's no excuse for there to not be easily accessible classes in using these programs. For -any- deafblind person, computers can become an incredibily useful medium in anything from being able to read the mornings news to emailing a friend to stay in communication. Some computers especially designed for the blind (pacmates) even can have a pedestrian GPS that gives you spoken or braille instructions when you're going around the city. That can't replace a cane/dog, but when you're in an unfamilar area, being able to figure out where food, a specific office, a park, ect is can be really useful- especially if you have difficulty communicating with others.
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I couldn't agree with you more Aleser. :gpost:

I have a BrailleNote 32 BT with GPS that I've used for the past several years and it has been invaluable to me by enabling me to use Braille realtime captioning in my university classes. It has also permitted me to ride the bus independently even though I could not hear stops when they were called out by the driver. Finally, my BrailleNote allows me to know if a taxi driver is taking me in the wrong direction so I can avoid being overcharged. (I've had some drivers insist I can't know where I'm going just because I'm blind.) I also know of other deafblind people who use a BrailleNote QT for communication purposes and this has allowed them to communicate with sighted-hearing people without the need for an interpreter.

Something else that I think needs to be addressed is the extremely high cost of adaptive technology. Many of us can't afford screen readers, Braille displays, notetakers and GPS systems ourselves, so it would be nice if the manufacturers of these devices created a payment plan so that they can get in the hands of more people who could benefit from them.
 
Hear Again said:
Something else that I think needs to be addressed is the extremely high cost of adaptive technology. Many of us can't afford screen readers, Braille displays, notetakers and GPS systems ourselves, so it would be nice if the manufacturers of these devices created a payment plan so that they can get in the hands of more people who could benefit from them.
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I completely agree. The cost of voiced adaptive equipment is insane, but once you add braille, it's just way out of what any random joe can afford. In the end, I think that creates a terrible circle in that people cannot buy the equipment that might prove to employers that they're just as good workers as anyone else. I think it would be really helpful if they have a different price if an agency is paying versus the user paying.
 
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