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Re: The buttons verses links debate

for

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Jan 29, 2013 10:42PM

<< but I have not found any way or examples of making an animated carousel
accessible, at least not to screen reader users. >>

This is a good example of how we have to "sell across the industry." That
is, sell our goals not just to web developers, but also to:
1. Manufacturers of assistive technologies.
2. Manufacturers of software browsers.
3. Manufacturers of the software code and widgets that create carousels, and
other fancy items like them.
4. Manufacturers of WordPress and other CMS (content management systems).
5. Manufacturers of website templates that web developers purchase.
6. Manufacturers of web development tools, like Adobe Dreamweaver and
Microsoft Expression Web.

We can create all the WCAG and ARIA guidelines we want, but that won't get
these key stakeholders on our team.

Keep in mind that web developers generally don't code carousels, slideshows,
scrollers, navigation tabs, and other fancy visual doodads that are common
on websites. We buy the code and insert it into our website's HTML,
customizing where we can. We also buy entire website templates with the code
pre-written and we drop in our content and graphics.

So if a carousel is not working for you, see if you can read the HTML source
code and find out who is the manufacturer of the code or widget, which often
is hidden in a comment line in the webpage's code.

Ask them: what do they need to produce an accessible carousel?
Who knows! Maybe their engineers don't realize that there's an accessibility
problem and they might be willing to work out a solution.

By the way, there is one manufacturer that I know who is on this list and is
very responsive to the assistive community: Al Spaber of Project 7. Many
professional web developers purchase his company's templates, widgets, and
menu systems. Visit their webpage at http://projectseven.com/

We need more industry partners like this on our team. And it could help if
there was a central portal or webpage where developers could go to find the
manufacturers of these accessible widgets, tools, etc.

Maybe this is something WebAim could consider undertaking.

And, unfortunately, I don't have a good solution for making a carousel
accessible. The best I can think of is a "clickable thing" (notice that I'm
not calling it a button or a link) at the very top of the code that when
clicked will disable animations, carousels, etc. It could appear right
before a skip-nav link so you'd access it first.

—Bevi Chagnon

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www.PubCom.com — Trainers, Consultants, Designers, Developers.
Print, Web, Acrobat, XML, eBooks, and U.S. Federal Section 508
Accessibility.
New schedule for classes and workshops coming in 2013.


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Birkir R.
Gunnarsson
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 11:47 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] The buttons verses links debate

Hi Bevi

Good post as always, can´t expect anything else from you.
May be I should create a new topic for this, but I have not found any way or
examples of making an animated carousel accessible, at least not to screen
reader users. The animation always affects the screen reader focus, and the
only approach I have found so far is to use aria-hidden on the div
surrounding said carousel, which hides its entire contents (which can
includes news stories and articles, special offers etc) in addition to
simply images.
It seemed to me like the ARIA role "marquee" would be perfect, but as far as
I know no screen reader has implemented it.
So, basically my particular problem is that I don't have the answers for the
developers. Offering a button to stop the animation is one thing, but then
the button needs to be readily accessible and easy for users to find and
activate before their screen reader focus is moved elsewhere.
I have provided a lot of solutions, and seen excellent examples of
accessible tabbed browsing, accessible sliders and so on, but never one iof
a carousel with animation that is still accessible and does not affect
screen reader focus.
I may merely have been missing something, and I realize this is at best a
new topic and perhaps even belong more on an ARIA dedicated list.
But, yes, it is hard to sell unless you have a readily available solution to
what the customer needs. I always have up till now, but thissituation is
troublesome.
Cheers
-B

On 1/29/13, Chagnon | PubCom < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Birkir wrote: "The art of selling accessibility is always a tricky one."
>
> No, not really.
> Basic sales techniques are:
> 1. Demonstrate the benefits of your product to your prospect.
> 2. Ask your prospect what they need or want.
> 3. Provide your prospect with what they need or want.
> 4. Make it easy and convenient for your prospect to buy your product.
>
> How can you translate those techniques into "selling" accessibility?
> Remember, web developers are creating websites for 75-80% of the
> population (the majority of visitors) that does not experience
accessibility barriers.
>
>
> How can you make it easier for a web developer to include the 20-25%
> of the population (a minority) that has a disability?
>
> Regarding carousels on websites, web developers will continue to use
> them because they are very successful mechanisms for the majority of
visitors.
> They work very well for a visual audience. Since a developer's job is
> to produce statistical results of sales or visitors to the site,
> carousels improve those statistics which makes their bosses and
> clients happy, which in turn keeps web developers employed.
>
> How can you convince developers to make carousels accessible?
> Have you asked web developers what they need to make carousels accessible?
> How can you make it easy for web developers to make web carousels
> accessible?
>
> Salesmanship 101.
>
> Bevi Chagnon
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> - - -
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> www.PubCom.com - Trainers, Consultants, Designers, Developers.
> Print, Web, Acrobat, XML, eBooks, and U.S. Federal Section 508
> Accessibility.
> New schedule for classes and workshops coming in 2013.
>
>
> > > list messages to <EMAIL REMOVED>
>
messages to <EMAIL REMOVED>