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Subject:Re: ADA guidelines for website design From:AlQuin <cbon -at- WXS -dot- NL> Date:Wed, 28 Oct 1998 07:30:08 +0100
On 27-10-1998 15:38 Laura J. Lockhart wrote:
>Intranet, and it never crossed my mind that the web pages should be coded =
>to accomodate users with impaired vision or hearing. Though it's not a =
../..
> present and future, have full access to our intranet. If there's anyone =
>out there with experience in the fine points of this matter, I'd be =
>interested in hearing your suggestions and/or recommended references.
Apart from labelling graphics, some things to keep in mind are:
Don't misuse tables to split text into newspaper-style columns; trying to
read them with a screen reader is difficult because the user usually
winds up hearing one line of the first column followed by one line of the
second column. Sighted people also find it hard to read paragraphs in
columns when the text is on a screen rather than on paper.
Don't misuse tables to set a fixed line-length for paragraphs. This can
result in pages where the user has to scroll horizontally to read the
text, and while this is very annoying to sighted users, it's much worse
for blind users who are using speech or Braille.
Don't do anything that would inhibit the viewers from setting fonts,
colors and window widths the way they prefer. Partially sighted users
will usually want to use large fonts and high-contrast colors. If you
want to suggest a color scheme, be sure to specify all five color options
(text, bgcolor, link, alink and vlink); if you specify some, but not all
of them, parts of your page may become invisible if the user selects his
own colors.
A good test of accessibility is to look at your pages with image loading
turned off and read them out loud going strictly from left to right and
top to bottom. If they make sense that way, then screen-reader users
should be able to access them without trouble.
For more information on this matter I refer to Cari Burstein's Any
Browser pages at
www.anybrowser.org/campaign/
Regards
Kees de Bondt
AlQuin Total Quality
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documentaire communicatie
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Maak alles zo eenvoudig mogelijk, maar niet eenvoudiger... (Einstein)
