FN-FORUM: RE: Adding an accessibility bar to a website - thoughts please

date posted 10th January 2007 18:11

I used to work at the Access Technology support unit at the RNIB so it was
my job to get all the technology for the blind and partially sighted staff
over the country. It's a big area and there seemed to be 2 main technologies
that we supported.

Screen readers like Jaws
http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_products/software_jaws.asp and
Magnifying software like Zoomtext
http://www.pugh.co.uk/Products/sightandsound/zoomtext-9magreader.htm

these were the the most popular and in particular magnifyers like zoomtext
depend on websites being very contrasting. Visually impaired people take it
on themselves to make their technology work for them rather than waiting for
you to meet all of their needs. There are so many different kinds of
impairment.

They are rather expensive bits of kit but as someone mentioned before the
key would be on making the website as clear as possible. You can download
Jaws and use it for testing as it works for 45 minute sessions. Zoomtext has
a 30 day expiry on the demo.

The RNIB offer quite a good Service and this article on good design:
http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/code/public_rnib003460
.hcsp

Jay

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL REMOVED] [EMAIL REMOVED] Behalf Of
martin.wilk
Sent: 10 January 2007 18:02
To: FN-FORUM / [EMAIL REMOVED]
Subject: Re: FN-FORUM: RE: Adding an accessibility bar to a website -
thoughts please



I think the idea of making the web more accessible is a really good idea, I
think persuing ideas and such will be good because with the technical
advances that we are seeing regularly it would be good to keep at it rather
than giving up on the idea of making it more accessible, you never know what
someone will invent and if people see other people like yourselves trying to
making the web more accessible they might get the idea to join in and get
thinking.

So to keep the idea alive by using screen readers and other things is a good
idea and I think helps, if you can see where I'm going with this!?

Martin
atdc


----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Short" [EMAIL REMOVED]
To: [EMAIL REMOVED]
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 4:48 PM
Subject: RE: FN-FORUM: RE: Adding an accessibility bar to a website -
thoughts please


>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: [EMAIL REMOVED] [EMAIL REMOVED] On Behalf Of
>> martin.wilk
>> Sent: 10 January 2007 16:40
>> To: FN-FORUM / [EMAIL REMOVED]
>> Subject: Re: FN-FORUM: RE: Adding an accessibility bar to a website -
>> thoughts please
>>
>>
>> I took screen readers as actual people as they do exsist but yes having
>> the
>> programme or software that reads out the text on screen is good - this is
>> just the same as saying have an audio option, well thats how I see it.
>>
>> Martin
>> atdc
>
> Screen readers are a great boon and they are much better than they used to
> be.
> They are great (and practicle) for static pages but, as I said, they web
> is an
> interactive place, do screen readers help here?
>
> --
> Cheers,
> Gary
> http://www.garyshort.org/
>
>
>
> --
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