WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Difficulty with the WebAIM site

for

From: Prof Norm Coombs
Date: Feb 9, 2000 9:55AM

I want to point another item I don't understand. It may be a difference
between using a mouse and the tab.
Here is the url: http://www.webaim.org/guidelines/
When I tab along, about the 8th tab my screen reader tells me it is a link
but it seems to have no alt-text, but that is only one part of the problem.
When I press enter, nothing seems to happen at all
To clarify, the link before this link says Utah State University and the
one after says skip main menu.
If it is a link, I don't know why nothing happens. If it isn't a link, I
wonder why it is tricking the screen reader.
Norman
At 09:38 AM 2/9/00 -0700, you wrote:
>The reason that Norm's screen reader was unable to figure out what the edit
>field was for is because we had not put any text next to it. There is only
>an edit field followed by a button. In our case, the text was in the button
>itself ("search"), but, as we discovered, this is insufficient. We had
>overlooked an important part of making forms accessible.
>
>In order for screen readers to "know" what the edit field is for, there has
>to be some sort of label for the field. In fact, this is part of the WebAIM
>guidelines for higher education institutions, and we simply overlooked it.
>This particular guideline can be found at:
>http://www.webaim.org/guidelines/#_FORMS. You can also find a piece of
>example code on this page which shows how to make edit fields accessible.
>
>We overlooked this aspect of accessibility on another site as well: The
>Center for Persons with Disabilities (www.cpd.usu.edu). I have made the
>correction on this site, according to the guidelines. I now realize that we
>will have to through the entire C.P.D. site and look for similar oversights
>on other forms.
>
>The webmaster for WebAIM will be making the changes to the WebAIM site soon
>as well.
>
>I'm glad that Norm was able to bring this issue to our attention. Thanks,
>Norm! By the way, Norm, you did guess right about the purpose for the edit
>field. I'm just sorry that you had to guess.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Paul Bohman
>Web Accessibility in Mind (WebAIM)
>Utah State University
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Daren < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
>To: WebAIM accessibility forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
>Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2000 8:33 AM
>Subject: Re: Difficulty with the WebAIM site
>
>
>> What kind of screen reader is being used in this situation? Lynx or
>> something else? I would like to try it out myself and see what is going
>> on.
>>
>> Daren
>>
>>
>
>
>