> http://www.usability.com.au/resources/ozewai2005/ > > I wonder whether any of the conclusions that were drawn in the study, > are still valid, or whether there has been further research to either > supplement or contradict it? Specifically, one observation, "The > majority of screen reader users EXPECT navigation to be presented before > the content." [1], and the subsequent statement " Our research showed no > clear overall PREFERENCE of source order" [2], seem to lead me to > believe that there is no real reason to attempt to have layouts with the > source order first. Rather than attempting to put content first (which > seems to confuse inexperienced screen reader users [3]), I would be > attempting to put structural labels, as suggested in [4]. > > I'd be interested to hearing from people with actual experience, and or > research, since all my conclusions are arrived at second-hand.
Hi Rahul, The full article to support the presentation you have linked to is here: http://www.usability.com.au/resources/source-order.cfm While no further research has been undertaken by Roger, Lisa or I in this specific area, we are still working with blind users regularly. In fact, I have been sitting watching blind users today. What struck us during testing last year, and has been confirmed on many occasions since, is that: 1. Source order is often irrelevant as most screen reader users and refreshable Braille device users [1] have a variety of ways that they can move around pages quickly (skipping to heading levels, links, forms, form elements, as well as tabbing quickly through content and doing direct searches for content on the page). The concept of "top" and "bottom" of pages often becomes irrelevant. 2. Well structured content is a VERY important aid for blind users as it allows them to use their preferred method of moving around the page. Poorly structured pages often do not allow this to occur. 3. Assistive markup in forms and tables is also vital. The testing carried out today confirmed this with blind users having a great deal of trouble filling in forms due to poorly labelled input elements (or in some cases no labelling at all). 4. Structural labels are not critical but are quite helpful as they flag sections of the page. They act almost like street signs, allowing people to know where they are within the pages content. One quick test for all of this is simply to turn off all styles and read the content of your (unstyled) page. Does it make sense to you? Is the content running together? Are headings helping to break the content into meaningful chunks? The second quick test is to then tab around the page with the keyboard only and see how hard it all is to use. :) HTH Russ [1] http://www.flickr.com/photos/russweakley/58957885/ ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
