Dear List:
I understand that the web accessibility initiative (wai) from www.w3.org/wai/
gives guidelines on making web sites accessible to screen readers. As shown
below, is zero pixel gif considered part of the WAI approach, or is it really
an alternative? If someone is looking to make their web site accessible, what
is a good web site to go to that describes this zero pixel gif? Thanks.
Regards: Ted Larson
sPORTS – Blind Baseball Fan Hits Homerun with Website Accessibility
Brian Charlson is a big Red Sox fan. He loves going to the games and
listening to the play by play when he can't make them. Accessing the
stats, however, proved to be very difficult for him due to his
blindness. Now, having been urged by Brian and blindness advocates,
this week the MLB has added accessibility options to all of its
websites in order to make the information entirely available to the
blind community.
Brian always felt that baseball, perhaps more than other sports,
appeals to blind people because of the relative simplicity of the
events involved in the game. "It's a sport where the play by play can
make sense to a blind person. You've only got the pitcher, batter and
fielder. With only three people to keep track of at any one time, it
is a lot easier to keep track of than say, football," he said.
Brian and another visually impaired friend of his had gone on a trip
to see eight baseball games in six cities. They had made all of the
plans over the internet, like buying tickets and reserving hotel
rooms, and if they were stuck, resorted to making phone calls to clear
up any last minute loose ends. What bothered them, though, was that
they really couldn't access any of the material on the MLB sites so
they could study the stats of the different teams they were going to
visit.
As many of you know, screen readers dictate everything on the page,
even the underlying code of pictures and advertisements, which can
make the internet a confusing mess. With the MLB, their site was
filled with sponsors' advertisements, videos, and game pictures that
created a labyrinth for them to work through. The site was
unfortunately quite useless to them.
With the help of other blindness advocacy organizations, Brian
approached the MLB and, to his surprise, they were not only eager to
help him, but made it a priority and worked very quickly to find a
solution. "We've never experienced that, where we didn't have to hold
someone's toes to the fire," he said.
Now, the MLB site has what is called a zero pixel gif that is
virtually invisible to sighted people using the site, but that is
detected by screen readers instantly upon access. The feature is
inaccessible to point and click users, but his screen reader
recognizes it as a link and allows him access to content specifically
formatted for screen readers. This feature offers full navigation of
all the material on the site to blind fans without the need to
significantly alter the site that sighted users visit. Its simplicity
is a thing of beauty, really. Brian now feels that the MLB has made a
huge leap, not just in making their own site accessible to blind
users, but by showing other companies and organizations that the same
can be done without costly modification to their existing setups.
Because of the MLB's willingness to help out Brian, he was
successfully able to vote for the All-Star game for the first time.
Next year, he's going to approach the NFL in hopes they'll be equally
willing to help out.
Good luck, Brian. We wish you the best.
To read the original article, please go to
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/newton/2010/02/blind_sox_fan_gets_mlb_to_even.html
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