Designing sites that visually or audially impaired users can easily use.

Hi there!

Anyone familiar w. design best practices when writing the .html code for website readers for the blind, or website opitmization features for the handicapped?

I just went through a seminar that showed simple workarounds to convert graphics heavy sites into website reader friendly site, by simply adding test labels to the graphics button references in the .html code.. It also showed creating alternative formats for forms and tables that are website reader friendly.

Any and all help would be most appreciated!

GatorDoc

Never done it, but I know some basics (things that you just mentioned). However, if you happen to find some online articles about the subject, please do post the url. I'd be most interested to learn more about this aspect of web design.

- Kimppa

Check out the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative As with a lot of W3C documents, however.. it is not too accessible (no pun intended) to the average reader.

It sounds like you've already taken some steps to work towards this. I could be wrong, but the seminar may've been lazy doctoring up of code that is not accessible to make it easier to figure out for those users with special needs. Unfortunately, while this does SOME good, it doesn't really help as much as one would think.

This is a matter of opinion and personal philosophy at this point.. so I will tell you up front that not everybody agrees on how to do this properly. I will advise you to NOT look at my website in my signature because it currently is the complete opposite of accessible.

To create an accessible site requires an understanding of what HTML is and what it is supposed to be. HTML is a structural markup language. In other words, it is supposed to be used for describing the structure of a document. It is not supposed to be used for presentation, layout and style. One should use style sheets for that sort of thing, with CSS, for example.

For a lot of people, this will require a change in the way they think about web design. When writing HTML code, you must ask yourself about each individual thing.. is this part of the document, structure, or presentation?

Things that are part of the document, of course should go in the html document. Things that are structure are put in there as well. Things that are presentation do not go in the html.. they go in the style sheet.

Font colors, for example.. are presentation, not document or structure. In fact, the FONT tag should not be used at all.. the only thing it's used for is description of presentation.. which does not belong in the html.

Tables should be used for tables. Style sheets should be used for layout. You'll find a lot of disagreement on this very topic. There are two reasons for the opposition (in my opinion) One reason is that the arguer doesn't want to change from doing things the way they've always done it.. and it's always worked just fine for them, why change now? The other reason is a bit more valid.. there is not true support of CSS across all browsers, especially Internet Explorer, which arguably has control of the majority of users.

Anyway.. that's sort of a quick description of an answer to your question. Check out the link at beginning.

Another good resource is http://bobby.watchfire.com, http://deafblind.com and the most important, http://www.delorie.com/web/lynxview.html if you can design a site that works well in the Lynx browser, your on the right track.

At http://uwsag.com we have tried to create a website for both the visually and audibly impaired.

1) We use the [D] Deaf tag to either give an extended description or an alternate form of navigation.

2) We offer a completely different way to view the site, the user can switch the entire CSS to a 'high resolution' (black on white) which is much easier to read

3) We offer a service whereby the text is read to the visitor by clicking a link.

This is a huge issue with us, some of our members are active in schools for the disabled and actually have had our site tested.

Hi folks!

Thanks for the info. It was actually asking about more advanced techniques to code the .html so that those webpage reader software programs would be able to help sightless web users the ability to browse pages. The reader is a software program that scans the .txt underlying .html code. They are good for old style formatted .html static pages, that when you view source, you can see where the buttons are placed, the http link info, etc.. but when these web page readers run into a dynamically generated page, the user is stuck.

GatorDoc,
Would you mind restating what you are looking for? Your last post is a little jumbled, the way I read it. Other than a complete site made from Flash or frames, I can't think of an instance where you couldn't see the source code. No matter how the code is generated, it has to be there for the browser to display it. So... I be confusled.

What you want is not more advanced techniques, but more refined practices. In other words, understand the structure of the document, and work on an understanding of proper HTML 4.01. Understand why deprecated tags are deprecated.
Assuming you have sight, download and install Lynx, or elinks (which are free) and start using these regularly to do all of your web-browsing.




I'm sorry, but several misconceptions and misunderstandings are showing themselves in the above passage. .txt is a file extension, so I am assuming that what you actually meant was "text"; .html is also a file extension, HTML is hypertext markup language.

Also, you should be able to view the source on any webpage. If the page is done in Flash, or Java (not javascript) then you will have some issues, but this does not seem to be the issue.

There seems to be am misunderstanding regarding what is meant by "static" and "dynamically generated". As far as the browser, or the client, is concerned.. these are one and the same. A static page is one that the author has uploaded to the server and is presented to the client. A static page does not change until the author replaces it. A dynamically generated page usually involves some sort of scripting language like PHP that operates server-side. The author uploads a document.. and when the document is called by the client browser, the server processes the document and creates a document which is sent to the browser. Either way, the end-user.. the client browser, receives a document (the endproduct) that could have very well been created by either method.
What I'm saying is that the difference between "static" and "dynamic" does not necessary mean a difference in the end-product (the html document) that would affect its accessibility.

I think perhaps you are confusing DHTML (Dynamic HTML) with "dynamically generated". DHTML is usually, though not always, a combination of HTML and javascript. DHTML can still be accessible, but it will not necessary be as nifty for the blind. If it is done correctly, the HTML part of the document should be able to stand on its own.

Also, most webpage readers process the HTML as well as the underlying text, throwing out the HTML that they don't have any use for. Generally, the stuff that is thrown out is presentational.. or style.. stuff that should be in a style sheet anyway. Stuff that is discarded includes font sizes, font colours, vertical and horizontal alignment and positioning, etc.


Overall, my suggestions are you consider doing the following things:

• Poke around WAI
• Absorb what you can of the HTML 4.01 Specification
• Download and use Lynx or Elinks
• Read the threads on these forums.
• Check out Why Use HTML 4