This weeks readings on accessibility are likely relevant to most of us, since if we are doing design, we are probably going to work for educational or government institutions. The attitude that Clark describes by some programmers and companies that the disabled are not an important audience, is surely hard to find at these institutions. At the very least as Clark explains, “you have, in effect, another paragraph to add to your résumé.”
Due to the many accessibility issues involved in the video medium, I am very interested finding solutions. I am slightly familiar with audio description, and I know how closed captioning works. Transcripts are fairly easy for me to make, because I tend to stick to the script I write. For my project I am going to do what Clark rallies against, adding a separate free standing transcript. I want to do this for searchablilty and so that all users will be encouraged to look at the transcript.
It was a relief when Bohman explained that most screen readers have similar functionality. I was afraid of more cross-testing issues. Techniques I would like to use regularly are: always using alt tags and using empty alt tags for appropriate graphics, providing the option for screenreader users to skip redundant navigation, and organizing content on the html pages in a matter coherent to someone that is tabbing through. These are definitely, yet other good reasons to test the page with the styles turned off. I am curious about how using php might effect these accessibility issues.
Oh and just an aside Clark claims: “We have the Web. We have television. Like matter and antimatter, the two should remain separate.” I disagree. Hulu rocks.
1 Comment
April 13, 2009 at 6:24 pm
That final home page design is where it’s at. It looks great.