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RE: Can I make my family tree chart accessible?

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From: Brent Ashworth
Date: Aug 19, 2003 4:51AM


Hi again. I apologize for the delay in my reply. I was out of town for
a while.

>"Now I wonder what Brent Ashworth is thinking about this."

To be honest, definition lists are new to me, so you lost me at the
beginning of the discussion, but I'm going to try to learn how they work.

>"I can almost hear him thinking, "What have I started, it was just a
>simple question."

Well, apparently it's a simple question to a very complex issue with no
easy answer.

>"I do not think we have solved his problem clearly about how to make
>a family tree accessible."

Hey, at least you tried. I am very grateful to all of you for all your
suggestions and ideas. Again, there probably isn't any real good way to
describe a family tree chart to a blind person, unless they have a super
good memory and can remember all the names and relationships.

>"That would leave nested ordered or nested unordered, or nested
>definition lists."
"I still favor nested definition lists, but have reservations about the
number of branches on this family tree making it difficult to understand
non visually."

Yeah. I would think things would get pretty confusing for visitors
listening to their screen reader, after the first 3 generations. I could
try and display the chart as an upside-down V, instead of the sideways V
I'm using now, but again, if the person didn't have super good memory,
they probably wouldn't be able to remember how the individuals in a
certain row are related to the ones in the previous row.

>"We could have a prose description, perhaps with headings."
>"Whatever it is it needs to be a good alternative text version of a
>typical tree chart that is unambiguous in aural, Braille, or reflowing
>text."

I could do that, up to my great-grandparents, but anything beyond that
would get pretty confusing, I would think.

The only way I can think of describing it that would make sense would be
to mention all the names of each generation, one generation at a time,
going no farther than my 3rd great-grandparents.

Actually, there's a text chart called an Ahnentafel chart. It's probably
the best way to describe a family tree. It's pretty lengthy, so I
wouldn't be able to display it on my home page, but I could provide a
link to it for visitors using a screen reader, as an alternative to the
table chart.

Here's the Ahnentafel chart of my ancestors:
http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=AHN&;db=brentash&id=I0025

>"I am not attached to this if someone thinks of a better clearer way
>to present it."

Same here. If anyone can think of a better way than lists or a good way
to describe a chart in a prose description, I welcome your suggestions.

>"We also did not really comment on whether a table would be satisfactory,
>at least visually, when formatted with CSS."

No problem. I guess it really doesn't matter, since they still wouldn't
make sense to someone using a screen reader.

Well, I have provided a link so blind visitors can skip the family tree
chart displayed in a table and I'm now in the process of trying to make
the rest of my web page accessible. Thanks again, everyone, for your help.
I really appreciate it.
Brent



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