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From: tedge@tecaccess.net
Date: Fri, Jan 03 2003 3:00PM
Subject: Pop-Ups Question
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Are pages that appear on top of the page and will not go away unless
you close them a good replacement for pop-up pages? These are called
"model" dialog boxes.
If not what is a good solut

From: Paul Bohman
Date: Fri, Jan 03 2003 5:19PM
Subject: RE: Pop-Ups Question
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Are you referring to the ads that suddenly take over a page (acting like a
layer on top of the page) and force you to click on a button to close them?
Some sites like MSNBC, MSN, ESPN and a few others have been known to have
ads like this. If you mean something else, then please say so, but I'm going
to reply as if you mean the "layered" ads.

The first time that I saw an ad like this, it took me by surprise, confused
me momentarily, amused me slightly (it was an image of a car driving across
my screen, sending up clouds of smoke, with the sound of a roaring engine
and squealing wheels), and then made me angry. I realized that I had just
been forced to view a commercial, and that it had totally disrupted my train
of thought.

From an advertiser's perspective, this ad was a success. It grabbed my
attention and forced me to pay attention to the product being advertised. In
fact, it took me a good 5 to 10 seconds or perhaps more to figure out how to
make it go away. Of course, this was just my first experience with these
ads. With subsequent ocurrences I've been able to dismiss them more readily,
but I was genuinely disoriented the first time.

In this sense (disorientation), the ad was dangerous from an accessibility
standpoint. Anything that confuses a viewer without disabilities is likely
to be that much worse for people with, say, cognitive disabilities, or even
the milder attention deficit disorders.

The sounds of the engine and squealing wheels startled me, but the worse
part was that, for all intents and purposes, the page that I was just
viewing was now hidden behind a car and its trailing cloud of smoke. I
wanted to see a Web page, but this ad was now in my way. I knew that I
couldn't click the window closed, because what I wanted to see was in the
same window, but behind the ad somehow. I looked all around and then finally
saw a small word in the bottom right hand corner: "close". Ah, finally. I
clicked on the word "close", though with some trepidation, because I was
worried that the link might be deceptive. Maybe it would cause another ad to
appear. Maybe it would cause a series of popup windows. Maybe it would take
me to a porn site. I had no idea, but I could see no other way to get rid of
it, so I clicked on the word "close". Fortunately, the word was not
deceptive. I was able to continue reading my web page.

Your question has many answers that extend beyond the realm of pure
disability access, but anything that confuses or disorients reduces
accessibility in general.

A specific hypothetical case: if a blind person using a screen reader had
happended upon this page. The person would have heard the sound of an engine
and squealing wheels competing with the sound of the screen reader reading
the text on the page. The sounds would be confusing, but they might actually
cause the person to return to the top of the page and start from the
beginning if the interference of the extraneous sounds was too much.

Also, because the ad was done in a combination of javascript, CSS and other
elements, I doubt that it would have been keyboard accessible (how would a
keyboard-dependent screen reader user make it go away if the "close" link is
inaccessible?). In some cases, the layered effect would be irrelevant to a
screen reader user, because the screen reader can read beneath the layer,
but it depends upon how it is coded. Sounds, however, would still interrupt
the screen reader.

I guess what I'm saying is that those types of "layered" effects have the
potential to make the rest of the page very inaccessible. It's not that I
don't understand the plight of the advertisers. The method is bold and it
certainly does get people's attention. But, if the method can be avoided in
any way, avoid it.

Paul Bohman
Technology Coordinator
WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind)
www.webaim.org
Center for Persons with Disabilities
www.cpd.usu.edu
Utah State University
www.usu.edu






-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ]
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 2:50 PM
To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Subject: Pop-Ups Question


Are pages that appear on top of the page and will not go away unless you
close them a good replacement for pop-up pages? These are called "model"
dialog boxes.
If not what is a good solution?

From: tedge@tecaccess.net
Date: Fri, Jan 03 2003 5:38PM
Subject: RE: Pop-Ups Question
← Previous message | Next message →

What this is for is a e-learning site. They want to move away from
pop-up because of the accessibility problems. What they want to replace
it with is a layered page that appears on top of the page and does not
go away unless you close them.

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Bohman [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ]
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 7:08 PM
To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Subject: RE: Pop-Ups Question


Are you referring to the ads that suddenly take over a page (acting like
a layer on top of the page) and force you to click on a button to close
them? Some sites like MSNBC, MSN, ESPN and a few others have been known
to have ads like this. If you mean something else, then please say so,
but I'm going to reply as if you mean the "layered" ads.

The first time that I saw an ad like this, it took me by surprise,
confused me momentarily, amused me slightly (it was an image of a car
driving across my screen, sending up clouds of smoke, with the sound of
a roaring engine and squealing wheels), and then made me angry. I
realized that I had just been forced to view a commercial, and that it
had totally disrupted my train of thought.

From an advertiser's perspective, this ad was a success. It grabbed my
attention and forced me to pay attention to the product being
advertised. In fact, it took me a good 5 to 10 seconds or perhaps more
to figure out how to make it go away. Of course, this was just my first
experience with these ads. With subsequent ocurrences I've been able to
dismiss them more readily, but I was genuinely disoriented the first
time.

In this sense (disorientation), the ad was dangerous from an
accessibility standpoint. Anything that confuses a viewer without
disabilities is likely to be that much worse for people with, say,
cognitive disabilities, or even the milder attention deficit disorders.

The sounds of the engine and squealing wheels startled me, but the worse
part was that, for all intents and purposes, the page that I was just
viewing was now hidden behind a car and its trailing cloud of smoke. I
wanted to see a Web page, but this ad was now in my way. I knew that I
couldn't click the window closed, because what I wanted to see was in
the same window, but behind the ad somehow. I looked all around and then
finally saw a small word in the bottom right hand corner: "close". Ah,
finally. I clicked on the word "close", though with some trepidation,
because I was worried that the link might be deceptive. Maybe it would
cause another ad to appear. Maybe it would cause a series of popup
windows. Maybe it would take me to a porn site. I had no idea, but I
could see no other way to get rid of it, so I clicked on the word
"close". Fortunately, the word was not deceptive. I was able to continue
reading my web page.

Your question has many answers that extend beyond the realm of pure
disability access, but anything that confuses or disorients reduces
accessibility in general.

A specific hypothetical case: if a blind person using a screen reader
had happended upon this page. The person would have heard the sound of
an engine and squealing wheels competing with the sound of the screen
reader reading the text on the page. The sounds would be confusing, but
they might actually cause the person to return to the top of the page
and start from the beginning if the interference of the extraneous
sounds was too much.

Also, because the ad was done in a combination of javascript, CSS and
other elements, I doubt that it would have been keyboard accessible (how
would a keyboard-dependent screen reader user make it go away if the
"close" link is inaccessible?). In some cases, the layered effect would
be irrelevant to a screen reader user, because the screen reader can
read beneath the layer, but it depends upon how it is coded. Sounds,
however, would still interrupt the screen reader.

I guess what I'm saying is that those types of "layered" effects have
the potential to make the rest of the page very inaccessible. It's not
that I don't understand the plight of the advertisers. The method is
bold and it certainly does get people's attention. But, if the method
can be avoided in any way, avoid it.

Paul Bohman
Technology Coordinator
WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind)
www.webaim.org
Center for Persons with Disabilities
www.cpd.usu.edu
Utah State University
www.usu.edu






-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ]
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 2:50 PM
To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Subject: Pop-Ups Question


Are pages that appear on top of the page and will not go away unless
you close them a good replacement for pop-up pages? These are called
"model" dialog boxes.
If not what is a good solutio

From: Paul Bohman
Date: Fri, Jan 03 2003 6:08PM
Subject: RE: Pop-Ups Question
← Previous message | No next message

That does change the context a bit, but doesn't necessarily change the
answser.

If the purpose of the layered effect is integral to the purpose of the Web
content, then the layers are not disruptive, and can potentially be less
confusing. For many users they can actually be of great benefit.

The people who are probably NOT going to benefit from the layered effect are
those using screen readers. Depending on how the layers are constructed,
they will either be ignored by the screen reader or they will cause the
layer's contents to appear in some nonsensical place on the page that is
totally out of context.

Knowing this, you can choose a strategy that suits your needs. Here are two
basic options:

Option 1. Create your layers using Javascript in such a way that screen
readers ignore them. Then add a redundant method of accessing the same
content. For example, if the layers pop up with a mouseover action, make it
so that the same text is also available if you click on the link (clicking
on the link would take you to a separate page entirely). Thus you have two
methods of accessing the same content. One method is not accessible to
screen reader users. The other method IS accessible. Overall, your solution
is accessible and satisfies both audiences.

Option 2. Drop the layered approach.

In the first approach, you probably noticed that I said *what* to do but not
*how*. The way to make layers invisible to screen readers (which is what you
want to do if you choose this approach) is make them entirely dependent on
JavaScript. You can do this by calling the JavaScript from an external file
or by creating the layers by using "print" or "echo" statements inside of
the JavaScript itself.

You can check to see if your JavaScript is truly invisible or not by turning
off the JavaScript in your browser. If you don't see any of your layers
anywhere on the page, then you've succeeded. If the layers appear somewhere
else on the page, then you need to try again. The Opera browser
(www.opera.com) makes it easy to turn off JavaScript. Go to File > Quick
Preferences > Enable JavaScript and un-check the "Enable JavaScript" option.

In a sense, you want this JavaScript to be entirely *inaccessible* to screen
readers because partial accessibility can be worse than no accessibility.
Just don't forget to create the alternative version!

The downside to this approach is that you have to maintain two versions of
all of your layers. You could get even fancier and create them both from the
same source, using scripting (either JavaScript or server-side scripting) or
databases in conjunction with scripting. This eliminates the duplicity, but
it requires more work to set up in the first place.

The last thing that I'll say is make sure that you make it obvious to the
user how to close the layers. You could have them disappear when the mouse
is moved away, or you could create a prominent "close" button that is placed
consistently in each of the layers that you create.

Paul Bohman
Technology Coordinator
WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind)
www.webaim.org
Center for Persons with Disabilities
www.cpd.usu.edu
Utah State University
www.usu.edu



-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ]
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 5:27 PM
To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Subject: RE: Pop-Ups Question


What this is for is a e-learning site. They want to move away from p