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RE: Physically Challenged Web Page Access

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From: Christian Heilmann
Date: May 4, 2005 1:27PM

On 5/4/05, DONALD WONNELL < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

>> To try to make webpages useable for motor / physically challenged
>> persons, the only available financially viable method appears to be to
>> 1) write instructions to familiarize a person with paths to get to
>> specific resources such as menus and useful data, and
>> 2) assign numbers to actuate keys, with programming necessary to
>> actuate the keys from numbers that are typed in. Appears a browser like
>> iE comes up, the program to actuate keys is pulled up, then the person
>> can use primarily tab and enter to access web pages.
>>
>> This is a pick and shovel way to do it, but seems necessary. VR can
>> help, however it appears the above is necessary to make the process more
>> bearable. Any good alternatives?


Do you need us in that discussion?

The things you can do as a designer is to make sure none of your web
site elements are dependent on a mouse (this rules out CSS only
dropdown menus, for example), ensure a logical tab order and add
accesskeys to reach the different sections of the site, and there is a
standard for that: http://www.clagnut.com/blog/193/

You should also add skip navigation to avoid repetitive page sections,
and that is about all you can do.

You can get funky and use DHTML to add more interactivity, but chances
are you actually hijack shortcuts used by assisstive technology and
disturbing use patterns that you need to explain to the users.




-- Chris Heilmann
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/
Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/