From: "James Leslie" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> : I was shocked to find that only about 10% of blind people in the UK use : screen readers, mainly due to inhibitive costs and the (generally) : complicated set-up involved and learning process. I think the idea put : forward about automatically having sound start was so to help address : that issue. I don't know how the figures are elsewhere in the world but : would be surprised if they were massively different.
You are correct that only about 10% of blind people in the UK use screen readers (and the same is approximately true in the US) You are also correct that screen readers are expensive and hard to set up (in general). But the reason that most of the 90% don't use screen readers is that only 4% of people who are blind have no usable sight. Most people who are blind can in fact read, albeit mostly using somewhat intrusive assistive devices or specially-learned methods such as using peripheral vision. Reading can be tiring and difficult, but they are still reading and most of them prefer to read whenever they possibly can. This is why the number 1 way of improving a web site for a large proportion of blind people is to ensure that you really can increase the font size, indefinitely (not just up a point or so). Caroline Jarrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] 01525 370379 Effortmark Ltd Usability - Forms - Content ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
