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Re: Making Content Accessible to Sighted Users?

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From: whitneyq
Date: Oct 7, 2016 7:01PM

Surely you are not applying text display characteristics individually. You should be using styles, right.
Everywhere I've worked we have made templates that include our settings for a robust set of styles.
This is not primarily for a11y but for branding and consistency. 
Wouldn't the same thing hold true for Web using css?

Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
-------- Original message --------From: Maxability Accessibility for all < <EMAIL REMOVED> > Date: 10/6/16 6:44 AM (GMT-05:00) To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> > Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Making Content Accessible to Sighted Users?
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/>;
> > > > >