Teach a man to fish....
Wednesday, 30 January 2008
I once used the phrase “Teach a man to fish” in a Web Accessibility presentation. I have been ridiculed ever since! This phrase was used in the context of teaching users how they can adapt / customise their browsers, software and tools to improve their user experience. A simple example is teaching visually impaired users how to increase the text size in a browser.
Here is an post from Accessify which discusses this matter further: http://accessify.com/news/2007/09/teach-a-man-to-fish-or-how-to-resize-text/
Posted byCharlie M at 02:22 0 comments
Accessible = Ugly ?
Tuesday, 29 January 2008
This is a great post from Andrew Faulkner which discusses the common myth that Accessible design means boring, unattractive web pages.
http://fadtastic.net/2008/01/15/accessible-can-be-beautiful/
Posted byCharlie M at 04:46 0 comments
Social Networking vs Accessibility
Monday, 28 January 2008
Social Networking. Most of us use some form of social networking tools. In fact, according to Kath Moonan, AbilityNet’s Senior Accessibility and Usability Consultant, the “UK participation in social networking is the highest in Europe with around 80% of the online population now making over 25 million visits a month”. However, sites such as Facebook, Myspace, YouTube and Bebo to name but three are not Accessible to all. This is the main focus of the new report written by AbilityNet (LINK : http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/docs/enation/2008SocialNetworkingSites.doc). Ironically, it is possible that the users that are excluded, may be some of the users who will have most to gain from social networking online.
Users may not be able to sign up for an account due to the use of CAPTCHA’s (discussed in previous post), then if they can actually log in, are faced with an array of the most basic accessibility problems. Most of the issues can easily be remedied.
I will not spill the content of the report for you here, but please follow the link above and see for yourself.
I will leave you with a short quote from the report:
“We would like to ask the operators of these sites to look at some of the key factors governing disabled access, namely: the reduction of the amount of CAPTCHA and the provision of an intelligible audio alternative; user-friendly support for those experiencing access problems and lastly, adherence to what is, after all, the law.”
Posted byCharlie M at 13:25 0 comments
Second Life is now too important not to be accessible
Sunday, 13 January 2008
Here is a link to an interesting article about the accessibility of secondlife. I must admit, Ive been on secondlife and I have attended talks/demos/seminars on secondlife. However, I still do not see the point. Perhaps I'm still missing something. I can, to some extent, understand the social networking aspects, and also the game-like exploration it allows. But for business? Can you really live off an income from secondlife? I suppose only time will tell.
Very large corporations are investing a vast amount of time and money producing a secondlife presence. This surprises me. I have always found the secondlife experience slow, tiring and prone to crashing. It is the last place I would part with my well earned cash.
Anyway enjoy the article: http://www.it-director.com/blogs/Abrahams_Accessibility/2007/12/second_life_is_now_too_important_n_.html
Posted byCharlie M at 13:36 0 comments
Web Accessibility sites...not Accessible
Monday, 7 January 2008
This comment by Dennis Lembree on the WebAxe site tickled me...
Call me picky, but it sure bothers me when web page articles about web accessibility are not accessible themselves. Talk about bad credibility...
For example, the article Web Accessibility. . . Making your Pages Friendly to People with Disabilities is dreadful. Just by glancing at the main text, several issues are apparent:
- Insufficient color contrast. That dark gray text on a black background just don't work!
- Text size is too small; text may be difficult to resize in some browsers. Absolute sizing (pixels) are used in the CSS instead of relative sizing (ems, percentage).
- No sub headings in the content, and the content is not divided into "manageable groups".
- The links are not linked--just written out; and with obnoxious spaces also. For example: Academy of Web Specialists (http://www . onlinewebtraining.com / courses.html)
Posted byCharlie M at 13:52 0 comments