Message from discussion web design for disabled users

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From: "Community Living Chatham-Kent" <awat...@clc-k.ca>
Newsgroups: alt.disability.issues,alt.comp.blind-users
Subject: Re: web design for disabled users
Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 09:47:30 -0500
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You could also consider using Macromedia Flash if possible.  It overcomes 
many disability issues although it's not compatible with many "alternative 
devices" (mentioned below) that can connect to and read web pages.  For 
instance a flash site could easily speak the name of a button (or have other 
sound cues) everytime the mouse passed over/near it and could read any 
pertinent information on each area of the site.  It essentially becomes an 
interactive movie.  You could even have areas of it cued to different kinds 
of disabilities so that you could select settings based on the users's needs 
and let them go it alone from there.  This kind of technology is in place at 
http://www.connectability.ca/connectability/pages/sitetour/index.html, a 
Community Living agency out of Toronto, Ontario helping people with an 
intellectual disability.

You could consider Dragon Naturally Speaking to help with the physical 
disabilities.  Although I've not tested it using Internet Explorer, I 
believe it could be customized to access the internet without needing to 
touch a keyboard.  Profiles are set up for the voice recognition of each 
user and you teach it as you go.  This wouldn't work however with many of 
the technologies mentioned below because this is a software solution. 
(Although some devices are becoming more appropriately voice activated such 
as some of the newer cell phones able to call mom by saying "mom".)

Another thing is that Web Designers don't usually make full use of tools 
such as XHTML.  New language standards are emerging in web design that will 
allow devices like Cell Phones or other tools to connect to and 
read/interact with the internet.  (This is the kind of technology that might 
some day be able to let you turn your lights on at home while on vacation in 
Fiji by logging into a website.)  XHTML allows the designer to "flag" 
certain areas so that for example a user could connect to a website using a 
some kind of reading device that lets it know how to handle each area (so 
the lights in the example above wouldn't need to worry about information 
such as pictures or other text, just commands meant for the lights).  In 
this case, the improvement for disabled users comes from the union of the 
website developer's code and the products that connect to it which so far 
isn't happening widescale.  What we're left with are devices such as cell 
phones that try their best to interpret older websites but are really just 
scratching the surface.  You can thank the flood of websites designed by 
Microsoft Frontpage and Macromedia Dreamweaver that make things simple for 
average joe designers, but limit applications such as this.

     Aaron Watson, Information Management Facilitator
     Community Living Chatham-Kent

P.S.  I'm not disabled but it's part of my job to research accessibilty 
technologies.  It's part of the reason I've been scanning this group.  Sorry 
if I've jumped the gun with my "tech-talk".


"chlori" <usenet...@arto.ch> wrote in message 
news:41pql7F1fket9U1@individual.net...
> Hello
>
> I will be writing something about webdesign considering disabled users for 
> my school English lessons. I am mainly interested in visual and other 
> physical disabilities.
>
> Now I'm looking for some answers preferably from disabled users:
> Q1: How accessible is the web for you?
> Q2: What are your accessibility issues when using the web?
> Q3: What could web designers do to make the web more accessible?
>
> Thanks for your replies and/or links!
>
> -- 
> chlori