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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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