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Thread: Accessibility Observations 2

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From: Raleigh Way
Date: Wed, Feb 27 2002 5:33AM
Subject: Accessibility Observations 2
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Everyone on this list has offered excellent
insight/opinions/observations. What a fantastic group of people! I
can't thank you enough.

My main concern concern/question was designing a "linear" site that
would work with any AT version. CSS seems to be the best approach
when AT software and browsers catch up with it.

Terence de Giere pointed out the following (which I knew):

"OLDER SCREENREADERS.
Some combinations of browser and screenreader cannot read information
in columns created by tables. Those readers just read horizontally
across the screen, cutting across the table boundaries and making the
page incomprehensible. The only solution for these users is a single
column page."

This epitomizes what I'm grappling with. It seems the only recourse
is to create a site that literally reads from left to right, top to
bottom, with navigation laid out horizontally at the very top of the
page. I realize that this just isn't possible for higher-end
(corporate) sites.

I'm looking for a "formula" that works in spite of screen reader or
browser versions. I work in education, and I'm responsible for
bringing accessibility issues to faculty and staff who design web
sites on campus. (We do not have a department that does this for
them.) A lot of them do not even know to spell HTML..., so I'm
challenged with the task of making to job comprehensible and easier
for them. I'm a believer in the KISS principle, so until CSS,
browsers and AT software all come together, KISS dictates that the
flow of text and links on the pages be linear for older screen
readers. So, for my faculty and staff it seems, linear text in one
column, navigation at the top, skip to content links, alt tags,
longdes tags and such will have to suffice if they are Web design
challenged. My/their goal is functiona

From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Wed, Feb 27 2002 1:48PM
Subject: RE: Accessibility Observations 2
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Raleigh,

For your audience (I mean the ultimate end users of the content,) you may
have the best approach. However, if I might make one additional suggestion.
Always remember and be certain to remind the people you work with that we do
not design for assistive technologies or browsers, we design for people.
The browsers and assistive technologies are just the pipeline that delivers
the information.

That is something that is easily forgotten when dealing with all the details
of browser and assistive technology compatibility.

Tim

From: John Foliot - bytown internet
Date: Wed, Feb 27 2002 6:26PM
Subject: RE: Accessibility Observations 2
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Accessibility Observations 2Raleigh,

1) I truely share your pain, in-so-far as the "education" aspect required to
make people aware of accessibility issues and web site development seems to
be an on-going battle.

2) There does reach a point where you need to code to the majority. There
are still versions of Netscape 2 out there... do you code to them as well?
(I once saw an entry on one of my server logs that announced a visit from
Netscape 1... blew me away) Most users of assitive technology that I know
have relatively recent software on their machines. It may not be the latest
and greatest, but it's not so far behind that it hinders their use of their
machines. Just as few of us today would consider a PC 386 with a 86 baud
modem "acceptable", so too with users of adaptive technology... it reaches a
point where they MUST upgrade, just to keep pace. I would suspect that this
is true of all users, not just those using screen readers, right? And in
fact, of *life* in general...

3) The "magic" formula. Might I suggest that a clean, comprehensible
"template" for your faculty would be KISS-able. You can make it "nice", you
can even lay it out with some finesse, and then test it for validation,
accessibility, usablity, whatever. Ask real users to give you real feedback
(I'm sure that there are some members of this list who use assitive
technologies who wouldn't mind giving some constructive feedback... you'd
have to ask them of course). The point is, from my experience, most users
of assitive tech aren't asking you to "dumb down" your sites, or make them
boring. Far from it. All they ask is that when you make decisions, make
them in an informed manner, and think about the ramifications of your
actions... think outside of the box a little.

4) Raleigh raised an interesting question though... is anyone aware of any
statistics vis-a-vis software penetration of the different assistive
solutions out there? Either percentile or hard numbers? For example,
acceptng the fact that there are variations, what is the most *usual*
installation of say Jaws out there? Version 3.x? Earlier, or have most
users already upgraded to Version 4? Is there a measured baseline? I
suspect there is a need, and perhaps someone could get a grant to find out
<ha!>. Seriously, with April being Accessibility Month (right?), perhaps
it's something that *should* be attempted, although it would take some heavy
weight "assistance" from some highly trafficked sites to get the message
out, to be accurate it would need widespread support and publicity. I float
this for general comment... I'd be willing to *help*. Anybody??

JF


-----Original Message-----
From: Raleigh Way [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ]
Sent: February 27, 2002 7:34 AM
To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Subject: Accessibility Observations 2


Everyone on this list has offered excellent insight/opinions/observations.
What a fantastic group of people! I can't thank you enough.


My main concern concern/question was designing a "linear" site that would
work with any AT version. CSS seems to be the best approach when AT
software and browsers catch up with it.


Terence de Giere pointed out the following (which I knew):


"OLDER SCREENREADERS.
Some combinations of browser and screenreader cannot read information in
columns created by tables. Those readers just read horizontally across the
screen, cutting across the table boundaries and making the page
incomprehensible. The only solution for these users is a single column
page."


This epitomizes what I'm grappling with. It seems the only recourse is to
create a site that literally reads from left to right, top to bottom, with
navigation laid out horizontally at the very top of the page. I realize
that this just isn't possible for higher-end (corporate) sites.


I'm looking for a "formula" that works in spite of screen reader or
browser versions. I work in education, and I'm responsible for bringing
accessibility issues to faculty and staff who design web sites on campus.
(We do not have a department that does this for them.) A lot of them do not
even know to spell HTML..., so I'm challenged with the task of making to job
comprehensible and easier for them. I'm a believer in the KISS principle,
so until CSS, browsers and AT software all come together, KISS dictates that
the flow of text and links on the pages be linear for older screen readers.
So, for my faculty and staff it seems, linear text in one column, navigation
at the top, skip to content links, alt tags, longdes tags and such will have
to suffice if they

From: Holly Marie
Date: Wed, Feb 27 2002 7:20PM
Subject: Older Browser Emulators online[was] Re: Accessibility Observations 2
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Accessibility Observations 2From: John Foliot - bytown internet


>There are still versions of Netscape 2 out there... do you code to them
as well?

I think any page with clean code, without tables and no frames will open
up fine in any older browser, too.
I think that is also one of the features of coding this way.

There are a couple of things that can be done or tried here, also.

That page I coded up today in XHTML strict and CSS 2 actually backward
degrades and displays content fine on a NN1.0 Browser.


[1]Browser emulators online at Deja Vu -- the web as we remember it
You can see other pages from those times, or even load your own pages
through one of these older browsers.

URL : http://www.dejavu.org
Cern line-mode browser 1[1990 to 1992]before wide use of hyperlinks?
NCSA Mosaic [1993 model]
Mosaic Netscape 0.9b [1994]
Netscape Navigator 1.0 [1995]
lynx various versions - http://www.trill-home.com/lynx/public_lynx.html
Internet Explorer 2.0 [1995]
Hot Java[1995]

[2]HTML version emulators, Text Purity(text only) and Web TV emulator
online
http://www.delorie.com/web/purify.html
Check your pages against Text only, or
HTML2.0(RFC 1866) no tables were used
HTML2.0 + Tables(RFC 1866+1942)
HTML 3.2
HTML4.0 Transitional
HTML4.0 Strict
webTV1.1(make sure to resize your browser to the template)


[3]See if your machine will Download and install older browsers *check
to see if it is ok*
[*note* works for almost every browser except MS IE which only allows
one serving per machine, unless you are running an extra under version
of windows]
http://browsers.evolt.org/
They have quite a collection of old and newer browsers.

Evolt appears to also has a copy of pwSpeak available for downlaod.
http://browsers.evolt.org/index.cfm/dir/pwwebspeak/

-----

I happened upon DeJa Vu internet history while in a class at college 4
or so years ago, and thought it was neat. For fun read some of the older
history of the internet and really the Internet is not that old, but
things sure have changed in its short time. I ran the current guideline
page I coded [ http://www.qexo.com/access.html ] through a lot of older
browsers, and because there are no tables or frames, they presented well
in all, even with the css and xhtml code. The pages even presented in
the very old line mode browser, however there were or are no links in
that model.

Your mention of the NN2 browser had me thinking about this site that had
the old emulators online, and it is still there and working. I did check
it earlier today against HTML3x versions and older and it was fine there
also.

holly




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