Hi Barney, We have a great deal of experience of user testing with screen readers and magnifiers, and provide testing and training services. I hope this is considered to be on-topic because web standards and semantic markup are very important for screen reader users. In fact they probably benefit more than most other users.
You are only 25 miles from us (we're at Staines, by Heathrow) so you (and anyone else who is interested) are welcome to attend our free demonstration of the JAWS screen reader on Monday 27 November. It starts at 1:30pm and lasts about 3 hours. In conjunction with one of our blind testers I will be demonstrating how screen readers are used, the issues facing their users and some things that can be done to make websites easier to use. There are more details and a booking form at www.accessibility.co.uk/free_jaws_demo.htm but you will need to be quick because there are only 4 or 5 places left. If anyone would like to attend but cannot make it that day we will be running more demos next year (this is the fifth and last this year). Also anyone is welcome to drop in for a chat and a brief demo any time. Steve Green Director Test Partners Ltd / First Accessibility www.testpartners.co.uk www.accessibility.co.uk Barney Carroll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Dear list, Not sure if this is exactly the place to ask, but I am very eager to get any authoritative (and by now, 'authoritative' can be qualified by anybody who's so much as seen one) information on screen readers. I am a css-enthusiastic web designer who sees the value of standards as a concept but does not necessarily bow to baseless trends, and more and more I see potentially brilliant ideas get shot down in the community because of 'standards' zealots who are very keen to violently condemn certain methods of working because of very dim notions of accessibility. While there is always common sense to fall back on, and we are lucky enough to live in a world with such a thing as the w3c, there are times when I become suspicious of accessibility precepts. "You can't do this because screen readers will mess it up" is incredibly common for inexperienced, adventurous web designers, before their imagination and creative approach to code is finally conditioned out of them without their ever being too sure why. Despite the fact I haven't been able to find anyone who has ever used a screen reader, I (have no choice but to) respect the notion that web sites should allow them a seamless, fulfilling, experience. I am obviously not doing this for any practical reward - as I've mentioned I have never had any contact with a screen reader user - for all I care they could not actually exist; but as a challenge to a very pure state of markup, the grail of smooth screen-reader navigation is worth achieving. Only I can never know if I have achieved it, because I can't test it; nor can I find anybody else to test for me, or even pin-point known problems. I think the myth surrounding screen readers is an incredibly bad thing because it fills the community with superstition. A great many otherwise intelligent, adventurous and imaginative potential innovators in the world of web design are completely crippled by this thing that they have no experience of whatsoever - it may as well be imaginary. w3c's accessibility guidelines are highly revered, and for the most part there is good cause for this - and as I've said I am a supporter of the notion of standardisation - but when talking about the precepts of design for the blind, I become very cynical because this stuff is pure idle theory from sighted people. I would love any links to articles/archived polemic/research studies/the appropriate list... If anybody here has actual experience of a screen reader, I would be overjoyed to hear from them. Likewise, if this is wholly irrelevant to this list then please tell me. :) Regards, Barney ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ******************************************************************* ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
