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RE: Making Discussion Forums Accessible

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From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Jul 9, 2003 5:53AM

Julian,

Let me see if I understand this. The page consists of 2 sections. One
section is a listing of all the messages. The other section is a view of an
individual message.

In the message list section, new messages are flagged with a visual
indicator -- I am assuming that is a graphic or a symbol.

Users sometimes need to follow multiple threads. Some users employ the
forum for conducting virtual meetings where they need to refresh the view
regularly and locate new messages.

It is too bad that neither HTML nor XHTML make any provisions for a
multicolumn listbox. That might fix this situation rather easily.

My first suggestion would be to structure the page well. I would suggest
giving each major section a header using an H1 or H2 tag. The message list
I would suggest making a table. You might even want to consider using some
structure for the invidiual mail itself, since it will probably even have
sections to it, such as the addressee information (date, subject, author,
etc.) and a message body.

This will help people who use AT that allows them to move through the
structure of a page.

You could also then add "skip" links. I do have an idea that either is
really good or totally unworkable. Instead of just placing "skip" links at
the top of the page, why not set up an access key for each section? I
cannot recall at the moment what the restrictions are for the ACCESSKEY
attribute. However, perhaps you could set up an access key that would take
the user directly to a section or sub-section. Of course, you will most
likely need to figure a good way to communicate what the access keys are to
the users.

Regarding the message list and the new message indicator -- another or
additional method for clearly indicating which messages are new might be to
seperate them from the others.

Instead of having a single message list, you could have a seperate section
listing just "New Messages" or "Recent Messages." You could even reorganize
the message list section by having the new message sub-section at the top
with the "old" message list appearing after. If you do that, it might help
structurally if the two subsections were seperate tables. If the page
allows the user to sort messages, two tables might also make it possible for
users to sort the messages in different ways that might be useful for them.

I have other ideas, but they would probably require you to make changes to
components other than just the user interface.

Tim
Tim Harshbarger
Tim Harshbarger
Disability Support
State Farm Insurance Companies
Phone: (309) 766-0154
E-mail: <EMAIL REMOVED>
-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2003 6:16 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: Making Discussion Forums Accessible


We created some discussion forums on a site some time ago and now want
to try to convert it into a more Accessible format.

The forums mimic the average mail reader using frames to provide a
listing of the messages (message date, subject and author) in a
(static) tree structure at the top half of the screen and then the
bottom half of the screen is used for displaying the actual messages
(you click a message in the top half to display in the bottom) or for
providing a form for adding new messages.

Now I realise that it is in theory possible to create Accessible
frames, however am I right that these severely are frowned upon?

One of the key requirements from the Users' point of view is to be able
to see a full listing of all messages because they may be following
several threads/conversations at once - the forums are used for holding
virtual meetings, so the user's refresh the message listing quite
regularly to see new messages.

The only alternative that I can think of is to have a single page with
the message listing at the top and the message viewer/editor at the
bottom, although this will result in the user having to scroll down the
to bottom of the page each time they want to see a message or create a
new one. OK, I can put some skip links in, but then the user might
miss new messages (these are flagged up with a visual indicator).

Some pointers to some good Accessible forums would be handy as well as
any other advice you may have.

Cheers,

Julian Voelcker
Cirencester, United Kingdom



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