Hi,
I've spoken to a person who is blind about HTML5 and accessibility. I
thought I'd send some of his thoughts to the list.
He is in favor of the new <nav> and <article> elements indicating the
navigation section of the page and what is the main content:
yeah that'd be excellent, if screen readers would pick up on this
somehow. because really my main goal when I get to the front page
of a web site, if I've not been there before, is to get to the main
content and see what that site's about, what's on that site, etc.
My second goal is then to get to the navigation to find a section I'd
like to navigate to.
He says that HTML5 shouldn't drop the longdesc attribute, because it is
useful for people using screen readers.
longdesc is a long description, which is what you're wanting to give.
alt is alternative text, which is just to give me a basic idea of what's
there. i don't want to read a big paragraph for an image unless I
really wan to know what's there.
He also says that he accesskeys shouldn't be dropped.
I love accesskeys, despite anything bad people have said about them,
they're great. very convenient. if I notice an accesskey on a site I visit
often, I make use of it.
I would disagree with [HTML5 dropping accesskeys] more than
longdesc. accesskeys, are really useful, and again I tend to use them
whenever I come across them. it's a shortcut to get to where you
want to go, instead of having to search for it.
Regards,
Simon Pieters
