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Re: Making Content Accessible to Sighted Users?

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From: Maxability Accessibility for all
Date: Oct 6, 2016 4:44AM

Hi Brandon,

I totally agree with you on the pain a blind front-designer have while
developing web pages. I myself being a blind developer fall into that ache
quite oftern. However for Word and excel I try to play a safe game. Eg:
After writing the entire document, I will start giving the font-size,
color, alignment etc depending on the hierarchy of the content. End of the
task I have to rely on sighted to double sure the visual changes take
effect.
A primary test can be still done using the NVDA command insert + f that
speaks the color, font size and the style of the word selected.

Looking to hear from others too.




On Thu, Oct 6, 2016 at 2:54 PM, Brandon Keith Biggs <
<EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Hello,
> I am wondering if any kind of thought has ever been put towards how blind
> creators and designers can make their content visually appealing? Most of
> this has to do with the fact blind people have no idea what looks good and
> their screen reader doesn't have a setting that says "Looks good" or "Can
> you move that element to the right because it is covering some text?"
> But this is a huge problem because one can have the most amazing and easy
> to use application or product, but if it doesn't look good, then no sighted
> person is going to touch it.
> What this means is that if a blind programmer wishes to do front-end
> design, they can't unless they can make something that looks good. This
> means that if a blind person wishes to make a Word document or Excel file,
> they can make their content, but the first sighted person who reads it is
> going to go crazy at all the differently sized fonts, the extra spaces that
> are not visible to the screen reader and different sizes of text.
> So just as there is a checklist for creators to make their content
> accessible to people with AT, there should be a checklist for people with
> AT (primarily screen reader users) to make their content accessible to
> sighted users.
>
> I have asked blind programmers what they currently do and the responses are
> not very reassuring. Some use prebuilt templates and just don't mess with
> the defaults, some have a sighted designer who makes the site look good and
> others don't do front-end.
> But this is a problem I think is really big when it comes to blind people
> and employment. Because if a blind person needs to make a document that is
> distributed to all the employees, make promotional materials, create
> templates for others to use or make powerpoints to present to bosses or
> clients, there is going to be no trust, either by the blind person or their
> colleagues, that the blind person can make a usable document without help.
>
> I would like to know if anyone knows of any resources or guidelines for
> making content accessible to sighted users?
> Thanks,
>
> Brandon Keith Biggs <http://brandonkeithbiggs.com/>;
> > > > >