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Re: SITE ACCESSIBILITY

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From: Lucy Greco
Date: Nov 5, 2013 10:57AM

It's a question I always asked myself and the only answer I ever found is
that screen readers are badly implemented hacks. They work on recognizing
specific parts of the screen and only recognize it if the expected
parameters are there. It does not seem to be a restriction any more but I
am not sure they still do make users change it when things go wrong. For
example I have a user they keep doing it to that is low vision and uses
jaws and magic and he keeps losing access to the message list in outlook
when they change him to the 1024 he can read the messages but he likes a
hire resolution and changes it back and on and on smile


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Greg Gamble
Sent: Tuesday, November 05, 2013 7:49 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] SITE ACCESSIBILITY

Noob question ... why would a screen reader need a particular screen size?


Greg


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Lucy Greco
Sent: Monday, November 04, 2013 5:26 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] SITE ACCESSIBILITY

Just as a quick note about the 1024 screen size many older screen reader
users were told for a very long time that the screen reader needed that
sizing and to never ever go over that sizing. I think only after jfw 11
did freedom stop telling people that. I do still see people being told
that and even fs tech support sometimes going in and changing users
systems to that as a de falt answer to the text can't read. So the 1024 is
a good guide line for now Lucy


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Alastair
Campbell
Sent: Monday, November 04, 2013 1:56 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] SITE ACCESSIBILITY

Jared Smith wrote:

> I don't think 630px is an unreasonable width at which to present
> scrollbars. Is it? Our previous site design did so at around 750
> pixels, so I don't believe that's the complaint.
>

It is a great looking site, and from that specific point of view, I would
have thought a good improvement as well?

When going responsive though, I would argue for a slightly narrower
minimum-width. It is not black-and-white, but my assumptions are:

- A need to increase size of text by 200%, and for RWD that means zoom.
- Working to a minimum (desktop) resolution of 1024px. Last time I went to
an RNIB training centre there were quite a few 21" screens set at 1024,
and I don't think things have changed that much in practice?

So when you're on a 1024px screen and zoom in 200%, you have an effective
width of 512px. I would suggest that is a useful minimum when considering
desktop usage.

If you are going responsive to improve mobile use (i.e. with a meta
viewport set to device-width), then you would probably allow for 320px as
a minimum with. That isn't something webaim.org is trying to do, but does
help to explain why most RWD sites respond well to zoom.

I currently have my new blog theme in testing on another tab, I'm also
guilty of not doing a re-design since 2006! I'm starting the CSS from
mobile styles and adding layout for larger sizes. A bit more complex to
do, but I hope it will be worth it.

Kind regards,

-Alastair
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