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Re: Making Content Accessible to Sighted Users?

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From: Brandon Keith Biggs
Date: Oct 6, 2016 7:39AM

Hello,
This is exactly what I am looking for. What is "good design"? Are there
things we should be asking companies such as Google or Microsoft to do that
will promote "good design"?
I know of no classes or books that review "good design" in a way that makes
sense to blind people.
I think the first step is to look at what "good design" is when it comes to
graphic design and GUIs. Then take that and translate it into a step by
step checklist that a blind person can follow to make their content
accessible to sighted users.
It is exactly the same process that has happened for web content
accessibility. There are accessibility checkers and whatnot that will give
one a basic accessibility check, but if one wants something to really pop,
they need help. But I would say that many sighted people get their content
to an "OK" level and anything above that they need a graphic designer or
something like that.
It should be possible to create something that checks a document for an
"OK" level of accessibility for sighted users just as there is for screen
reader users.

The current problem with insert+F to check the formatting is: what is
"aerial"? Is it a mermaid looking text? How big is 10 PT? Is very dark gray
something that contrasts well with white (I'm guessing so as a dark should
contrast with a light)?
Evidently it works for someone as this is what Gmail has as their default
in their online email editor.

But in my experience, I have been told that 11-14 pt font and Times New
Roman are what sighted people like. Why did Gmail choose 10 PT and Ariel?
Also, why use dark gray on white vs black on white? I thought gray and
white blended together?

I'm sure that an intro to graphics design class would answer some of these
questions, but as a blind person, I would really feel strange showing up to
an intro to graphic design class. I also don't think the tools are
accessible either.

But how did WCAG get developed? Did some disabled people come together and
verbalize what "good design" was for them, kind of like what designers and
artists do? Or was it something else?
It would be very nice if there was a WCAG for visual content as well.
There are guidelines in WCAG like in 1.4 (What is distinguishable and
contrast and how can I read it?), but I'm pretty sure it's possible to
create a document that follows WCAG that sighted users can't use.
If I put everything in 700PT with a good contrast and proper markup, would
that still follow WCAG? If I had each word in a paragraph a different size,
from 14-200, would it still pass? Or what about if the text lines were on
top of one another? How about if the spacing was visually 2 pages in
between each paragraph? Or my favorite, what if each line had a different
font?
These would all look great to a screen reader, but not so good to a sighted
person.
Thanks,


Brandon Keith Biggs <http://brandonkeithbiggs.com/>;

On Thu, Oct 6, 2016 at 5:30 AM, Karlen Communications <
<EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Along time ago I taught both a community college course in WordPerfect
> (see, long time ago) and a course for people who were blind or visually
> disabled on how to use WordPerfect. The final project for both groups was
> to create a newsletter complete with masthead, images (there was no Alt
> Text back then), columns and so forth...everything a newsletter should have.
>
> When you put the newsletters from both groups side by side you couldn't
> tell who did or didn't have a disability.
>
> I taught the principles of good design and provided keyboard commands and
> information on colour, colour contrast, concepts of
> newsletters...everything someone would need to create a well structured
> newsletter.
>
> For those who were blind or who had colour deficits, we worked
> collaboratively and the "rule" was that you got someone to check over your
> work to make sure the colours were good and the layout was what you
> described to them....but if things were off, it was up to you, not the
> person reviewing your work for those types of thing, to fix it.
>
> This worked well in both classes and I see no reason that, when taught
> good design and accessible document design and how to use the authoring
> environment and their adaptive technology that someone who is blind or
> visually disabled cannot create accessible digital content and environments
> like anyone else. Work should be reviewed for the more esthetic things like
> colour contrast and anything that looks off but the person who creates the
> content/software should be the one to remediate it because then they learn
> how to make better content/software.
>
> Cheers, Karen
>
>