WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: Online editors that are accessible

for

From: John E Brandt
Date: Jan 24, 2011 10:07AM

I checked with a friend who is a screen reader user and he and I agreed that
WordPress is probably your best bet. The second choice would be Posterous
which uses e-mail as the way to add entries.

With all web design, it is pretty hard for folks who are screen reader users
to do a layout/design that would be visually appealing to non-screen reader
users, so it is suggested that a sighted person help in that regard. But
once the thing is up and running, the kids can get busy adding content.

One word of caution, if they are going to use content derived from word
processor documents - or even stuff taken from other web sources - make
sure they "cleanse" it of "style contamination." I usually do this by
copying and pasting first to Notepad or any plain text editor and then copy
and pasting to the blog. I have not used Posterous, so I don't know how it
works there, but for WordPress and other blog ware, that is the best option.
WordPress does have a nice pasting filter for word processor content and
will bring over things like <strong> and <em> as well as ordered and
unordered list elements and leave out the rest of the contamination.

And of course you will teach your kids about accessible web design and make
sure they content is accessible to other screen reader users. Because, as
you know, a blog is only as accessible as the content therein.

~j


John E. Brandt
www.jebswebs.com
<EMAIL REMOVED>
207-622-7937
Augusta, Maine, USA