Accessibility: Site check

[richard_quick_uk]

Hi,
If anyone's got the time I'd really appreciate any feedback on the
accessibility of this site:
http://www.cata.co.uk/_index.a*sp
I've just re-programmed it to try and make it as accessible as
possible, and it would be really good to get some feedback, especially
from anybody using assitive technology.
Thanks,
Richard

[Alan J. Flavell]

On Tue, 12 Apr 2005, jake wrote:

Future planning... Write the document well, once, and that's all
you ever need to do with it (write it once, not keep correcting or
modifying it, over and over).

Not sure I understand.

FWIW, I interpreted it as "mark up the content for what it is - don't
keep tweaking the markup for every browser development or misfeature".

But if the content needs to change, I wouldn't hesitate to modify it
;-)

[Tim]

Tim wrote:

Is a speech synthesier going to say "12 am" as "twelve ay em", or as
"twelve am" when encountering it in a block of text? Without either
abbreviation markups it's got to guess.
jake <ja**@gododdin.demon.co.uk> posted:

Well, the one I test with will pronounce 12am and 12pm (which is the way
that I tend to write them) as:
twelve-ay-em and twelve-pee-em.
What about when it's separated with a space, as some are apt to do?
That's because the reader recognises the time when it sees it,
especially as 'am' and 'pm' are now part of the language.

Same with telephone numbers . If your reader's rendering engine is
programmed to detect them, then it will speak them in the (natural) way
that you would expect.
Having played with speech synthesisers I tend to find them crude devices.
They can make some assumptions, in some circumstances. But they can only
make assumptions, they don't *know*. They do get things wrong.

I've always found it, particularly in computing, better to take all of the
guesswork out of something, and be explicit. Quite often these things need
data presented in specific ways to work right. Write the data slightly
differently (no spaces, spaced apart, hyphenated, the use or lack of
periods, etc.), and you don't get what you want.

* Even discounting speech agents, some visitors to a page do not arrive
at the start of the page. Sure. I don't think the argument is whether we should or shouldn't mark
up <abbr> and <acronym>, but whether we need to do it every time it
occurs on a page.
Snipping down what I wrote, above, does that emphasise a reason for doing
it for you?

Remember that those few readers that can make anything of <abbr> or
<acronym> do so on an all-or-nothing basis.

Future planning... Write the document well, once, and that's all you ever
need to do with it (write it once, not keep correcting or modifying it,
over and over). Not sure I understand.
Alan guessed it right. Write the document once, as correctly as is
possible to do so, and don't tweak things for the sake of it.

If you mark abbreviations as being abbreviations, then whatever possible
processing is available can be done. Ignore the features, and we're back
at plain text.
For what it's worth, I picked "etcetera" on purpose. The letters are used
in other contexts, such as the /etc/ directory in *ix, where I don't
believe it means etcetera.

Rendering engines would figure this one out by context.

That's if they're able to figure out the context (for example, I see quite
a few grammar checkers that are poor at their job). The author's writing
style would play a significant factor in that ability, and some author's
writing styles are worse than their HTML authoring abilities... And it's
still guesswork. Why make the software have to guess, why make it have to
be more elaborate, just for the sake of laziness.

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[Richard Quick]

kchayka <us****@c-net.us> wrote in message news:<3c*************@individual.net>...

Richard Quick wrote:

kchayka wrote:

Take for example one of my pet peeves:
http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCON...tech-tab-order
Tabindex should *never* be used. Discounting browser support, which is
sketchy, this one can actually create problems rather than alleviate them.

Can you expand on this?

Seems to me I already did that, in some detail.

I just wanted to see if there was anything else of if that was the tip
of the iceberg.

Your first point (use a logical page structure) is a given - I'd never
normally use tabindex if I was coding a site from scratch. But
sometimes I'm asked to improve the accessibility of a site that:
a) is v. complicated in terms of layout/html structure
b) uses a nightmarish lecacy CMS or other backend system
c) has a v. small budget.

Obviously a complete rethink/recode would be great, but if that's not
an option, wouldn't tabindex be better than nothing?

Your third point is easily avoidable if you include the skip-nav link
in the tabindex.

As for the second point I wasn't ware of that, but in my experience
most disabled people are either using a specific aural (or other
access) browser or more likely a screen reader with IE on windows.
(Eg JAWS).

Therefore - in terms of percentages - it's better to help a lot of
JAWS/IE users than help a few mozilla/screenreader users.

Other than the problems you've mentioned
below, are there any other orblems it causes?

If 3 issues aren't enough to convince you there is a problem with
tabindex, what will it take, eh?

[kchayka]

Richard Quick wrote:

in my experience
most disabled people are either using a specific aural (or other
access) browser or more likely a screen reader with IE on windows.
(Eg JAWS).
Contrary to popular belief, accessibility isn't just about using
assistive technology (AT) or accomodating blind users. I am neither
blind nor use AT, but I am primarily a keyboard user (poor manual
dexterity). My browser gives me excellent keyboard navigation without
the need for any extra AT. Tabindex interferes with it.

I'm sure you don't mean to say my disability doesn't count unless I'm
blind, too, eh? That would be mean. :(
Therefore - in terms of percentages - it's better to help a lot of
JAWS/IE users than help a few mozilla/screenreader users.

Hmmm... All indications are that the number using gecko-based browsers
is already higher than those using AT. I won't hazard a guess what
percent of those are keyboard users, but I personally have a hard time
believing that non-AT keyboard users are big WinIE users, considering IE
is pretty lousy at keyboard navigation.

BTW, if JAWS is your main concern, note that it has fairly good keyboard
navigation without using tabindex:
<URL:http://www.visuaide.com/jaws.html#4>

So who does tabindex really help? The 5 people who use non-AT keyboard
navigation and WinIE?

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[Eric Bohlman]

Tim <ti*@mail.localhost.invalid> wrote in
news:4n***************************@40tude.net:

Ref. item (4).
If I'm listening to a paper describing the history of modern Russia,
do I really need 'USSR' to be marked up each time as 'Union of the
Soviet Socialist Republics'?

No, you don't *need* to, always. But...

* It might well be better to have a speech synthesiser read it as "you
ess ess are" rather than try and say "usser" when it encounters it
(they *do* do things like that).

OT humor: see a short story called "Digging the Weans" by one Robert
Nathan; the title actually depends on "USSR" being pronounced as "usser."