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Re: Teaching Web Accessibility to Disabled Students

for

From: Stephanie Sullivan
Date: Nov 18, 2003 9:22PM

on 11/18/03 9:33 PM, Michael D. Roush at <EMAIL REMOVED> profoundly
spewed forth their very articulate thoughts:

> As to the specific instances you mention, I think that some sort of a
> 'chart' of 'contrasting colors' based on the web-safe palette would be a
> very handy tool. In other words, a chart that allows the user to find or
> enter a basic color (in hex, decimal, or by name) and be given a
> corresponding short list of sufficiently-contrasting colors.

Great idea... But please let's don't do the web-safe thing... There's really
no such thing and it's entirely outdated anymore.

<snip>
>
> I'm curious, what tools do disabled web designers use to produce pages?
> WYSIWYG editors could present some very difficult problems for those with
> visual and motor impairments, I would think.

Just in the past couple weeks I had an experience with a blind web
developer. She wanted to build her own ecommerce store. She came to a
Dreamweaver list and was asking if DW really works as well with JAWS as they
say... Of course, no one there really knew for sure and the suggestion was
made to download the 30 day trial and test it.

Evidently at the same time, a friend of hers suggested she just learn HTML
and code the site herself. I spoke with her a couple times the past couple
days... She has spent 9 days learning HTML and built a site that is very
decent... Even for a sighted newbie. :) It occurred to me when she told me
that her choice had been to learn to hand code that it's likely the best
choice.

Think about it. Even though I use DW, I hand code much of what I do... What
does a WYSIWYG editor really offer? A few shortcuts, yes... But it also
gives people the ability to see it as they do it. (And you don't know if
it's really what you'll get until you view it in a whole lot of different
browsers.) She doesn't need to see it. So what's the benefit to her? I
frankly couldn't think of anything about it that would benefit her enough to
spend that much money over...

Just thought I'd share her personal decision...

Stephanie Sullivan

Contributing Author .: "Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 Magic" :. New Riders
CommunityMX Team Member :: http://www.communitymx.com
Technical Editor .: "DreamweaverMX Killer Tips" :. New Riders
VioletSky Design :: http://www.violetsky.net

"Success comes before work ... only in the dictionary." -- Unknown



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