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Re: UA Education

for

From: Joshue O Connor
Date: Oct 13, 2006 4:00AM


> "And is it part of the remit of organisations such as RNIB to help promote
> user education and make their customers and stakeholders aware of the tools
> that are available for them and how they can benefit from them?"

I would also like to add to that. Organisations like RNIB and my own the
National Council
for the Blind of Ireland, should be continually training users to better
use devices like screen readers
so they can have a greater understanding of how the device works when
they interact with web content or their operating system.

I feel this should be an ongoing continuum, as such, the web is in
constant flux so the user may need a greater grasp on more advanced UA
functionality.

This, of course, does happen where resources allow but I just wish to
make the point that much of the functionality of a screen reader
and even what you may call basic techniques such as browsing by headings
can be unknown to many users.

Assistive technology is often acquired through technical aids and
appliances grants. The funding for this is sporadic and inconsistent
and very prone to be the first to get the chop. I have seen many cases
over the years where clients are given great technology, and with
the best of intentions, and not being shown how to properly use it. This
leads to a spiral of despondency where the user is first given
the promise that some shiny new device will make their lives better and
then without the proper support the user has a frustrating experience,
and may abandon the device altogether. This then leads to skepticism at
best, and cynicism at worst.

Anyhow since you guys are all getting on your hobby horses, if you can't
beat 'em...

Josh





smithj7 wrote:
> Patrick,
> You brought up a good point when you asked:
> "And is it part of the remit of organisations such as RNIB to help promote
> user education and make their customers and stakeholders aware of the tools
> that are available for them and how they can benefit from them?"
> I work for the RNIB of Florida. We have one monthly newsletter that focuses
> on tips for users of access technology, but it is often very short. Iowa
> Blind Services was purchasing on-line tutorials, and had so many users that
> they had to limit it to people with passwords so their are people that would
> learn. Please get with me privately and give me some suggestions on how we
> can begin starting the teaching process using our website. I'd want to
> start with the items that would be most important to users. Once I get a
> section of our site started I can usually find employees that will help me
> get more information, but getting something started is very difficult.
>
> email <EMAIL REMOVED>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Patrick Lauke" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2006 6:44 AM
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] looking for htmltechniqueto provide a methodto
> skiprepetitive navigation linksi
>
>
>>> Egan, Bim
>>> When your viewport is a fraction of the screen, roughly the
>>> size of a credit card, it is very useful to be able to have
>>> the focus (and viewport) snap to the region of a page that
>>> you're interested in. It saves a lot of time panning round
>>> for the required content.
>>>
>>> On this basis I'd say that skip links should not only be
>>> available, but also visible.
>> But isn't the more sustainable and logical solution for user to use
>> the tools/browsers that are most suitable for their particular needs
>> (e.g. browsers like Opera with useful commands and keyboard shortcuts etc)
>> and to learn how to use them properly? Where does user education
>> come into play here? And is it part of the remit of organisations such
>> as RNIB to help promote user education and make their customers and
>> stakeholders aware of the tools that are available for them and how
>> they can benefit from them? And possibly even put pressure on
>> tool/browser developers to implement better functionality?
>>
>> Sorry, this sounds far more antagonistic than it's meant, but as
>> Alastair pointed out, it's my hobby horse...
>>
>> P
>> ________________________________
>> Patrick H. Lauke
>> Web Editor / University of Salford
>> http://www.salford.ac.uk
>> ________________________________
>> Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force
>> http://webstandards.org/
>> ________________________________
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>
>


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