RE: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities?
The conclusion I am coming to, with 5 days since I asked this and no-one actually saying they do ANYTHING to cater for people with disabilities, is that even after all this time, no one really spends much time thinking about users with special needs, other than to code to standards and hope that does the trick. No one either agreed or disagreed with the proposition that sticking to standards IS in fact enough. I asked this question, wondering if someone would say 'yes we have a usability lab' or 'we have a consultant who runs our sites through his screen reader for us' or 'we have meetings before launch specifically to discuss' or something. But no one has said they do anything at all for users with disability. The only responses I've had to this question are people referring me to documents on line that I found long ago with google. I was interested that none of the people who gave me those URLS (except Josh Street) said they actually used the advice in the documents themselves. Josh wasn't specific about how he caters to people with special needs, but seems to speak with some knowledge so I'm assuming he caters to Dyslexics in his designs. I guess it's going to take another law suit like that one against the Olympics2000 site to get anyone to take users with special needs seriously and actually lift a finger to cater to their needs. The conclusion I'm being forced towards is that developers are basically saying that users with special needs will have to swim for themselves and it's up to them to find some software of their own to get around all the obstacles the A/Bs put in their way. I'm glad at least property developers have been forced to change that attitude. Cheers Mike Kear Windsor, NSW, Australia Adobe Certified Advanced ColdFusion Developer AFP Webworks http://afpwebworks.com ColdFusion 9 Enterprise, PHP, ASP, ASP.NET hosting from AUD$15/month -Original Message- From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Mike Kear Sent: Thursday, 18 August 2011 11:12 PM To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities? How to the rest of you a/b people (i.e. able bodied) cater to users with various forms of disability? Up until recently, I've tended to rely on keeping my code to standards, eliminating tables except for their proper purpose of tabulating data, and hoping that will give the accessibility level required. Do you go to the step of accessing your sites with JAWS or something similar to see how the site works for users with screen readers? I remember in the 1990s when I was working at Australian Consumers Association (choice.com.au) we had someone come and bring his PC with JAWS. The web team all sat in the boardroom getting ever more glum looks on our faces as we saw to our horror how terrible our new design was for this poor guy. We thought we'd got a terrific new design, and were about to launch it, when he did this demo for us. We had to go back and recode everything. This was before anyone was talking about standards though - it was back when the normally accepted method of laying out pages was to use tables, and buttons were nearly always images. I remember being astounded at how fast he was moving around the page, even though we'd unwittingly designed an obstacle course of humungous proportions for him. Our anguish at the time resulted in a far better web site, and convinced me to pay attention to standards and accessibility ever since. But now I'm wondering if simply sticking to standards is enough? What do you all think? Do you include JAWS in your site testing? Cheers Mike Kear Windsor, NSW, Australia Adobe Certified Advanced ColdFusion Developer AFP Webworks http://afpwebworks.com ColdFusion 9 Enterprise, PHP, ASP, ASP.NET hosting from AUD$15/month *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
RE: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities?
Mike, maybe you should have worded your question a little differently. At my company, we don't approach accessibility as catering to users with disabilities, but we work toward making applications accessible to the greatest number of users possible. No application will ever be 100% accessible, but following standards and WCAG 2.0 guidelines helps us to get as close to 100% as possible. To answer your question - Sticking to standards is not enough. Accessibility and usability testing are critical. At my company, we have both an accessibility lab and a usability lab. We have accessibility and assistive technology (AT) experts onsite who test using various AT, and who work with actual AT users to identify issues with applications. We also train designers and developers to identify accessibility issues early in the design and development lifecycle. There are several other companies I know of that are doing the same and so much more, such as Adobe, IBM, Microsoft and Yahoo. As for developers not caring about people with disabilities, I disagree. There is a large community of developers who take accessibility seriously and are striving to make applications accessible to people with disabilities. -Original Message- From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Mike Kear Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 2:54 AM To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: RE: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities? The conclusion I am coming to, with 5 days since I asked this and no-one actually saying they do ANYTHING to cater for people with disabilities, is that even after all this time, no one really spends much time thinking about users with special needs, other than to code to standards and hope that does the trick. No one either agreed or disagreed with the proposition that sticking to standards IS in fact enough. I asked this question, wondering if someone would say 'yes we have a usability lab' or 'we have a consultant who runs our sites through his screen reader for us' or 'we have meetings before launch specifically to discuss' or something. But no one has said they do anything at all for users with disability. The only responses I've had to this question are people referring me to documents on line that I found long ago with google. I was interested that none of the people who gave me those URLS (except Josh Street) said they actually used the advice in the documents themselves. Josh wasn't specific about how he caters to people with special needs, but seems to speak with some knowledge so I'm assuming he caters to Dyslexics in his designs. I guess it's going to take another law suit like that one against the Olympics2000 site to get anyone to take users with special needs seriously and actually lift a finger to cater to their needs. The conclusion I'm being forced towards is that developers are basically saying that users with special needs will have to swim for themselves and it's up to them to find some software of their own to get around all the obstacles the A/Bs put in their way. I'm glad at least property developers have been forced to change that attitude. Cheers Mike Kear Windsor, NSW, Australia Adobe Certified Advanced ColdFusion Developer AFP Webworks http://afpwebworks.com ColdFusion 9 Enterprise, PHP, ASP, ASP.NET hosting from AUD$15/month -Original Message- From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Mike Kear Sent: Thursday, 18 August 2011 11:12 PM To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities? How to the rest of you a/b people (i.e. able bodied) cater to users with various forms of disability? Up until recently, I've tended to rely on keeping my code to standards, eliminating tables except for their proper purpose of tabulating data, and hoping that will give the accessibility level required. Do you go to the step of accessing your sites with JAWS or something similar to see how the site works for users with screen readers? I remember in the 1990s when I was working at Australian Consumers Association (choice.com.au) we had someone come and bring his PC with JAWS. The web team all sat in the boardroom getting ever more glum looks on our faces as we saw to our horror how terrible our new design was for this poor guy. We thought we'd got a terrific new design, and were about to launch it, when he did this demo for us. We had to go back and recode everything. This was before anyone was talking about standards though - it was back when the normally accepted method of laying out pages was to use tables, and buttons were nearly always images. I remember being astounded at how fast he was moving around the page, even though we'd unwittingly designed an obstacle course of humungous proportions for him. Our anguish at the time resulted in a far better web site, and convinced me to pay
Re: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities?
On 2011/08/23 15:11 (GMT) Julie Romanowski julie.romanowski.l...@statefarm.com composed: To answer your question - Sticking to standards is not enough. Accessibility and usability testing are critical. At my company, we have both an accessibility lab and a usability lab. We have accessibility and assistive technology (AT) experts onsite who test using various AT, and who work with actual AT users to identify issues with applications. We also train designers and developers to identify accessibility issues early in the design and development lifecycle. I guess State Farm's definition of accessibility is vastly different from mine. Otherwise, its online banking wouldn't be using text sized in px (12px body on online2.statefarm.com/b2c/mysf/MyAccount) to 40% the size of my browser UI text and 25% the size of my browser's default. And it wouldn't be printing about 12 times the size displayed on screen. I only get about 8 transactions per page printing scheduled payments confirmation lists. -- The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive. Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
RE: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities?
I have to agree with Julie here. Working for the largest UK retailer we pay a lot of attention to accessibility. Currently reviewing http://www.tesco.com/ in response to only five minor issues raised by the RNIB accessibility report. The way we state it is web standards and validation are the first step in creating an accessible site. Though to be fair we struggle with even that as the sites are huge. Personally I'd say any developer (novices excluded) who doesn't give a damn about accessibility should give up coding and focus on design instead. Regards Mike -Original Message- From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Julie Romanowski Sent: 23 August 2011 16:12 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: RE: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities? Mike, maybe you should have worded your question a little differently. At my company, we don't approach accessibility as catering to users with disabilities, but we work toward making applications accessible to the greatest number of users possible. No application will ever be 100% accessible, but following standards and WCAG 2.0 guidelines helps us to get as close to 100% as possible. To answer your question - Sticking to standards is not enough. Accessibility and usability testing are critical. At my company, we have both an accessibility lab and a usability lab. We have accessibility and assistive technology (AT) experts onsite who test using various AT, and who work with actual AT users to identify issues with applications. We also train designers and developers to identify accessibility issues early in the design and development lifecycle. There are several other companies I know of that are doing the same and so much more, such as Adobe, IBM, Microsoft and Yahoo. As for developers not caring about people with disabilities, I disagree. There is a large community of developers who take accessibility seriously and are striving to make applications accessible to people with disabilities. -Original Message- From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Mike Kear Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 2:54 AM To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: RE: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities? The conclusion I am coming to, with 5 days since I asked this and no-one actually saying they do ANYTHING to cater for people with disabilities, is that even after all this time, no one really spends much time thinking about users with special needs, other than to code to standards and hope that does the trick. No one either agreed or disagreed with the proposition that sticking to standards IS in fact enough. I asked this question, wondering if someone would say 'yes we have a usability lab' or 'we have a consultant who runs our sites through his screen reader for us' or 'we have meetings before launch specifically to discuss' or something. But no one has said they do anything at all for users with disability. The only responses I've had to this question are people referring me to documents on line that I found long ago with google. I was interested that none of the people who gave me those URLS (except Josh Street) said they actually used the advice in the documents themselves. Josh wasn't specific about how he caters to people with special needs, but seems to speak with some knowledge so I'm assuming he caters to Dyslexics in his designs. I guess it's going to take another law suit like that one against the Olympics2000 site to get anyone to take users with special needs seriously and actually lift a finger to cater to their needs. The conclusion I'm being forced towards is that developers are basically saying that users with special needs will have to swim for themselves and it's up to them to find some software of their own to get around all the obstacles the A/Bs put in their way. I'm glad at least property developers have been forced to change that attitude. Cheers Mike Kear Windsor, NSW, Australia Adobe Certified Advanced ColdFusion Developer AFP Webworks http://afpwebworks.com ColdFusion 9 Enterprise, PHP, ASP, ASP.NET hosting from AUD$15/month -Original Message- From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Mike Kear Sent: Thursday, 18 August 2011 11:12 PM To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities? How to the rest of you a/b people (i.e. able bodied) cater to users with various forms of disability? Up until recently, I've tended to rely on keeping my code to standards, eliminating tables except for their proper purpose of tabulating data, and hoping that will give the accessibility level required. Do you go to the step of accessing your sites with JAWS or something similar to see how the site works for users with screen readers? I remember in the 1990s when I was working at Australian Consumers
RE: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities?
Sad, but true, Felix. We know State Farm Bank (among other sites/applications) has accessibility issues and are working with the support area to resolve them. Unfortunately, changes like this take time. Unfortunately, there are people in every organization who don't like change, and a couple of people from the bank area have not been open to accessibility fixes. However, as a customer, you may have more power than you think. Let State Farm Bank know about the accessibility issues you are encountering. Email, phone, snail mail...I would be happy to give you the CEO's mailing address and you can contact him directly! -Original Message- From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Felix Miata Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 10:50 AM To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities? On 2011/08/23 15:11 (GMT) Julie Romanowski julie.romanowski.l...@statefarm.com composed: To answer your question - Sticking to standards is not enough. Accessibility and usability testing are critical. At my company, we have both an accessibility lab and a usability lab. We have accessibility and assistive technology (AT) experts onsite who test using various AT, and who work with actual AT users to identify issues with applications. We also train designers and developers to identify accessibility issues early in the design and development lifecycle. I guess State Farm's definition of accessibility is vastly different from mine. Otherwise, its online banking wouldn't be using text sized in px (12px body on online2.statefarm.com/b2c/mysf/MyAccount) to 40% the size of my browser UI text and 25% the size of my browser's default. And it wouldn't be printing about 12 times the size displayed on screen. I only get about 8 transactions per page printing scheduled payments confirmation lists. -- The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive. Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *** *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities?
On 8/23/11 3:53 AM, Mike Kear wrote: Mike Kear http://afpwebworks.com Setting the fonts at user default and ditching Verdana is the first place to start... *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities?
On 8/23/11 12:53 AM, Mike Kear wrote: I guess it's going to take another law suit like that one against the Olympics2000 site to get anyone to take users with special needs seriously and actually lift a finger to cater to their needs. What would that lift a finger actually consist of? I'm specifically curious how that relates to the many individual site developers who certainly don't have a usability lab nor projects budgeted to hire a screen-reader-wielding consultant. The conclusion I'm being forced towards is that developers are basically saying that users with special needs will have to swim for themselves and it's up to them to find some software of their own to get around all the obstacles the A/Bs put in their way. Are you saying that sites designed to web standards are by default full of obstacles? Or that conformance to web standards is simply orthogonal to accessibility? -- Hassan Schroeder - has...@webtuitive.com webtuitive design === (+1) 408-621-3445 === http://webtuitive.com http://about.me/hassanschroeder twitter: @hassan dream. code. *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities?
On 2011/08/23 16:35 (GMT) Julie Romanowski composed: Sad, but true, Felix. We know State Farm Bank (among other sites/applications) has accessibility issues and are working with the support area to resolve them. Unfortunately, changes like this take time. Unfortunately, there are people in every organization who don't like change, and a couple of people from the bank area have not been open to accessibility fixes. However, as a customer, you may have more power than you think. Let State Farm Bank know about the accessibility issues you are encountering. Email, phone, snail mail...I would be happy to give you the CEO's mailing address and you can contact him directly! My account is just over two years old. I'm sure I haven't complained by phone less than 6 times, so please enable me to mail upstream wherever there's any chance to be listened to. Email I've not bothered, as I know how useless that normally is with big business sites. It's probably too late to do any good. Now that its interest on checking rate that attracted me in the first place has dropped to nuisance level, I'm about to find a bank that pays at least 1%. -- The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive. Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities?
I am not part of this conversation and don't understand why I received this e-mail. Ted Knoy On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 11:11 PM, Julie Romanowski julie.romanowski.l...@statefarm.com wrote: Mike, maybe you should have worded your question a little differently. At my company, we don't approach accessibility as catering to users with disabilities, but we work toward making applications accessible to the greatest number of users possible. No application will ever be 100% accessible, but following standards and WCAG 2.0 guidelines helps us to get as close to 100% as possible. To answer your question - Sticking to standards is not enough. Accessibility and usability testing are critical. At my company, we have both an accessibility lab and a usability lab. We have accessibility and assistive technology (AT) experts onsite who test using various AT, and who work with actual AT users to identify issues with applications. We also train designers and developers to identify accessibility issues early in the design and development lifecycle. There are several other companies I know of that are doing the same and so much more, such as Adobe, IBM, Microsoft and Yahoo. As for developers not caring about people with disabilities, I disagree. There is a large community of developers who take accessibility seriously and are striving to make applications accessible to people with disabilities. -Original Message- From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Mike Kear Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 2:54 AM To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: RE: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities? The conclusion I am coming to, with 5 days since I asked this and no-one actually saying they do ANYTHING to cater for people with disabilities, is that even after all this time, no one really spends much time thinking about users with special needs, other than to code to standards and hope that does the trick. No one either agreed or disagreed with the proposition that sticking to standards IS in fact enough. I asked this question, wondering if someone would say 'yes we have a usability lab' or 'we have a consultant who runs our sites through his screen reader for us' or 'we have meetings before launch specifically to discuss' or something. But no one has said they do anything at all for users with disability. The only responses I've had to this question are people referring me to documents on line that I found long ago with google. I was interested that none of the people who gave me those URLS (except Josh Street) said they actually used the advice in the documents themselves. Josh wasn't specific about how he caters to people with special needs, but seems to speak with some knowledge so I'm assuming he caters to Dyslexics in his designs. I guess it's going to take another law suit like that one against the Olympics2000 site to get anyone to take users with special needs seriously and actually lift a finger to cater to their needs. The conclusion I'm being forced towards is that developers are basically saying that users with special needs will have to swim for themselves and it's up to them to find some software of their own to get around all the obstacles the A/Bs put in their way. I'm glad at least property developers have been forced to change that attitude. Cheers Mike Kear Windsor, NSW, Australia Adobe Certified Advanced ColdFusion Developer AFP Webworks http://afpwebworks.com ColdFusion 9 Enterprise, PHP, ASP, ASP.NEThttp://asp.net/hosting from AUD$15/month -Original Message- From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Mike Kear Sent: Thursday, 18 August 2011 11:12 PM To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities? How to the rest of you a/b people (i.e. able bodied) cater to users with various forms of disability? Up until recently, I've tended to rely on keeping my code to standards, eliminating tables except for their proper purpose of tabulating data, and hoping that will give the accessibility level required. Do you go to the step of accessing your sites with JAWS or something similar to see how the site works for users with screen readers? I remember in the 1990s when I was working at Australian Consumers Association (choice.com.au) we had someone come and bring his PC with JAWS. The web team all sat in the boardroom getting ever more glum looks on our faces as we saw to our horror how terrible our new design was for this poor guy. We thought we'd got a terrific new design, and were about to launch it, when he did this demo for us. We had to go back and recode everything. This was before anyone was talking about standards though - it was back when the normally accepted method of laying out pages was to use tables, and buttons were nearly always images. I remember being
Re: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities?
On Tue, 23 Aug 2011, David Laakso wrote: On 8/23/11 3:53 AM, Mike Kear wrote: Mike Kear http://afpwebworks.com Setting the fonts at user default Absolutely! and ditching Verdana is the first place to start... Totally irrelevant. There is nothing wrong with Verdana; it is only very slightly larger than Helvetica or Arial. Problems only occur when its font size is reduced to compensate. -- Chris F.A. Johnson, http://cfajohnson.com/ Author: Pro Bash Programming: Scripting the GNU/Linux Shell (2009, Apress) Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress) *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities?
On 8/23/11 2:07 PM, Chris F.A. Johnson wrote: On Tue, 23 Aug 2011, David Laakso wrote: On 8/23/11 3:53 AM, Mike Kear wrote: Mike Kear http://afpwebworks.com Setting the fonts at user default Absolutely! and ditching Verdana is the first place to start... Totally irrelevant. There is nothing wrong with Verdana; it is only very slightly larger than Helvetica or Arial. Problems only occur when its font size is reduced to compensate. It is relevant only if you are one of the few on the planet who are concerned with typography and see Verdana for what it is at default: pug-ugly. *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities?
On 2011-08-23 19:12, David Laakso wrote: It is relevant only if you are one of the few on the planet who are concerned with typography and see Verdana for what it is at default: pug-ugly. While that might be your opinion, it's not necessarily relevant to the topic of this discussion: Usability and Web Standards. -- ___ Tom Ditmarszarggg [at] zarggg [dot] net KeyID: 0x2E22D768 --- *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities?
On 8/23/11 7:32 PM, Tom Ditmars wrote:
On 2011-08-23 19:12, David Laakso wrote:
It is relevant only if you are one of the few on the planet who are
concerned with typography and see Verdana for what it is at default:
pug-ugly.
While that might be your opinion, it's not necessarily relevant to the
topic of this discussion: Usability and Web Standards.
Then this will do...
body { font-family: sans-serif; }
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Re: [WSG] adobe tools that works well with jaws?
You are doing an online course and yet you don't know how to find out what is included in the Web design suite! How about going to Adobe's website and do your own research? You never know this could help you fine tune your research skills. Do we also have to give you the Adobe's website address? I hope not! hth hi. well, wondering in the cs5.5 web site suite, only, and looking for the student version. whats in the web site design suite, adn what is acessible and what is not? let me know asap. doing a website development course online. so what to purchase in australia. *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
RE: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities? [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
Hi Mike, Please forgive me if I am being repetitive as I have not read all of the replies to your question. I have worked in commonwealth government for several years, so can only give you a perspective from that angle. All commonwealth and State Government departments must now comply with the National Transition Strategy which was released by AGIMO in June 2010 (available from the AGIMO site). Most Government agencies have teams working on becoming compliant with the Strategy. That I am aware of, the ATO, Immigration and Centrelink have had Usability centres, labs and Accessibility teams for many years not only to enable ease of use of their web sites and web applications by people using assistive software - both internally (employees) and externally (clients) - but making them generally more usable to all members of the community and staff. Regards, Karen Conyers Mike Kear wsg@afpwebworks. com To Sent by: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org lists@webstandard cc sgroup.org Subject RE: [WSG] How do you cater to 23/08/2011 05:53 users with disabilities? PMProtective Mark Please respond to wsg@webstandardsg roup.org The conclusion I am coming to, with 5 days since I asked this and no-one actually saying they do ANYTHING to cater for people with disabilities, is that even after all this time, no one really spends much time thinking about users with special needs, other than to code to standards and hope that does the trick. No one either agreed or disagreed with the proposition that sticking to standards IS in fact enough. I asked this question, wondering if someone would say 'yes we have a usability lab' or 'we have a consultant who runs our sites through his screen reader for us' or 'we have meetings before launch specifically to discuss' or something. But no one has said they do anything at all for users with disability. The only responses I've had to this question are people referring me to documents on line that I found long ago with google. I was interested that none of the people who gave me those URLS (except Josh Street) said they actually used the advice in the documents themselves. Josh wasn't specific about how he caters to people with special needs, but seems to speak with some knowledge so I'm assuming he caters to Dyslexics in his designs. I guess it's going to take another law suit like that one against the Olympics2000 site to get anyone to take users with special needs seriously and actually lift a finger to cater to their needs. The conclusion I'm being forced towards is that developers are basically saying that users with special needs will have to swim for themselves and it's up to them to find some software of their own to get around all the obstacles the A/Bs put in their way. I'm glad at least property developers have been forced to change that attitude. Cheers Mike Kear Windsor, NSW, Australia Adobe Certified Advanced ColdFusion Developer AFP Webworks http://afpwebworks.com ColdFusion 9 Enterprise, PHP, ASP, ASP.NET hosting from AUD$15/month -Original Message- From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Mike Kear Sent: Thursday, 18 August 2011 11:12 PM To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities? How to the rest of you a/b people (i.e. able bodied) cater to users with various forms of disability? Up until recently, I've tended to rely on keeping my code to standards, eliminating tables except for their proper purpose of tabulating data, and hoping that will give the accessibility level required. Do you go to the step of accessing your sites with JAWS or something similar to see how the site works for users with screen readers? I remember in the 1990s when I was working at Australian Consumers Association (choice.com.au) we had someone come and bring his PC with JAWS. The web team all sat in the boardroom getting ever
[WSG] adobe cs5 web premium
hi. well i did find the web page and did see what is in it. so, which products in the web premium version is acessible with screen readers. i know illustrator and photo shop is probably not acessible with jaws, but what about fireowrks, i know dream weaver is, and what about flash. marvin. *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities?
Then this will do...
body { font-family: sans-serif; }
If you ever do this, I strongly suggest you test it on older Windows System.
tee
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Re: [WSG] adobe cs5 web premium
Marvin, Why not send an email or call Adobe Inc? Unless someone has already used the Adobe products with screen readers, nobody can give you answer except Adobe. Quite honestly, Adobe targets its products to visual oriented designers, not screen reader's users, so I will be surprised if it has good accessibility support caters for screen readers. Acrobat software maybe an exception here. tee On Aug 24, 2011, at 11:12 AM, Marvin Hunkin wrote: hi. well i did find the web page and did see what is in it. so, which products in the web premium version is acessible with screen readers. i know illustrator and photo shop is probably not acessible with jaws, but what about fireowrks, i know dream weaver is, and what about flash. marvin. *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities?
On 8/23/11 10:32 PM, tee wrote:
Then this will do...
body { font-family: sans-serif; }
If you ever do this, I strongly suggest you test it on older Windows System.
tee
Each and everyone of you win. I give-up. I have taken a coil of rope to
the woods. Farewell.
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Re: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities? [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
On 8/24/2011 10:29 AM, karen.cony...@immi.gov.au wrote: Hi Mike, Please forgive me if I am being repetitive as I have not read all of the replies to your question. I have worked in commonwealth government for several years, so can only give you a perspective from that angle. All commonwealth and State Government departments must now comply with the National Transition Strategy which was released by AGIMO in June 2010 (available from the AGIMO site). Most Government agencies have teams working on becoming compliant with the Strategy. That I am aware of, the ATO, Immigration and Centrelink have had Usability centres, labs and Accessibility teams for many years not only to enable ease of use of their web sites and web applications by people using assistive software - both internally (employees) and externally (clients) - but making them generally more usable to all members of the community and staff. Regards, Karen Conyers "Mike Kear" w...@afpwebworks.com "Mike Kear" w...@afpwebworks.com Sent by: li...@webstandardsgroup.org 23/08/2011 05:53 PM Please respond to wsg@webstandardsgroup.org To wsg@webstandardsgroup.org cc Subject RE: [WSG] How do you cater to users with disabilities? Protective Mark The conclusion I am coming to, with 5 days since I asked this and no-one actually saying they do ANYTHING to cater for people with disabilities, is that even after all this time, no one really spends much time thinking about users with special needs, other than to code to standards and hope that does the trick. No one either agreed or disagreed with the proposition that sticking to standards IS in fact enough. I asked this question, wondering if someone would say 'yes we have a usability lab' or 'we have a consultant who runs our sites through his screen reader for us' or 'we have meetings before launch specifically to discuss' or something. But no one has said they do anything at all for users with disability. The only responses I've had to this question are people referring me to documents on line that I found long ago with google. I was interested that none of the people who gave me those URLS (except Josh Street) said they actually used the advice in the documents themselves. Josh wasn't specific about how he caters to people with special needs, but seems to speak with some knowledge so I'm assuming he caters to Dyslexics in his designs. I guess it's going to take another law suit like that one against the Olympics2000 site to get anyone to take users with special needs seriously and actually lift a finger to cater to their needs. The conclusion I'm being forced towards is that developers are basically saying that users with special needs will have to swim for themselves and
[WSG] web accessibility with adobe tools
hi. well trying to use adobe online system is a bit of a pain, and having to jump via hoops. so did find their number in australia. so will rin on friday, and see what they say about accessibility in their tools. marvin. *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
