WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: seeking ideas for equivalent task

for

From: Sam Foster
Date: Nov 17, 2004 1:31PM

> Although slightly contrived, you could have a page with lots of links to
> audio files, but remove the files that the links point to, or disable
> quicktime/media player plugins (easy in Firefox, but not sure how well
> it plays ball with screenreaders, or how easy it would be to do the same
> in IE), to highlight the need for audio transcripts for hearing
> impaired users.

or simply ask the user to mute their sound - emulating hearing impaired
users or those without sound cards in their computer, or in an
environment where audio content is not practical (work place, wireless
access in busy street etc.)

An example might be radio station's websites, or conference websites -
where an audio stream is made available, but frequently, even if a
transcript has been made, the two are not explicitly linked together.

In applications, audio is often used to announce important events (e.g
errors) - alternative cues are necessary to inform the user that
something just happenned that might need their attention. Maybe there's
a web example of the same?

Sam