RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (Full Version)

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Donkey -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/11/2005 7:43:53)

quote:

Peter: I should have posted the other half :

quote:

Tables used strictly for layout purposes do NOT have header rows or columns

Dan, I'm only using the tables to present data, it's just that column headers are not necessary on these simple 2-column tables and they would be visually confusing. Personally I don't see how in this case they help the person using the screen reader either, but when I get home tonight I intend to download Lynx and take a look.



BobbyDouglas -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/11/2005 13:07:19)

Still waking up a bit, so if this doesn't quite make sense, I'm sorry.
quote:

From a very simplistic point of view yes, but there's more than 1% we're talking about and they have very powerful word of mouth. If you are one of the few sites that caters for blind people, where do you think they'll send their friends?

- It is most likely more than 1%, maybe even 3-5%, but potential clients for web designers (seems) it would be less than 1%. But these are only guesses, there is no survey to back this up, nor one to prove it wrong. I don't think there is a way to survey people with a disibility and get a good population selection.

quote:

The one the law says I have to keep.

- We wouldn't be anywhere if we didn't do what we thought was right, even if the law says something different, we have the right to fight the law. (Although we should still abide by it until something changes). You say that the reason is beacuse it is the law, is that beacause you can't say "because it makes sense" ?

quote:

You really need to find out more about people with disabilities. They are not completely helpless. You wouldn't pick it up for them. These people are offered services. They have a regular ordering facility and the stuff is delivered to them.

- Oh, so I could not go online to the Washington Post and order a braile copy? And yes I do need to find out more about people with disibilities, I'm still learning.

quote:

Anyone who is blind can't see how bad it looks, they're only interested in how it reads.

- If they are interested in how it reads, it should matter to them how it is positioned, right? Not all layouts are in logical order.

quote:

Blind people can't see Flash movies. You have to give them a text version. They also can't see images containing "Special Offer.... Cheap Flights" they need a text alternative.

- Some flash movies are just iamges, how do I give a text versino of the image? Just use an alt= and explain what it is?

quote:

Avoid pop up windows. Someone who is blind has no idea it's popped up and gets confused when they try to carry on navigating the site.

- Sometimes popup windows work best. It sounds like this is something the screen reader software needs to implement.

The idea of what we have to do seems ok, even though I don't think it should be a requirment, it is still something I will try to use. Do we need to educate our clients on the issue? Or are our clients supposed to know? It has been a few years since the law was passed, and even today people still are uneducated on section 508.

quote:

Also my involvement in Disability legislation in the UK gives me a bit more of an insight than most people on this forum. I posted to share my knowledge and hope that members will not treat this in a negative manner but as a way of helping all sectors of society. I feel deeply about this as I believe that every human being irrespective of sex, colour, culture or disability, has the right to be treated equally.

- Only way for others to understand is to make sure they are educated, if people don't share their knowledge, we won't get educated.

quote:

Let's look at it another way. You seem hung up on costs and profit which I fully understand but let's take a longer term view. Any sort of technical restrictions actually restricts entry into your field of business by new competitors and some who can't be bothered accepting these changes will drop out. That will leave a smaller number of people like you who can then charge higher fees.

- My main points are cost and logic. There will be certain websites that cater to certain groups (such as those who are disabled), these might do well, of course there should always be some people focussed on just one group to better serve them. I don't see the number of disabled people increasing, if it was, it might be a good market to focus on (from the business aspect).

quote:

You posted this thread and I applaud you for doing so. I hope my posting give a balanced opinion of this area to all forum members.

- Thanks I just hope this information will help others understand too. If you and Jaybee didn't reply, image how bad things would look with just someone like me posting my thoughts?

Right, gotta go or I'll be late.
- Run run run!

quote:

I assumed that this slogan is aimed at potential clients for your services, not "competent web designers" and as such

- I was talking about you when I said "competent web designers" not my clients lol. I assume people will have common sense, and if my client thinks I will try to spend extra money on his site that would give very little return, he would be suprised.

quote:

Do you have similar legislation in the US?

- Dunno.

quote:

A little thought beforehand always helps to cover your back.

- Sorry, I assume just a little bit of common sense. I think I know a little bit more about my business and what my slogan means than you do lol.

quote:

Again, your assumptions about the proportion of disabled users in the population is wildly off and on this (commercial) basis alone you would be doing your clients a disservice by ignoring that market.

- Could be, like I said above I do not know for sure what the #s are, that is only my logical guess, do you have anything that proves different?

quote:

I repeat that it is up to us to show a duty of care to our clients by making them aware of their legal position and ensuring that their sites stay on the right side of the law.

- So it is the web designer's duty to tell their clients about the Section 508 law?

quote:

Some clients are dazzled by the flashier side of web presentation and insist on it, so it is up to us to explain the downside of this kind of presentation to them in terms of the law and the extra cost that follows from use of it.

- So we have to spend hundreds of dollars to make flash only websites contain an HTML and Text only version? I don't think my clients would understand how their money is being justified.

Btw, arguements are taken more seriously when they are presented like how golfer/jaybee said theirs.

----
Anyone know how screen readers handle framed pages?



dzirkelb1 -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/11/2005 13:33:16)

What about when a blind person running a Mac and Firefox goes to a site, which, is accessable to blind people, but only ones using IE? Meaning, their software, code, whatever only works for IE and nothing else? Do they have to accomodate for all browsers even though their site is made for IE users? What about people that just use firefox and try to go to this same site? Some of the links don't work, some of the code doesn't work, anything...point being, they cant' get to the special or whatever it is. What happens then? Whats the standard?



Donkey -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/11/2005 13:38:31)

quote:

a site, which, is accessable to blind people, but only ones using IE?
That's a problem for everyone who is not using IE, not only blind people. That's why there are standards and why sites should be made to work in all modern browsers.



BobbyDouglas -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/11/2005 13:56:19)

Dave, most websites in IE that do not work in FF are mainly just structural issues. I don't think that matters much because the code is still there, and if ran under the 508, it should still display good enough.

quote:

Do they have to accomodate for all browsers even though their site is made for IE users?

- It doesn't seem like we need to do that. I sure hope we wouldn't have to! I have enough trouble with just IE and FF [8|]

Does that help answer your question?



caz -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/11/2005 14:11:43)

quote:

So it is the web designer's duty to tell their clients about the Section 508 law?


Yes.



dpf -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/11/2005 14:15:25)

quote:

So it is the web designer's duty to tell their clients about the Section 508 law?

Yes.
Its like visiting an accountant or lawyer - most people dont know the law in every area and here, we are passing ourselves off as experts!



dzirkelb1 -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/11/2005 14:35:47)

I figured it didn't matter in browsers; but, since I've never even heard of making a website accessable to blind people (don't mean to sound mean, but it frankly never occured to me), then I figured it was some intense code used to make it that way.



BobbyDouglas -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/11/2005 14:39:37)

I figured it didn't matter in browsers;
- If we had to, it would be an unreasonable law.

but, since I've never even heard of making a website accessable to blind people (don't mean to sound mean, but it frankly never occured to me),
- Trust me, you are not the only one, about 4 days ago I knew nothing on the subject. Imagine how many others are out their?

There are still some things about the standards I do not fully agree with, but I will still try a little bit harder to follow the section 508.



golfer -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/11/2005 16:02:50)

quote:

There are still some things about the standards I do not fully agree with, but I will still try a little bit harder to follow the section 508.


Thats good to read. You opened the door for the debate and many people have increased their awareness of the subject thanks to you.

I really hope that the channel is now open for people to accept that a person with disabilities has the same rights as everyone else and for problems to be aired in a positive constructive way through this forum and its members.

Just to, hopefully, wrap up my contribution to this thread. There was a TV programme (channel 4) in the UK I think it was called something like 'the person whose skin fell off'. It was about a person with a most awful disability.

Jonny lived around here and I met him on a number of occasions whilst I was managing the DDA project. He was the chairman of a large local charity who pooled help and resourced other specialist charities. Jonny was an incredibly sharp witted intelligent man who lived in constant pain. No one could touch him. He was swathed in bandages. His fingers were just stumps. He had to endure regular redressing of his body and skin just pulled away from his body. He always looked on the bright side of everything and he expected us to treat him as normal. It wasn't difficult in the business context.

Jonny died some 12/18 months ago but I will always remember how he tried to be normal in everything although severely handicapped. That is why I strongly believe that anyone with a disability has the right to be treated the same as everyone else within the bounds of reason. Sometimes all it requires is a human being at the end of a phone to talk to the person about their purchase, booking etc. and for them not to be disadvantaged. If we design a web make sure that there is an email address or phone number so that the company can be contacted should the site visitor need assistance.

Jonny wouldn't thank you for doing that. He would just say something like "I'm a bloody human being myself you know it's just that my bit and pieces don't work as well" I know - he said it to me once.

Ian



jaybee -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/11/2005 17:17:55)

Ian, I don't often end up in tears but that program had me reaching for the tissues. How anyone could be that strong with the awful problems he had I will never know.

quote:

What about when a blind person running a Mac and Firefox goes to a site, which, is accessable to blind people, but only ones using IE?


Ummmm, no I think you've got completely the wrong end of the stick here. Blind people use screen readers such as Lynx, Jaws, Window-Eyes and SuperNova not Firefox or Internet Explorer.
A screen reader looks at the HTML code behind the page. (Look at your code tab in Frontpage) It then reads that code out loud to them.

The readers are savvy enough to ignore some of the stuff such as Meta tags but they read most everything else out loud, so you can imagine some of the crud people get read to them when you've plugged in loads of fonts, colours, sizes etc.

That's why CSS is recommended as it takes all of the styling out of the page just leaving the content. The readers get the meat of the page whilst the browsers get the styling and all the pretty colours.



Donkey -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/11/2005 19:23:00)

An aside to the main debate.
I just downloaded the Lynx browser. Took a quick look at the zip file, it's not exactly an intuitive installation, so I looked at the online help. That was the clincher; life is just too short to bother with it. I'm not completely stupid (IMO), but my brain really started to hurt. So why is this not as simple as downloading IE or FF? Isn't it a tad ironic that the browser designed to allow easy access to people of impaired ability is so bloody difficult to install?

I'll just have to use the on-line checker.



BobbyDouglas -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/11/2005 20:52:50)

Linux browser? Are you talking about the OS? Or Mozilla?



Non-Profit -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/11/2005 23:20:01)

Bobby,
I'm pretty sure he means Lynx. A text only browser.

Donkey,
Maybe it's like that because it's much more ancient than FF or IE. I find that people who are blind learn the programs they use and they learn them really well; as opposed to only learning how to install something by clicking one button.

Tony



BeTheBall -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/11/2005 23:33:43)

<My $.02>

I work for the federal government so as a result everything I do must be in compliance with Section 508. We have a separate office that will review what we create and give an assessment of whether or not we have met the requirements of 508. I recently spent about 2 weeks on one html page. I thought I had done a pretty good job with it. Much to my surprise (horror), the page contained 7-8 Section 508 violations. That was three weeks ago. I am still working on it. It has been very frustrating. However, I have learned a great deal from the experience and my coding skills have improved. I fully support meeting accessibility guidelines, although, I also agree that screen reading technology should also make an effort to keep up.

Curiously, I have thought about asking the head sheep here to include a new forum for accessibility-related questions. What do you all think? Good idea or not necessary?



jaybee -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/12/2005 4:24:34)

Arrrrgh. Just finished typing a long reply and my machine suddenly rebooted. Lost the lot. Done a complete scan and nothing untoward. Me suspecteth dodgy Ram. Beginning to think new machine in order. [&:]

Right start again.

Duane, might be a good idea although there are fora out there dedicated to the subject. All depends how much Spook and Tom want to keep us in here. [:D]

The first time you work with compliance it is tough but it gets easier. It's not helped by the fact that some of the error messages are less than self explanatory (except to the guy that wrote them). Second time round you'll still make the mistakes but you'll be able to correct them faster. I recently converted a 500 page site to comply with WCAG3 wherever possible (still got to do the forum, guestbook and shop). Took me 5 weeks from start to finish.

Bobby D, I posted a link to the Lynx browser further up the page for Peter. I get the feeling you're not reading all the posts properly as that's not the first time you've asked a question that's already been answered. If you're going to play devil's advocate that's fine but don't p*** people off by making them repeat things.

Peter. Most of the readers are tough to install. I use the online validators. Maybe that will demonstrate to everyone that these users aren't daft. They can install that and get it working when we can't.

At my IT centre we bought in 6 machines with braille keyboards, enormous screens and sound, specifically for use by people with visual impairment of varying degrees. We spent 3 months reviewing all the different readers with the help of a blind student. We finally plumped for Supernova and I had a devil of a job getting the thing installed and running properly. The speech part kept conflicting with all the system sounds; drove me nuts for ages until the blind student said "Oh you just tweak this and tweak that" Worked fine.

We've got used to gui stuff and forgotten all the hard earned OS level stuff we used to have to work with.



womble -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/12/2005 4:59:28)

quote:

I don't see the number of disabled people increasing, if it was, it might be a good market to focus on (from the business aspect).


I can see your point up to a point here, and I'm not sure about the US, but here in the UK we certainly have an aging population. Now while that might not be entirely relevant to the IT world at the moment, the current golden oldies having grown up in a pre-IT age, in the future, when all of us start drawing our pension, we're all used to doing things online.

I know that it's said that here in the UK 41.7% of over 50-year-olds will have some kind of hearing loss (mainly age related). I would imagine, that in older people visual problems that can't be corrected by simple glasses would also increase too. Add in people likely to have manual dexterity problems due to, for example arthritis, and in the future I'd say that we're definitely looking at an increase in the number of people with disabilities.



labs123 -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/12/2005 5:16:00)

quote:

We finally plumped for Supernova


I have had experience with this software. My cousin is partially sited - she was fine until she was 20 but then her sight started to reduce rapidly. At the moment she is studying to be a legal executive and the firm who she is with has a barrister who is blind.

I have seen first hand the struggle she has had with software, websites and I believe that if you can do it you should. If you think it takes up to much time/money etc it could be seen to be done from a personal development point of view as you will be learning.



jaybee -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/12/2005 5:36:53)

We used Supernova to train and then all our libraries followed suit. It meant that we could teach the basics and then the students could go and use the computers in the library if they didn't have their own machine at home. It worked out great and we even got the contract to train up the library staff to support them.

Many people don't realise how much it costs to have a specially adapted computer for blind people. The RNIB do one for around £4000. I nearly fell off my chair!



labs123 -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/12/2005 5:54:06)

quote:

The RNIB do one for around £4000


Yea I know, in my old job I was running a resource room and to get the bloody thing work was a nightmare. Between me, the techies and the student we managed it. I also helped with making his notes bigger for him. The one thing I never forget was the arrogance of 1 lecturer who said he just didnt have the time to make his handouts in a bigger font. To which i cheekly suggested putting the whole sylabus on memory stick so the student could use Supernova to view notes. Worked a treat!!!!!




dzirkelb1 -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/12/2005 10:43:45)

Yes jaybee, I know what the HTML code is in frontpage :)

This all makes good sense, and I now see why a text version would be good...however, I also see the other aspects of not making a text version for current web's that have been around for a long time.

What about the other coding like asp, javascript, etc? Will the reader pick up pop up messages on a form that is validated through javascript or does the person listening to it have to figure it out? Hoes do they know if they are in the correct text box to enter in their first name etc? Does it tell them?

It seems our web created isn't 508 compliant, it is missing the <alt> tags on all of the images. Now, every piece of schooling I've ever received said it isnt' required and to simply ignore it unless you wish to keep it for your preference. Isn't that ironic? Classes / books teaching it isn't necessary, when, in fact, you could get sued over it? That sort of sucks on both ends of the spectrum there.



d a v e -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/12/2005 10:53:25)

quote:

Now, every piece of schooling I've ever received said it isnt' required and to simply ignore it unless you wish to keep it for your preference.


gee where did you get your schooling from?! it's been in nearly all the things i've been reading/hearing since about 1996 - initially as an aid to display image content loading over slow, slow modems and for users browsing with graphics turned off, oh and incidentally those users with screen readers



dpf -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/12/2005 10:54:57)

quote:

every piece of schooling I've ever received said it isnt' required and to simply ignore it unless you wish to keep it for your preference.
every html book I read and every class I took stressed that the alt tag was vital for viewers whose browser could not display the images - this was pre-accessibility but the same concept. as to ASP, remember that ASP ultimately generates html so it is never seen at the browser level.



dzirkelb1 -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/12/2005 11:02:36)

Maybe it was just the teachers that said to not worry about the alt tab, or maybe it was my brain hearing it isn't necessary to work, so why bother...regardless, I'm sure these teachers weren't the only ones in the world teaching it...especially at University level.

Does the reader read popups and what not? I'm just trying to figure out data pages and stuff like that...online forms, flash stuff (which I'm sure can just be said as "movie" or something like that), and graphing. I have a script that basically creates a graph in excel, saves the graph as an img, and then displays the image...I guess I could put the results of the graph in the alt tag, but, again, it just seems more work than its worth (at least for my site only...not anyone elses...its protected by a login and no one is blind)



dpf -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/12/2005 11:13:47)

quote:

its protected by a login and no one is blind)
that would seem to me to create a special situation - you know precisely who your audience is - although it could change with adisabled hiree, right? I dont know much about the readers but as to forms, my guess is that it would read the form field name so meaningful names ought to be used ( which is good programming habit anyway).



jaybee -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/12/2005 11:28:45)

quote:

I guess I could put the results of the graph in the alt tag


Graphs contain information that, if your site was open and available to all, would contain important info and need to be made accessible. The way you do it is with the Longdesc tag.

Longdesc links to a page with a full description of what is in the graph.

Forms as they are normally created are not accessible and they wouldn't know where to put what.
This explains how to fix them :
http://www.webaim.org/techniques/forms/

quote:

Yes jaybee, I know what the HTML code is in frontpage :)


Just checking! [:D] No, actually that was there for anyone in future who reads this thread and doesn't know where the code is.

ASP and PHP write HTML code to the page so as Dan said as long as they are programmed to write valid HTML there should be no problem.

Javascript is a problem. Ideally use css for your menus. Some search engines have problems with javascript menus too and are unable to spider the site.

Pop-ups are a no-no for accessibility. They confuse the heck out of people who can't see they've popped up and think they're still on the original page. Likewise with opening new pages.

If you must use them then you need to tell the person that they're there. With a new page I put a title tag in the link that says "page opens in new window". Not sure what you'd do with a pop-up. I never use them. There are too many pop-up blockers around these days.

Data goes in tables which is what they're for. You need to use the summary description on the Table tag and make sure you use headers in the columns (th).

Flash can be made sort of accessible if you're building with MX onwards. There is an option to make it accessible and they are improving on it all the time. I think MX just makes sure there is an alternate text for it. MX2004 may do more, I don't have it.




dzirkelb1 -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/12/2005 12:05:28)

It all sounds fairly easy to do...I'm just afraid on the forms. A very likely scenerio is a contact us page where each field is required...a user forgets to enter in a box, then an error message pops up and reminds them. I cant' really see any way around that besides posting to a page that checks everything, then displays an error and tells them to go back and repopulate what they typed in.

ya, I'd have to do all of this if a blind person was hired...but I frankly doubt there will be one in my field at least...no offense, but its not often you see a blind food resteraunt manager (at least for fast food)...I'm sure there out there, but none that I know of in my field :)



jaybee -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/12/2005 12:09:16)

They are less likely to forget to enter a field. The reader takes them field by field. It's only the sighted ones who skip around the page and forget things.



BobbyDouglas -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/12/2005 12:09:22)

quote:

I get the feeling you're not reading all the posts properly as that's not the first time you've asked a question that's already been answered. If you're going to play devil's advocate that's fine but don't p*** people off by making them repeat things.

- How about we don't be an ass and have everyone get along? I'm here to learn, and if I missed an answer to something, I am sorry, but it isn't that big of a deal. I had to repeat my points many times, should I get upset because you can't understand it? No, I just keep trying.

See what Tony said "I'm pretty sure he means Lynx. A text only browser." he wasn't being rude. Thanks Tony [:)]



jaybee -> RE: Accessibility? Do we need to spend the extra money? (4/12/2005 12:10:41)

There certainly appear to be some companies in the US who are up on their accessibility laws

http://www.nevadadot.com/webstandard/links/



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