Andrew Stewart wrote:
Most people
would love to make every website 100% accessible to everyone. However,
if it costs a lot of time and money, but returns very little revenue
from the small number of users with screen readers, then why should
companies bother?
Andrew, I don't wish it upon anyone but suppose you developed a need to use
assistive software in the future. How would you feel about designers and
developers not following standards that allow you to continue using the web?
A site that is accessible using assistive technology is (by nature) more
accessible to its wider audience. So everyone wins. Not just users of assistive
technology.
Besides, Australian law makes web accessibility a mandatory requirement. Have
you heard of the Bruce Maguire vs. SOCOG (Sydney Organising Committee for the
Olympic Games) case of 1999?
Bruce Maguire complained to the HREOC that the website of the Sydney Olympic
Games' organising committee was not accessible as per the provisions of DDA,
1992. The commission declared in August 2000, only a few weeks before the
inauguration of Sydney Olympics (15th Sept. 2000), that the complainant had
been discriminated against and ordered the SOCOG to make certain access
provisions to be complete before the inaugural date. SOCOG failed to comply
with this order and hence in November 2000, the HREOC fined the SOCOG a sum of
Australian $20,000.
Regards,
Craig
-Original Message-
From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On
Behalf Of Andrew Stewart
Sent: Friday, 26 June 2009 1:15 PM
To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org
Subject: Re: [WSG] accessible free web hosting account
Hi Marvin and everyone else,
I have been doing some research into web site accessibility and I
would be interested to know a little bit about your experiences of
using a screen reader and also if there are any designers out there
that have experience of designing for, or using a screen reader.
At the recent WSG meeting at the Australian museum I met a designer
who had just spent days trying to design a site to make it usable by
colour blind users. A much better solution may be for colour blind
users to tweak the colours of their operating system so that
everything on their computer displays correctly. This also means the
user can fine tune the displayed colours to cater for their exact type
of colour deficiency. I have heard of software that does this, but it
does not seem to be that successful. I guess this is a similar concept
to a screen reader that works at the level of the operating system
rather than on a website by website basis. I would be interested to
know of your experiences of using the web - are there some sites that
work fine and others that are terrible? Can you tell if the designer
has taken the time to consider screen readers? Are there lots of
differences between different screen readers?
Your other point about free hosting eludes to another uncomfortable
issue - whilst a lot of things on the web are cheap, they are not
free. I guess that in many cases a screen reader compromises your use
of the internet, possibly making you less likely to return revenue to
the companies that are paying for everything to be online. Most people
would love to make every website 100% accessible to everyone. However,
if it costs a lot of time and money, but returns very little revenue
from the small number of users with screen readers, then why should
companies bother? In effect this is asking the majority of people
without screen readers to subsidise the users with screen readers.
Maybe this is the best thing to do, but I think we would all benefit
from some discussion on the issue.
I should probably mention that I am primarily a flex/flash developer
creating very visual sites that I doubt would work at all with a
screen reader. But unlike every flash/flex developer I have met, I am
very interested in accessibility, SEO, and standards.
Thanks,
Andy
--
a...@universalsprout.com
Andrew Stewart
London :: +44(0)7900 245 789
Sydney :: +61(0)416 607 113
www.universalsprout.com :: websites that sprout
On 25 Jun 2009, at 16:56, Marvin Hunkin wrote:
hi.
looking for a free web hosting account that can handle side
scripting, able
to use such technologies as visual web developer, sql server,
visualbasic,
java script,etc.
i am in devonport, tasmania, australia.
i do not have a credit card, so a paid account is out of the question.
i am a blind web site designer, using the jaws for windows screen
reader
from http://www.freedomscientific.com
so if any one can help out and recommend a good one which also has
plenty of
large space.
and using windows vista, let me know.
cheers Marvin.
E-Mail: startrekc...@gmail.com
Msn: startrekc...@msn.com
Skype: startrekcafe
Visit my Jaws Australia Group at http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/
JawsOz/
