Johnny,
I think you and Chad are missing my point. Although posted on the alt.blind
newsgroup (because the original poster asked for web design related visual
AND physical issues), the information I posted was meant as broadbased and
general so as to include support for many disabilities. The site I provided
was an example of what a particular Community Living agency was doing with
the technology (I don't have a direct hand in any of it as we're city
indepentent so critique away regarding the code ;-) ), but I was happy to
hear that it was helping people and actually has a decent client base after
a couple of years being active as an ongoing project. Our agency handles
intellectual disabilities; particularly deinstitutionalization and helping
them interact with the community and improve their quality of life
whererever possible (including providing network and internet resources)
however many of the people we support have other disabilities including
physical and visual which we must also contend with. The actual website
sample I was mentioning doesn't have all of the technology I was trying to
explain, however the potential is there. I'm trying to draw attention to
that potential, not the website.
I apologize for overlooking the fact that screenreader's would be used to
view that particular demo and I'm not suggesting that the Toronto site does
the trick. Please understand that visual diablilities are not my area of
expertise and that I was attempting to address the original poster's
question about what technologies could be used for web design to assist
people with disabilities and I've seen the potential in Flash as an option.
Also, the site sample provided doesn't contain the XML specifications I was
mentioning (nor do I remember saying specifically that it did. These were
two separate ideas) so scanning it for XHTML validitiy is would be a further
exercise in futility. My point about XML is that it has the potential to
help people with some accessiblity issues by pinpointing areas of code that
could interface BETTER with screenreaders and other peices of hardware yet
to come. I thought I was clear that neither technology is an instant fix
but it is growing and has the potential to help people!
As for the web accessiblity guidelines, I'm all for them. But with a flash
built site, they won't always do well on the automated validity scans and
the sample site should probably have been tagged as HTML Loose for now. I
believe most of the development has gone into the Flash portion of it.
However if the content allows for all of the consessions made in the web
accessibility guidelines then it could show up as failed and still work fine
for disabled users. The flash content could literally read itself without
the need for extra hardware.
>If you expect that users wil shift to other browser, you are plain dumb,
>the majority of users have no choise, it the IT departments responsibility.
I never mentioned a change in browser although eventually new versions will
come out with more potential. My point was about improved "browsing
technologies" such as better screen readers or other devices that could be
web accessible without the need for a PC. (Such as the voice activated cell
phone example I mentioned before)
> There are a hell of a long way untill that happens. To me it sounds like
> you have your head up yor arse.
The Flash site used at Toronto has logins for each individual signed up and
customizes the content to fit their particular disability. Once a user is
logged in, people who may have literacy issues have content read to them,
people who don't, won't. Content could change button sizes and contrast for
moderately visually impaired so they can have a personalized experience.
As for the connectivity issues, there is a movement in our areas to provide
wireless high speed internet for the cost of DSL. Rural areas in our county
now have access to 1.5 Mbps for the cost of regular DSL. I believe that the
technology for this kind of experience is here now. We just need some
talented, forward thinking people to help get it into play.
I'm only trying to help with positive feedback and I am surprised at what
appears to me to be a largely negative response. Healthy debate I can
understand. Openly insulting and demoralizing someone for having an opinion
about surfacing technologies? I can only assume that I've stepped on some
toes.
Aaron
"Johnny Winther Ronnenberg" <johnny.wint...@XYZtdcadsl.dk> wrote in message
news:43fa21f7$0$167$edfadb0f@dread11.news.tele.dk...
> Community Living Chatham-Kent wrote:
>> "Chad Kelly" <rockradio2
...@yahoo.com.au> wrote in message
>>
news:1139986632.251341.239370@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>>> Community Living Chatham-Kent wrote:
>>>> 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.
>>> I personally do not think Flash is very good at all for
>>> accessibility. For the most part it is used a a graphical medium,
>>> you also need to use a mouse and it does not work (very well) with
>>> many screne readers.
>> You wouldn't need a screen reader for Flash if the content itself was
>> built to read the screen!
> Which is not an option, at the moment its not posible and why bypass the
> users choose of a screenreader?
>>Accessiblity keys could be used as with
>> Javascript so that function keys replace mouse movent to perform
>> actions.
> Access keys and Javascript goes together as well as the devil fucking the
> pope.
>>Or if combined with Dragon as outlined below, voice
>> commands could navigate the site.
> The user have a rigth to expect it to be software independent, its
> actually the point of HTML
>>>> 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.
>>> I had a look at that site, frankly, I left before it even had time to
>>> load. I'm only on a dial-up conection and did not want to waste time
>>> waiting for some stupid looking Flash driven web movie to load!!.
>>> If you really want to help anyone with a disability, then you should
>>> just stick with plain old HTML, after all that is what it was created
>>> for, to make documents accessable to anyone who required them.
>> I agree that it takes some time for flash sites to load (something I
>> hope Ma' Bell fixes in the future by providing affordable high speed
>> internet to more constituents in urban and rural areas), I just think
>> that HTML in itself can be very limiting in some ways. You're using
>> screen readers and other things to adapt to HTML (which I admit will
>> overall expand your web experience allowing you wider web
>> accessiblilty at this point) but I'm saying you could be in for a
>> very different experience by instead having a site or two that adapt
>> to you.
> There are a hell of a long way untill that happens. To me it sounds like
> you have your head up yor arse.
>>I'm disappointed that you were also willing to judge the
>> site I mentioned before actually seeing it. If you saw what it did
>> and it was still not to your liking, I would consider it a fair
>> assessment.
> Saw ? How? Heard wold be more appretiate.
>>>> 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.
>>> I think your getting a bit a head of yourself here!.
>>> While I think XHTML has some great pertencial, it will not be very
>>> functional in it's true form for a year or two yet.
>>> The main reason why is because IE6 does not support XHTML yet, served
>>> with it's proper mime type which is XML, (I think).
>>> So all current documents still need to be served eather as
>>> HTML4.01Strict, or as XHTML1.0Strict, served up to IE as HTML.
>>> So that is why not many people use it.
>>> Also, it's not really known as too how much of XHTML will be
>>> supported in IE7.
>> I didn't say the technology was here, but that it wasn't far off. XML is
>> being taught in Universities today.
> Yes but Neither IE, FF or OP can handle it, so until browsers understand
> it in an meningfull way, its not an option.
>>XHTML will no doubt be
>> with us in the next couple of years as you mentioned. But IE and
>> personal computers won't necessarily be the only browswer technology
>> out there just as it isn't now.
> If you expect that users wil shift to other browser, you are plain dumb,
> the majority of users have no choise, it the IT departments
> responsibility.
>>XML has the capacity to reinvent HTML
>> so that almost any device with an internet connection could connect
>> to and read parts of a website that only applied to it. (For
>> instance a cell phone could be programmed to view content only tagged
>> as <phone> in the XHTML).
> XML cannot do anything other than (X)HTML, if you belive otherwise, you
> are wrong and I would like you to prove it beyond doubts.
>>>> 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.
>>> That is a load of rubbish.
>>> DW in recent versions has had very good support for XHTML, while FP
>>> has never supported anything, a part from a few MS specific tags.
>>> It's due to the reasons staited above as to why XHTML has not been
>>> and is not very well supported, by many "Professional Web Designers".
>> I am suggesting however that easily 30-40% of websites out there are
>> NOT designed by professionals and that Frontpage and Dreamweaver (and
>> lets not forget Netscapes little WYSIWYG editor) in their various
>> incarnations over the years have allowed sites to be created outside
>> the Web Accessability Guidlines let alone to include XHTML for
>> disabilities. I'm talking about the high school students making a
>> web page for their father's small business or using a personal web
>> space for a blog. XML support would be a great advantage to web
>> accessibility and we're only beginning to see the potential.
> XML are designed for helping integrating different databases etc. in a
> united view and not to impletent the standard of accessibility.
> But you did not expect to find people with official degrees in
> webdevelopment here, did you? I know, you whére just unlucky to stumble
> into one ;-)
> If you made that site, I suggest that you put it on review in
> alt.www.webmaster and I promise you, I will rip the code apart and find
> all the litle flaws, you dont think are there. But I can tell you rigth
> now, you wont like it.
> Check this for at start:
> http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.connectability.ca%...
> Websites that cant validate cannot be accessible. First you need to make
> the document valid, then you test for accessibililty and then you dig into
> the code and do a line by line analysis. When that works, you need guys
> like Chaddy and Gaff, to find the real tricky points. Its not what the
> standard says, it how its interpretated by assistive technology that
> counts.
> Did you test the site in different screenreaders? No, why should you? And
> not a sound came out of my speakers, while I had a look at it, so there
> are not any in build help there, as you suggest.
> Best regards
> Johnny Winther Ronnenberg
> --
> Det er brugeren der bestemmer ;-)
> http://www.ronnenberg.dk/webaccessibility/
> Last: revision:
> http://www.ronnenberg.dk/webaccessibility/upcomingwork.asp (danish
> only) and
> http://www.ronnenberg.dk/webaccessibility/lettheuserchoose.asp
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