Web Accessibility Anyone?

jomanila · 07-22-2006, 05:13 PM

Let's discuss about web accessibility from the point of view of a deaf person. I know most of the time, this topic is geared towards visually challenged people. What do the deaf community think about this?

By the way, I am Jojo Esposa, a hearing person although I have been working for the deaf since 1991. The website of our school Manila Christian Computer Institute for the Deaf in the Philippines at www.mccid.edu.ph passed the accessibility standard set by www.cynthiasays.com and validated by w3c.org, the international web standards commission using xhtml 1.0 strict. I am also the only one in our country that is a member of Guild of Accessible Web Designers of UK.

Hey guys, what is your idea about this? Are we affected by this or not? Recent developments from google labs has created an accessible search engine. This means, websites that are accessible rank higher than those that not. I know that deaf loves flash animation, or anything that are flashy. But are you amenable for web accessibility? Care to comment?

GraysonPeddie · 07-22-2006, 06:20 PM

Font size is very important and when you adjust the font size in Internet Explorer (View > Text Size), then this will depend on how they format their documents. Some developers lock font size to specific size and some do not.

There are some web developers who use absolute positioning for thier websites -- bad idea. By setting View > Text Size > Largest, there can be text that can overlap text boxes, but keep in mind that locking text size aren't a very good option. Why use absolute positioning wheras you can use a flow layout for adding in div tags, tables, etc.

Here's another thing: Presentation layer should be seperated from code layer. What do I mean by this? You can't use headers for paragraphs and menus. Headers can serve as a title, section, subsection, etc. This is why those who are blind and use a Braille display for tactile reading will find it confusion that paragraphs are enclosed with headers but they shouldn't.

Overall, HTML are used to represent text to the screen, along with showing images, etc. and table are used for representing data, so you might want to use div for title of main page, menu, etc. For images, you will need to include an alt="" attribute. Here's a difference between when you add a smiley with alt="" attribute and a smiley without an alt="" attribute as posted via an image tag.

An image with alt="" attribute:

An image without alt="" attribute:

So an image with an alt="" makes it more accessible to those with screen readers than an image without an alt="" attribute in an image tag. Just mouse over the two images (the "owned" image) to see a difference.

jomanila · 07-23-2006, 05:40 AM

Thanks Grayson. I am quite familiar with the alt text and the font size. That is why I encourage web developers to use cascading style sheets instead of locking the font sizes. That way, presentation is separated from the commands. Are you blind too right? But how about those who are only deaf? Are they amenable to it? I am also an advocate of accessibility for all not just for the disabled sector.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GraysonPeddie

Font size is very important and when you adjust the font size in Internet Explorer (View > Text Size), then this will depend on how they format their documents. Some developers lock font size to specific size and some do not.

There are some web developers who use absolute positioning for thier websites -- bad idea. By setting View > Text Size > Largest, there can be text that can overlap text boxes, but keep in mind that locking text size aren't a very good option. Why use absolute positioning wheras you can use a flow layout for adding in div tags, tables, etc.

Here's another thing: Presentation layer should be seperated from code layer. What do I mean by this? You can't use headers for paragraphs and menus. Headers can serve as a title, section, subsection, etc. This is why those who are blind and use a Braille display for tactile reading will find it confusion that paragraphs are enclosed with headers but they shouldn't.

Overall, HTML are used to represent text to the screen, along with showing images, etc. and table are used for representing data, so you might want to use div for title of main page, menu, etc. For images, you will need to include an alt="" attribute. Here's a difference between when you add a smiley with alt="" attribute and a smiley without an alt="" attribute as posted via an image tag.

An image with alt="" attribute:

An image without alt="" attribute:

So an image with an alt="" makes it more accessible to those with screen readers than an image without an alt="" attribute in an image tag. Just mouse over the two images (the "owned" image) to see a difference.

GraysonPeddie · 07-23-2006, 04:28 PM

I'm blind on my left eye, but have vision on my right eye, but not perfect.

For the deaf, I'd say include captions for what the sound makes and for audio "podcasts" like if you're listening to what the speaker are saying through the microphone, a transcripts (a transcript contains everything what the speaker are saying, like closed caption in TV) must be included for those who are hearing impaired (I'm hearing impaired) or deaf.

isulong seoph · 09-23-2006, 05:37 AM

IBM supports usability and accessibility and they are having this programing contest, creative and new development to support internet usability and the website is located IBM Accessibility Center | Overview

macus · 09-25-2006, 06:37 AM

Thanks for the information guys. I'm actaully looking for a little research aroung the same topic. I'm currently doing a course at Banbridge Tec in N.ireland and we are researching Usability Guidelines, OS enhancments, Specialised Software, Input/ Output devices and existing enhanced websites. We have to gain information for all. We also have to find a person who is impaired and ask them about problems they might have encountered/ confusion that might have happened. Visual perception on sites or memor constaints.

any more information that you could shed would be much appreciated.

Thank You

Mark

rhr · 09-25-2006, 05:18 PM

Press hold SHIFT + ALT + Print can biggest fonts and color than IE's larger fonts
for only Windows 2000, 2003, XP, Vista and future but not support Windows 95, 98 and ME

you like it if not like press "setting" choose it and done

if you like it

people don't like it don't worry press SHIFT + ALT + Print back nmrmal

P.S. if you have Norton, Macfee, Defender can't change color, SHIFT+ALT+PRINT will work Color any Norton, MacAfee, etc...!!
but Start->Setting->Control Panel->Accessibility won't work, but only Shift+ALT+Print work!

deafskeptic · 10-03-2006, 05:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GraysonPeddie

I'm blind on my left eye, but have vision on my right eye, but not perfect.

For the deaf, I'd say include captions for what the sound makes and for audio "podcasts" like if you're listening to what the speaker are saying through the microphone, a transcripts (a transcript contains everything what the speaker are saying, like closed caption in TV) must be included for those who are hearing impaired (I'm hearing impaired) or deaf.

Yeah I love transcripts for news and that is very useful and when I design my websites, I try to make it accessiable to all and I'll test my sites using the Mac verision of Lynx so I know if it works for the blind.

When I use graphs, I like to leave a link for the blind so they can click on that and get a text verision of it.

zeroality · 10-13-2006, 01:30 AM

I doubt a blind person will be coming to my Pokemon site any time soon but I am interested in ranking better in Google.

Can you provide some sort of article to back up your statement about more accessible websites being ranked better?

BelgianSheepDog · 10-13-2006, 11:16 AM

I am deaf and sometimes, Web sites play music, sounds or whatever. My hearing dog alerts me to any wierd sounds .... however, if Chance (dog) is outside, my husband will complain about my choice of music . ...

so there needs to be some visual clue there is sound . . .

zeroality · 10-13-2006, 03:41 PM

There usually is, look around on the screen for what looks like media player controls and hit the 'stop' button.

Some also have it as a link, a box or a drop down menu.

And yet others are just stupid and embed background music. That's probably not a site that you want to be visiting in the first place.

jomanila · 01-07-2007, 12:25 PM

Like to up this thread. Anyone having difficulty accessing popular web sites?

Aleser · 04-06-2007, 06:49 AM

zeroality, don't make such an assumption- we're interested in and view pretty much any website you might.

As to the general of the topic, Deaf users could experience inaccessible content in many forms. Not captioning sound would be a clear one. If much of your sites audience is Deaf or HOH viewers, including videos in the local sign language could also be a valuable tool to web access, for those who English is not their first language. That's pretty much all I can think of.

dreama · 05-27-2007, 02:09 PM

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".

webexplorer · 05-27-2007, 10:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dreama

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".

My Apple computer has a Universal Access preference to let you to zoom in big texts and graphics without a difficult reading. For hearing impaired, the screen will flash you in one second to let you know such like a beep sound instead.

I am pretty sure that your IBM PC has the universal access or a disability preference.

Aleser · 05-28-2007, 04:57 AM

dreama, using the in-pdf zooming feature might help, as I know zoomtext does a shit job at it. However, setting zoomtext to yellow on black might help for some, depending on your level of visual impairment.

Also, one can convert a pdf back to plain text, which will allow you to format it as needed. it's on adobes site somewhere, i'd suggest you google it.

JAWS and other screen readers are not a world closed off if you're deaf- i'm going to assume you read braille, and investing in a decent 20 or 40 cell display could help you a great deal. I find it irreplaceable for long reading tasks. No more wrist-strain from dragging zoomtext around at 10! newer style braille displays can have some confusing navigations, but older styles can and often do only have 6 or 8 braille keys and a few navigation ends- it takes some effort to learn navigation within jaws, that's without a doubt true, and getting used to the display , but once you do - it can be a valuable tool.

hope that helps.

***VamPyroX*** · 05-28-2007, 05:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GraysonPeddie

Font size is very important and when you adjust the font size in Internet Explorer (View > Text Size), then this will depend on how they format their documents. Some developers lock font size to specific size and some do not.

There are some web developers who use absolute positioning for thier websites -- bad idea. By setting View > Text Size > Largest, there can be text that can overlap text boxes, but keep in mind that locking text size aren't a very good option. Why use absolute positioning wheras you can use a flow layout for adding in div tags, tables, etc.

Here's another thing: Presentation layer should be seperated from code layer. What do I mean by this? You can't use headers for paragraphs and menus. Headers can serve as a title, section, subsection, etc. This is why those who are blind and use a Braille display for tactile reading will find it confusion that paragraphs are enclosed with headers but they shouldn't.

Overall, HTML are used to represent text to the screen, along with showing images, etc. and table are used for representing data, so you might want to use div for title of main page, menu, etc. For images, you will need to include an alt="" attribute. Here's a difference between when you add a smiley with alt="" attribute and a smiley without an alt="" attribute as posted via an image tag.

An image with alt="" attribute:

An image without alt="" attribute:

So an image with an alt="" makes it more accessible to those with screen readers than an image without an alt="" attribute in an image tag. Just mouse over the two images (the "owned" image) to see a difference.

That's one good example. I agree.

When making websites, there should be pictures AND text.

If it's picture that's showing text, be sure to have a text back-up.

dreama · 05-28-2007, 07:16 PM

Thanks Aleser.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aleser

Also, one can convert a pdf back to plain text, which will allow you to format it as needed. it's on adobes site somewhere, i'd suggest you google it.

Where? Could you provide me with a link?

Quote:

JAWS and other screen readers are not a world closed off if you're deaf- i'm going to assume you read braille, and investing in a decent 20 or 40 cell display could help you a great deal. I find it irreplaceable for long reading tasks. No more wrist-strain from dragging zoomtext around at 10! newer style braille displays can have some confusing navigations, but older styles can and often do only have 6 or 8 braille keys and a few navigation ends- it takes some effort to learn navigation within jaws, that's without a doubt true, and getting used to the display , but once you do - it can be a valuable tool.

hope that helps.

Yes. I do read braille. It's my prefered medium. I have thought a lot about getting a braille display. I've had them in the past. What puts me off though is the cost mainly as they are very expensive. They are also rather fragile. Especially when you share your home with other animals.

What system do you use?

Aleser · 05-29-2007, 05:55 PM

http://www.adobe.com/products/acroba...linetools.html
That will allow you to convert to html or txt, I'd suggest html for zoom and txt for braille.

I primarily use an ALVA display. I haven't had many problems aside from a few stuck braille keys that were (mostly) very easily serviced. I use JAWS as my screenreader with that. I have windows XP (home, I think) One thing to consider: sometimes, you can get them ALOT cheaper used. I've seen pacmates with 20 cell displays go on ebay for 500usd, which is really, really cheap. Also, push to get funding through your local rehab departments. I can understand the struggle to keep up with the prices- I've done my share of "You said that cost -how- much?!" with some of those nicer 80 cell deals.

webexplorer · 05-29-2007, 07:49 PM

Dreama -

Here is the link that you are looking for:

How to set Accessibility features for people who are blind or who have low vision in Windows XP

Hope that helps.

P.S. I never heard of the ALVA that Aleser recommended. I hope that it is a good one. It is not for me, but for others I will tell them about it.

dreama · 05-29-2007, 07:50 PM

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.

dreama · 05-29-2007, 07:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by webexplorer

Dreama -

Here is the link that you are looking for:

How to set Accessibility features for people who are blind or who have low vision in Windows XP

Hope that helps.

P.S. I never heard of the ALVA that Aleser recommended. I hope that it is a good one. It is not for me, but for others I will tell them about it.

Aleser · 06-01-2007, 04:56 AM

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.

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.

dreama · 06-01-2007, 04:08 PM

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

Aleser · 06-02-2007, 08:28 AM

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."

dreama · 06-02-2007, 04:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aleser

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.

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.

Quote:

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)

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?

Quote:

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.

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.

Quote:

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.

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.

Quote:

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."

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.

Aleser · 06-02-2007, 06:21 PM

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.

dreama · 06-11-2007, 07:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aleser

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.

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

BelgianSheepDog · 08-02-2007, 02:18 PM

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.

Hear Again · 08-03-2007, 04:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dreama

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".

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.

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.

07-22-2006, 05:13 PM	#1 (permalink)
jomanila Registered User Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 32	Web Accessibility Anyone? Let's discuss about web accessibility from the point of view of a deaf person. I know most of the time, this topic is geared towards visually challenged people. What do the deaf community think about this? By the way, I am Jojo Esposa, a hearing person although I have been working for the deaf since 1991. The website of our school Manila Christian Computer Institute for the Deaf in the Philippines at www.mccid.edu.ph passed the accessibility standard set by www.cynthiasays.com and validated by w3c.org, the international web standards commission using xhtml 1.0 strict. I am also the only one in our country that is a member of Guild of Accessible Web Designers of UK. Hey guys, what is your idea about this? Are we affected by this or not? Recent developments from google labs has created an accessible search engine. This means, websites that are accessible rank higher than those that not. I know that deaf loves flash animation, or anything that are flashy. But are you amenable for web accessibility? Care to comment?

07-22-2006, 06:20 PM	#2 (permalink)
GraysonPeddie Eye/Hear/Speech Impaired Join Date: May 2006 Location: Tallahassee, FL 32310 Posts: 1,083	Font size is very important and when you adjust the font size in Internet Explorer (View > Text Size), then this will depend on how they format their documents. Some developers lock font size to specific size and some do not. There are some web developers who use absolute positioning for thier websites -- bad idea. By setting View > Text Size > Largest, there can be text that can overlap text boxes, but keep in mind that locking text size aren't a very good option. Why use absolute positioning wheras you can use a flow layout for adding in div tags, tables, etc. Here's another thing: Presentation layer should be seperated from code layer. What do I mean by this? You can't use headers for paragraphs and menus. Headers can serve as a title, section, subsection, etc. This is why those who are blind and use a Braille display for tactile reading will find it confusion that paragraphs are enclosed with headers but they shouldn't. Overall, HTML are used to represent text to the screen, along with showing images, etc. and table are used for representing data, so you might want to use div for title of main page, menu, etc. For images, you will need to include an alt="" attribute. Here's a difference between when you add a smiley with alt="" attribute and a smiley without an alt="" attribute as posted via an image tag. An image with alt="" attribute: An image without alt="" attribute: So an image with an alt="" makes it more accessible to those with screen readers than an image without an alt="" attribute in an image tag. Just mouse over the two images (the "owned" image) to see a difference. __________________ ASL Tutorials: http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/page...t/concepts.htm www.lessontutor.com/ASLgenhome.html ASL Grammar: http://daphne.palomar.edu/kstruxness...les%201-06.pdf ASL Browser: http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/browser.htm www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-layout/signs.htm www.aslpro.com

07-23-2006, 04:28 PM	#4 (permalink)
GraysonPeddie Eye/Hear/Speech Impaired Join Date: May 2006 Location: Tallahassee, FL 32310 Posts: 1,083	I'm blind on my left eye, but have vision on my right eye, but not perfect. For the deaf, I'd say include captions for what the sound makes and for audio "podcasts" like if you're listening to what the speaker are saying through the microphone, a transcripts (a transcript contains everything what the speaker are saying, like closed caption in TV) must be included for those who are hearing impaired (I'm hearing impaired) or deaf. __________________ ASL Tutorials: http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/page...t/concepts.htm www.lessontutor.com/ASLgenhome.html ASL Grammar: http://daphne.palomar.edu/kstruxness...les%201-06.pdf ASL Browser: http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/browser.htm www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-layout/signs.htm www.aslpro.com

09-25-2006, 06:37 AM	#6 (permalink)
macus Registered User Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: N.Ireland Posts: 1	Usability Guidelines Thanks for the information guys. I'm actaully looking for a little research aroung the same topic. I'm currently doing a course at Banbridge Tec in N.ireland and we are researching Usability Guidelines, OS enhancments, Specialised Software, Input/ Output devices and existing enhanced websites. We have to gain information for all. We also have to find a person who is impaired and ask them about problems they might have encountered/ confusion that might have happened. Visual perception on sites or memor constaints. any more information that you could shed would be much appreciated. Thank You Mark

09-25-2006, 05:18 PM	#7 (permalink)
rhr Registered User Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 883	Press hold SHIFT + ALT + Print can biggest fonts and color than IE's larger fonts for only Windows 2000, 2003, XP, Vista and future but not support Windows 95, 98 and ME you like it if not like press "setting" choose it and done if you like it people don't like it don't worry press SHIFT + ALT + Print back nmrmal P.S. if you have Norton, Macfee, Defender can't change color, SHIFT+ALT+PRINT will work Color any Norton, MacAfee, etc...!! but Start->Setting->Control Panel->Accessibility won't work, but only Shift+ALT+Print work! __________________ ЯHR

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09-23-2006, 05:37 AM	#5 (permalink)
isulong seoph Registered User Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 2	IBM supports usability and accessibility and they are having this programing contest, creative and new development to support internet usability and the website is located IBM Accessibility Center \| Overview

10-13-2006, 01:30 AM	#9 (permalink)
zeroality Registered User Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 29	I doubt a blind person will be coming to my Pokemon site any time soon but I am interested in ranking better in Google. Can you provide some sort of article to back up your statement about more accessible websites being ranked better?

10-13-2006, 11:16 AM	#10 (permalink)
BelgianSheepDog Registered User Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: VA Posts: 34	I am deaf and sometimes, Web sites play music, sounds or whatever. My hearing dog alerts me to any wierd sounds .... however, if Chance (dog) is outside, my husband will complain about my choice of music . ... so there needs to be some visual clue there is sound . . .

10-13-2006, 03:41 PM	#11 (permalink)
zeroality Registered User Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 29	There usually is, look around on the screen for what looks like media player controls and hit the 'stop' button. Some also have it as a link, a box or a drop down menu. And yet others are just stupid and embed background music. That's probably not a site that you want to be visiting in the first place.

01-07-2007, 12:25 PM	#12 (permalink)
jomanila Registered User Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 32	Like to up this thread. Anyone having difficulty accessing popular web sites?

04-06-2007, 06:49 AM	#13 (permalink)
Aleser Woosh. Yes, Woosh. Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 669	zeroality, don't make such an assumption- we're interested in and view pretty much any website you might. As to the general of the topic, Deaf users could experience inaccessible content in many forms. Not captioning sound would be a clear one. If much of your sites audience is Deaf or HOH viewers, including videos in the local sign language could also be a valuable tool to web access, for those who English is not their first language. That's pretty much all I can think of. __________________ "She thinks... she can make people do what she wants or needs, what is right, by the sheer force of her own talent, not by forcing them... she can teach them and persuade them... that they'll catch it from her. This is still faith in their rationality, in the omnipotence of reason. The mistake? Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them."

05-27-2007, 02:09 PM	#14 (permalink)
dreama deafblind vegan Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: England Posts: 3,018	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". __________________ I speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. http://www.fightfoca.com/

05-28-2007, 04:57 AM	#16 (permalink)
Aleser Woosh. Yes, Woosh. Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 669	dreama, using the in-pdf zooming feature might help, as I know zoomtext does a shit job at it. However, setting zoomtext to yellow on black might help for some, depending on your level of visual impairment. Also, one can convert a pdf back to plain text, which will allow you to format it as needed. it's on adobes site somewhere, i'd suggest you google it. JAWS and other screen readers are not a world closed off if you're deaf- i'm going to assume you read braille, and investing in a decent 20 or 40 cell display could help you a great deal. I find it irreplaceable for long reading tasks. No more wrist-strain from dragging zoomtext around at 10! newer style braille displays can have some confusing navigations, but older styles can and often do only have 6 or 8 braille keys and a few navigation ends- it takes some effort to learn navigation within jaws, that's without a doubt true, and getting used to the display , but once you do - it can be a valuable tool. hope that helps. __________________ "She thinks... she can make people do what she wants or needs, what is right, by the sheer force of her own talent, not by forcing them... she can teach them and persuade them... that they'll catch it from her. This is still faith in their rationality, in the omnipotence of reason. The mistake? Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them."

05-29-2007, 05:55 PM	#19 (permalink)
Aleser Woosh. Yes, Woosh. Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 669	http://www.adobe.com/products/acroba...linetools.html That will allow you to convert to html or txt, I'd suggest html for zoom and txt for braille. I primarily use an ALVA display. I haven't had many problems aside from a few stuck braille keys that were (mostly) very easily serviced. I use JAWS as my screenreader with that. I have windows XP (home, I think) One thing to consider: sometimes, you can get them ALOT cheaper used. I've seen pacmates with 20 cell displays go on ebay for 500usd, which is really, really cheap. Also, push to get funding through your local rehab departments. I can understand the struggle to keep up with the prices- I've done my share of "You said that cost -how- much?!" with some of those nicer 80 cell deals. __________________ "She thinks... she can make people do what she wants or needs, what is right, by the sheer force of her own talent, not by forcing them... she can teach them and persuade them... that they'll catch it from her. This is still faith in their rationality, in the omnipotence of reason. The mistake? Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them."

05-29-2007, 07:49 PM	#20 (permalink)
webexplorer I'm listening to everyone Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: New England Posts: 4,505	Dreama - Here is the link that you are looking for: How to set Accessibility features for people who are blind or who have low vision in Windows XP Hope that helps. P.S. I never heard of the ALVA that Aleser recommended. I hope that it is a good one. It is not for me, but for others I will tell them about it.

05-29-2007, 07:50 PM	#21 (permalink)
dreama deafblind vegan Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: England Posts: 3,018	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. __________________ I speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. http://www.fightfoca.com/

06-01-2007, 04:56 AM	#23 (permalink)
Aleser Woosh. Yes, Woosh. Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 669	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. 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. __________________ "She thinks... she can make people do what she wants or needs, what is right, by the sheer force of her own talent, not by forcing them... she can teach them and persuade them... that they'll catch it from her. This is still faith in their rationality, in the omnipotence of reason. The mistake? Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them."

06-01-2007, 04:08 PM	#24 (permalink)
dreama deafblind vegan Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: England Posts: 3,018	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 __________________ I speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. http://www.fightfoca.com/

06-02-2007, 08:28 AM	#25 (permalink)
Aleser Woosh. Yes, Woosh. Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 669	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." __________________ "She thinks... she can make people do what she wants or needs, what is right, by the sheer force of her own talent, not by forcing them... she can teach them and persuade them... that they'll catch it from her. This is still faith in their rationality, in the omnipotence of reason. The mistake? Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them."

06-02-2007, 06:21 PM	#27 (permalink)
Aleser Woosh. Yes, Woosh. Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 669	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. __________________ "She thinks... she can make people do what she wants or needs, what is right, by the sheer force of her own talent, not by forcing them... she can teach them and persuade them... that they'll catch it from her. This is still faith in their rationality, in the omnipotence of reason. The mistake? Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them."

08-02-2007, 02:18 PM	#29 (permalink)
BelgianSheepDog Registered User Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: VA Posts: 34	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.

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