Hi Mike, It's probably worth looking into ARIA [1] and WCAG [2] as two standardised ways of building and assessing how websites can cater to a broader range of users. I know that some members of this list also follow the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative [3] mailing list, which, between flame wars about how broadly accessible accessibility actually should be, provides some helpful insights into testing methodology, techniques, etc. for making content accessible to users.
The one thing I'd note about JAWS particularly is that it's just one Assistive Technology (AT) but accessibility is a bigger beast than that. In particular, there are certain design decisions (high contrast vs. reduced contrast websites, etc.) that have conflicting ramifications for usability to particular groups. The contrast issue in particular makes things easier or harder for users with impaired vision or dyslexia in contrasting (if you'll excuse the pun!) ways. In fact, this site suggests that even among dyslexic users there are varied preferences for reading content: "Many dyslexics have difficulty with certain fonts or with small print; others would prefer to have a colored background to reduce contrast. Unfortunately, the preferences of dyslexic people vary considerably. For example, it is unusual for someone to be better at reading all capitals. Generally, this makes text much harder to read, both for non-dyslexics and dyslexics. Also, some dyslexic people are tremendously confused by sans-serif fonts, which make it difficult to distinguish a capital "I" from the lower-case 'l' for example." Read more: http://www.dyslexia.com/library/webdesign.htm#ixzz1VR2sig6D At this point, user stylesheets are probably the only way forward: our job as authors and publishers is to step back and permit that to happen. A much-run debate on this list in the past has related to default font-size, and often it's seemed to be Felix Miata (respect user defaults) vs. the world (our designers/bosses/evil overlords want text to look a certain way). I know you've been here a while so you've probably run across it! I love your story from Choice - it's a fantastic anecdote of how accessibility really needs to be 'baked in' to the whole process. Would you mind if I reproduced it (with attribution) elsewhere? Cheers, Josh 1. http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/aria 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Content_Accessibility_Guidelines (a better launchpad than the official page), http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/ 3. http://www.w3.org/WAI/IG/ p.s. Felix, if you're reading this, apologies if I've misrepresented your views - respect user defaults is obviously a simplification but it's mostly how I've understood what you've been saying! Come back at me if I'm still missing the point after all these years! On 18/08/2011, at 11:12 PM, Mike Kear wrote: > 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 > ******************************************************************* > ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *******************************************************************
