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Thread: Teaching Web Accessibility to Disabled Students
Number of posts in this thread: 9 (In chronological order)
From: Kynn Bartlett
Date: Mon, Nov 17 2003 9:40PM
Subject: Teaching Web Accessibility to Disabled Students
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Hi everyone,
As you probably know, I teach online classes in Web accessibility
through IWA-HWG (formerly HTML Writers Guild)'s eClasses program.
"D201: Accessible Web Design" is the intro class, and has been taught
pretty much continuously since 1998.
During that time I've had a number of blind students (as well as
students with other disabilities), and I've made accommodations for
them in the assignments. It's not too hard to do, because the class
is designed to introduce the basics, and not necessarily get into
the nitty-gritty -- so most of the class assignments are exploratory
in nature. The exercise from Week Three -- which is posted as a
"free sample lesson" -- is a good example of this:
http://access.idyllmtn.com/d201/sample/hands-on.html
It's not hard to adapt the course material in a case like that.
However, the newer course, D202: Web Accessibility Techniques, is a
more technically rigorous class, and includes specific exercises
for the students to complete. For example, "Take this broken page
which doesn't have ALT text, and provide the appropriate ALT (and
LONGDESC if necessary)."
Or, "Here's a page with crummy color contrast. How would you fix
it?" The students complete these exercises and upload them for grading.
Now, the question here is "how do I make such a course accessible to
a student who can't see the images or colors?" The whole purpose of
the course is to give hands-on experience in designing accessible
Web sites -- but if you are disabled, you may not actually be able
to "fix" a broken site. (If you could, it would likely be
accessible-by-definition.)
I'd like to hear some advice on what to do in this specific
situation, as well as general comments on the issue of teaching
accessible Web design to students who may themselves be unable to
perceive, comprehend, or use the course material.
NOTE: In general, the course itself is designed to be accessible;
it is only the exercises which are lacking in accessibility. That,
and an external reading assignment on colo(u)r contrast, which
uses color images to illustrate colorblindness.
Thanks in advance,
--Kynn
--
Kynn Bartlett < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > http://kynn.com
Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain http://idyllmtn.com
Shock & Awe Blog http://shock-awe.info
Author, CSS in 24 Hours http://cssin24hours.com
Inland Anti-Empire Blog http://inlandantiempire.org
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From: holly marie
Date: Tue, Nov 18 2003 6:44AM
Subject: Re: Teaching Web Accessibility to Disabled Students
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From: "Kynn Bartlett"
> http://access.idyllmtn.com/d201/sample/hands-on.html
> For example, "Take this broken page
> which doesn't have ALT text, and provide the appropriate ALT (and
> LONGDESC if necessary)."
Enumerate and Give a description of those images they are to , a lengthy
description of the image in transcript or audio format and have them
give a concise or shortened description.
Unfortunately, you give some of the answer, too... or you could require
they come up with an adequate description or variation for the image
alt.
> Or, "Here's a page with crummy color contrast. How would you fix
> it?" The students complete these exercises and upload them for
grading.
Will color contrast algorithms work or help?
http://www.w3.org/TR/AERT#color-contrast
or this tool, input the hex or decimal background and foreground
colors... get these calculated and get an example(for those that do
see)... is it accessible for blind users?
Can a version of this be made to be accessible?
http://h10014.www1.hp.com/accessibility/color_tool.html
also found mentioned in a Web Aim message...
http://www.webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread.php?thread=1517
You might also try the NFB Blind Web designers group
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfb-web
Another possibility is the Blind Linux Users group. I know of at least
one web designer also on that group, who uses color and images when
designing websites.
holly
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From: holly marie
Date: Tue, Nov 18 2003 6:57AM
Subject: Re: Teaching Web Accessibility to Disabled Students
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Kynn asked:
> > Or, "Here's a page with crummy color contrast. How would you fix
> > it?" The students complete these exercises and upload them for
> grading.
>
> Will color contrast algorithms work or help?
> http://www.w3.org/TR/AERT#color-contrast
>
> or this tool, input the hex or decimal background and foreground
> colors... get these calculated and get an example(for those that do
> see)... is it accessible for blind users?
> Can a version of this be made to be accessible?
> http://h10014.www1.hp.com/accessibility/color_tool.html
Two other tools, based on the same W3C algorithms
Colour Contrast Analyser
http://www.juicystudio.com/services/colourcontrast.asp
Color Visibility Test Program
http://aprompt.snow.utoronto.ca/ColorVisibilityProgram.html
and associated paper ...
Testing The Readability Of Web Page Colors
http://www.aprompt.ca/WebPageColors.html
One for visual users, which includes some color blindness filters
... http://www.tesspub.com/colours.html
holly
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From: Michael D. Roush
Date: Tue, Nov 18 2003 7:34PM
Subject: Re: Teaching Web Accessibility to Disabled Students
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Kynn,
Good to see your name show up again! I miss you being on a certain other
list we were on before.
I've been talking back and forth with a friend recently about the relative
benefits/drawbacks of using Flash elements in designing websites. One thing
I thought of during the whole thing was that even if Macromedia finally
accomplishes a method for making the results widely accessible, I think they
will have a very hard time making the production program accessible. And,
in my mind, the universality of the Web should go beyond simply receiving
content to producing content as well.
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. I don't know
how much you talk about 'hex values', but it might bear emphasizing that a
color code with a lot of "FF"s or "CC"s will be a very light color and
contrast well with a color with a lot of "00"s or "33"s. The very concepts
of 'red' 'green' and 'blue' will likely be lost on someone who is blind from
birth, but it may make more sense put in terms of quantities like these.
Would an online look-up chart be useful here?
As far as the image part goes, think of it from the aspect of the blind user
inserting an image into a website of his own design. The specific exercises
you mention seem to be along the line of "Here is bad design. How would you
fix it?" If you don't do something like has already been suggested and give
a separate verbal description of the image for the user to work with, how
about an alternative exercise more along the line of "Here is what we
have.... a paragraph about Ptolemy II and a picture of his tomb, called
'ptol-tomb.jpg'. Build an accessible html paragraph including the text and
the picture right-aligned at the top of the paragraph."
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.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kynn Bartlett" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Monday, November 17, 2003 11:33 PM
Subject: Teaching Web Accessibility to Disabled Students
> Hi everyone,
>
> As you probably know, I teach online classes in Web accessibility
> through IWA-HWG (formerly HTML Writers Guild)'s eClasses program.
> "D201: Accessible Web Design" is the intro class, and has been taught
> pretty much continuously since 1998.
>
> During that time I've had a number of blind students (as well as
> students with other disabilities), and I've made accommodations for
> them in the assignments. It's not too hard to do, because the class
> is designed to introduce the basics, and not necessarily get into
> the nitty-gritty -- so most of the class assignments are exploratory
> in nature. The exercise from Week Three -- which is posted as a
> "free sample lesson" -- is a good example of this:
>
> http://access.idyllmtn.com/d201/sample/hands-on.html
>
> It's not hard to adapt the course material in a case like that.
>
> However, the newer course, D202: Web Accessibility Techniques, is a
> more technically rigorous class, and includes specific exercises
> for the students to complete. For example, "Take this broken page
> which doesn't have ALT text, and provide the appropriate ALT (and
> LONGDESC if necessary)."
>
> Or, "Here's a page with crummy color contrast. How would you fix
> it?" The students complete these exercises and upload them for grading.
>
> Now, the question here is "how do I make such a course accessible to
> a student who can't see the images or colors?" The whole purpose of
> the course is to give hands-on experience in designing accessible
> Web sites -- but if you are disabled, you may not actually be able
> to "fix" a broken site. (If you could, it would likely be
> accessible-by-definition.)
>
> I'd like to hear some advice on what to do in this specific
> situation, as well as general comments on the issue of teaching
> accessible Web design to students who may themselves be unable to
> perceive, comprehend, or use the course material.
>
> NOTE: In general, the course itself is designed to be accessible;
> it is only the exercises which are lacking in accessibility. That,
> and an external reading assignment on colo(u)r contrast, which
> uses color images to illustrate colorblindness.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> --Kynn
>
> --
> Kynn Bartlett < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > http://kynn.com
> Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain http://idyllmtn.com
> Shock & Awe Blog http://shock-awe.info
> Author, CSS in 24 Hours http://cssin24hours.com
> Inland Anti-Empire Blog http://inlandantiempire.org
>
>
> ----
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, suspend, or view list archives,
> visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
>
>
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From: Stephanie Sullivan
Date: Tue, Nov 18 2003 9:22PM
Subject: Re: Teaching Web Accessibility to Disabled Students
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on 11/18/03 9:33 PM, Michael D. Roush at = EMAIL ADDRESS 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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From: Michael D. Roush
Date: Wed, Nov 19 2003 6:04AM
Subject: Re: Teaching Web Accessibility to Disabled Students
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephanie Sullivan" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> on 11/18/03 9:33 PM, Michael D. Roush at = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = profoundly
> spewed forth <s>their</s> <ins>his</his> 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.
Oh yeah? I didn't realize all the monitors running in only 256 color mode
were gone. Besides that, I was also thinking of the issue of choosing 3 or
so contrasting colors for each possible color. I can see myself doing that
for 256 colors, but not for 16 million.
> > I'm curious, what tools do disabled web designers use to produce pages?
>
> 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.
Okay, but what program is she using to hand-code? DW? Notepad? WordPad?
HTML-Kit? TextPad?
I had another thought about this development issue as well.... this would be
another 'adaptation' for people who are visually impaired, but could also be
very useful for people who are using text editors without line numbering.
How about putting something like <!-- Line 32 --> at the beginning of each
line of sample code? Or is that too hokey?
Also, I would think that colorblind people could easily check for sufficient
color-contrast the same way I do - print the page (backgrounds 'on') on a
grayscale printer (also gotta make sure you disable any 'print-media' style
sheets you have). If the printed page contrasts enough, the actual colors
likely contrast enough.
Michael
AccessRamp.org
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From: Stephanie Sullivan
Date: Wed, Nov 19 2003 7:49AM
Subject: Re: Teaching Web Accessibility to Disabled Students
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on 11/19/03 8:04 AM, Michael D. Roush at = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = profoundly
spewed forth their very articulate thoughts:
> Oh yeah? I didn't realize all the monitors running in only 256 color mode
> were gone. Besides that, I was also thinking of the issue of choosing 3 or
> so contrasting colors for each possible color. I can see myself doing that
> for 256 colors, but not for 16 million.
>
Really, what you were talking about someone creating would be handled by a
mathematical calculation anyway... You wouldn't have to do it. :)
Web safe colors were a misunderstanding... You'll have to read the article
at WebMonkey where they show how many actual "web safe" colors there are...
It comes down to less than 30 and most of them are greens. ;)
The reason I am not concerned with the few 256 color monitors that have not
yet broken is -- the only thing that happens to a "non-web safe" color on a
256 color monitor is that it will dither... It will have tiny dots in it...
I don't really mind that.
>
> Okay, but what program is she using to hand-code? DW? Notepad? WordPad?
> HTML-Kit? TextPad?
I'll have to ask her. I'm supposed to talk to her by phone tomorrow...
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
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." --
Douglas Adams
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From: holly marie
Date: Wed, Nov 19 2003 8:07AM
Subject: Re: Teaching Web Accessibility to Disabled Students
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From: "Stephanie Sullivan"
> > Okay, but what program is she using to hand-code? DW? Notepad?
WordPad?
> > HTML-Kit? TextPad?
I do not know what the other user, was using... but I do know a
professor of ecommerce/emarketing and also blind, was using Homesite ...
some of these editors could make it easier or quicker markup by hand...
they have tag completion plus a variety of built in checks possible?
NoteTab is another worth a look, EditPlus? I am not sure how these work
with blind users.
It would be interesting to view or read a list of authoring tools that
are accessible for non visual users.
HTML Kit and FirstPage2000 [the second app mentioned is free] are both
similar to Homesite.
I imagine it would be hard to recommend Front Page since it is riddled
with odd work arounds and after clean up tasks for general users
Another possibility, not mentioned... the editor that comes with
Netscape Composer?
Hopefully the mozilla version is continuing on in improvement and
development.
holly
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From: holly marie
Date: Wed, Nov 19 2003 8:20AM
Subject: Tools And Accessibility [was]Re: Teaching Web Accessibility to Disabled Students
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A Guideline with recommendations about web authoring tools...
Guideline 7. Ensure that the authoring tool is accessible to authors
with disabilities
http://www.w3.org/TR/ATAG10/#gl-make-accessible
from:
Authoring Tools Accessibility Guidelines
W3C recommendation 3 February 2000
http://www.w3.org/TR/ATAG10/
and also see
W3C WAI Authoring Tools Guidelines Group
http://www.w3.org/WAI/AU/
Authoring Tool Conformance Evaluations
http://www.w3.org/WAI/AU/2002/tools
I did not read, but believe that these tests or evals were voluntary and
a set of suggestions or tools for application developers to work with.
But some of these items might be helpful[many are dated] with help in
choosing tools, or software applications(including courseware packages)?
I am not sure how active this group is, and it is another area where
accessibility needs continued or ongoing work.
holly
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