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Re: Evaluation: Accessible Interface to YouTube

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From: Randi
Date: Apr 29, 2009 5:10PM

Tom,

Thank you for clearing that up. I will go check it out. I also wanted
to comment that having a search box easily found is nice. I like it at
the top of the screen. Though I suppose some people might browse
through header links and then search if they don't find something.
IDK, but I like it up top. I'll go check it out now.

On 4/29/09, John E. Brandt < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Curious project Tom. But I am wondering why you limited the accessibility
> question to only people with visual disabilities.
>
> There are a number of people with hearing disabilities using YT. Many use
> the YT videos to communicate with others via sign language - sort of "sign
> language blogs." Yet, the vast majority of YT content is not captioned,
> transcribed - nor has a signed component.
>
> YT does have the capacity (now) to add captioning and in fact I created a YT
> video with captioning as a test. But when I viewed this video using your
> "accessible YouTube" interface, there was no way to turn the captioning on
> making is thus, less accessible. Is there a way to adapt your system to
> include the captioning if it so exists on a particular YT video?
>
> Good luck with you dissertation.
>
> ~j
>
> John E. Brandt
> Web Design, Development, Consultation
> Augusta, Maine USA
> www.jebswebs.com
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
> 207-622-7937
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Thomas Jolliffe
> Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 3:09 PM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List
> Subject: [WebAIM] Evaluation: Accessible Interface to YouTube
>
> Hello all,
>
> I can't claim to be a long-term subscriber, but I'd appreciate a favour if
> possible. I'm a final-year Computer Science student at Newcastle University
> and for my dissertation I've been investigating the effect which what we
> call "Web 2.0" has had on accessibility.
>
> As part of this investigation, I've implemented what I think are some good
> practices, and to demonstrate a number of them working together I've created
> a somewhat simplified interface for YouTube, which you can find at
> http://tube.majestyc.net/. It makes use of technologies such as JavaScript,
> in line with what we can reasonably expect on the web nowadays, but also of
> things like WAI-ARIA live regions to aid the use of such dynamic scripting.
> Similarly, the video player uses a Flash object, but controlled by
> JavaScript firing from standard HTML buttons, instead of using buttons
> integrated into the Flash object itself.
>
> In order to evaluate what real-world users think, I've set up an online
> questionnaire, available at the horrible address of
> http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/128706/accessible-youtube, and via TinyURL at
> http://tinyurl.com/aiyt-eval. It's built using the website Survey Gizmo and,
> while it's not exactly perfect from an accessibility perspective, it's a
> pretty clean page and after a quick run-through myself with JAWS I didn't
> find too many glaring problems. I'd have liked to have built a system
> myself, but unfortunately simply haven't had time.
>
> Some people have questioned my use of YouTube, given that many of the site's
> intended audience will have visual impairments. However, not only is it a
> good demonstration of multimedia on the web, I don't think we shouldn't
> dismiss a video site outright. So many users are partially sighted, and the
> impact of YouTube across the web - and, arguably, society - has been
> enormous. And, let's not forget, it provides audio as well as video.
>
> Many thanks in anticipation of your responses, every single one is greatly
> appreciated. I am running somewhat behind schedule, so I'm looking to gather
> as many responses as possible in the next few days. If anyone knows of a
> good place to post this, let me know, or feel free to simply quote this
> message.
>
> There's a link on the 'Thanks' page to email me if you'd like to see an
> electronic copy of my dissertation when it's finished, but anyone
> (questionnaire or no questionnaire) is welcome to email me directly and I'll
> add you to the list.
>
> Once again, you can find the site at http://tube.majestyc.net/ and the
> questionnaire at http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/128706/accessible-youtube (or,
> if you trust a TinyURL link, at http://tinyurl.com/aiyt-eval).
>
> Thanks for reading,
> Tom
>
>