Screen Reader Easier Than Magnifiers
I had the pleasure of sitting with Rebecca Stallings of the Asheville Services for the Blind to gain her perspective of JAWS with Web 2.0 sites. Rebecca gave me a tour of JAWS and we visited a few sites. What I found interesting was her amazing proficiency with JAWS. I wondered aloud, “How could this be? How could she be more proficient with JAWS than I am with a screen magnifier?”. She gave me some great observations.
- Screen readers keep everything within context. Magnifiers lose context. JAWS can provide the user with immediate lists of links, images, form fields and other web artifacts. She can get that information instantly. The screen magnifier user cannot.
- Jaws uses keyboard shortcuts for every access of the web page. Magnifier users have to move the focus and hunt for things within a new context.
- Magnifier users often are not aware they are missing information because they are only viewing a small part of the screen. JAWS users can know all artifacts across a web page, (provided its is accessible).
There is the rub. Not everyone values accessibility. Rebecca and I depend upon it. It would be great if others could design and implement web pages for accessibility.
Section 508 & SEO, Good For Each Other
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the quality and volume of traffic to a web site from search engines via natural algorithms. Because effective SEO may require changes to HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term “search engine friendly” may be used to describe web site design, menus, content and forms that are easy to optimize. ”Spamdexing” or the use of “link farms” to draw traffic to a web site from search engines degrade the relevence of search results and the user experience.
In many ways designing a web site for SEO improves the user experience as well as makes the web site more readable for visually impaired users who use screen readers. Think about what search engines do to index a page and what a screen reader for the visually impaired do to read a screen. Both the search engine and screen reader depend upon text to do their jobs.
- Google and Jaws use alt tags and HTML tags to read pages for SEO and speech to text for the visually impaired respectively.
- The same elements that a screen reader does not pick up are also ignored by search engine spiders, namely graphical images.
- Clear and well written text is easiest for a user of a screen reader to understand and it also makes for better natural language rankings in a search engine. Search engines use tools to analyze the language in a paragraph of text for ranking purposes. Better written text will naturally rank better in a search and will be more understandable to a visually impaired listener.
Want to improve your SEO? Make your sie Section 508 compliant.
WordPress Accessibility
I have been working in the evenings to make my WordPress blog accessible. I am testing with the Firefox Web Development Tool plug-in. This is not trivial. The templage that I started with was not accessible. I tried some of the acceible templates and found them either not to be accessible or not very attractive. I also wanted to maintain a look and feel with the rest of my web site.
Using the FAE rule set, I am close. Using the beta rule set, I am quite a ways from becoming accessible. My appologies to anyone using my blog. I will keep at it. I think it would have been easier to start from scratch. Here are my challenges for the remaining FAE rule set. I hope to have the blog accessible by December 1, 2008. Hang in there with me!
FAE Rule Set Violation
Designing Forms
Field and button layout locations are important for the visually impaired. Zooming makes keeping information in context difficult. Remember:
- Avoid horizontal white space between labels and entry fields. Minimize the user’s movement with the mouse when filling out forms. Keeping fields with labels is difficult when in zoom mode.
- Place the buttons vertically right below the last input field. Don’t make the user search way over to the left or right to find the input buttons.
- Make the buttons lage and high contrast. Help the user know what the buttons are used for and where the buttons are located.
- Avoid multiple column input if possible. Keep your forms in a clear vertical trajectory. I have actually been in zoom mode and skipped the second column because I did not know it existed.
- Keep your forms to one page if at all possible. If you need more than one page, use a “continue” button and take them to a new page. It is easier to go to the next page via a button than it is by scrolling the web page.
- Number your input fields and tell them on each page exactly where they are. e.g. “Entry fields 1 – 12 of 23, page 1 of 2″. This helps tremendously.
- Give immediate feedback on each page. Place a high ontrast message by the field and ask them for what is needed.
These design tips improve usability for everyone, not just the visually impaired.
IDEAS 2008
On November 14, I attended the IDEAS 2008 conference in Arlington, VA hosted by the GSA. The conference was well attended by government Section 508 coordinators and I was able to network with quite a few of the Computer & Electronics Accommodation Program (CAP) coordinators. The information I received on government buying procedures, Section 508 tools and web site testing was well worth the expense and time spent. Some things I learned:
- Section 508 is an unfunded Federal government mandate. Up until six months ago the mandate was not well received or taken seriously by most agencies. Section 508 is beginning to gain traction.
- If you have products and services you want to sell to the Federal government, you should be listed in GSA Schedule 70, Buy Accessible Wizard and file a Volunteer Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) form.
- Documents should be Section 508 compatible. This is as important as web pages.
- Closed captioning is required and more tools are needed in this area.
- CAP coordinators are a great help for impaired employees. They have budget for their clients and can make recommendations.
- It is not clear what the buying process or packaging strategy for product providers to the Federal government.
- The Federal government is committed to Section 508 at the implementation level. It is not clear at the Agency CFO level what the commitment is. (This was a main topic of discussion in the show floor.)
Relative Fonts
I have not posted in a while. I have been very busy getting my web site (www.learningaccessibility.com) to be accessible. I have done so and I feel good about that. One thing I noticed; not only are relative fonts easy to implement, but they do not behave as expected. If your user wants to use web pages with relative fonts, they should not change the absolute default font-size preferences for their browser. I did so for Safari. I saw strange results on Safari that did not match Firefox. I couldn’t imagine why the text on Safari was so large and why my page was so distorted. Visually impaired people use all the tools in their tool bag and the mix can be interesting. The result is that relative fonts do not mix well with altered absolute default browser preferences.
At first I was grumbling about relative fonts. I spent wasted time debugging the unwanted results. If you use relative fonts you should:
- Let your users know not to use multiple zoom methods that do not mix well.
- Make sure all of your fonts are relative. Don’t mix relative with absolute font-sizes on your web pages.
- Do not use font-sizes over 200%. This starts to distort the page.
- Use 85% to 100% for regular text font-sizes in order to avoid page distortion.
- Use the Web Development Tool on Firefox to find all of your font-size settings.
- Test your web pages on Firefox, IE and Safari to determine if you obtain the expected results.
- Test your web pages with browser text zoom up to 4:1 ratio. Your page should not be distorted within this range.
- Use relative div and table sizes as well. This will help when pages are manually resized with relative fonts.
IDEAS 2008
The Interagency Disability Educational Awareness Showcase (IDEAS) is GSA’s premier event focused on partnering industry and education with government to meet the requirements under Sections 504 and 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.
Year after year, attendees of IDEAS gain skillsets through 508 focused agendas on issues such as electronic and information technology accessibility, 508 law and standards, website standards compliance, acquisitions, market research for accessible product and services, and more.
Also, IDEAS is a trusted venue for the latest exhibits of assistive technology products and services that help benefit employee service capability and reduce injury in the workplace. IDEAS helps forward the mission to enforce Section 508 across government agencies with the goal of promoting an electronic and information technology accessible government to people with and without disabilities.
IDEAS 2008 is the Federal government’s annual conference on Section 508, presented by the GSA.
Registration is FREE for government and industry and includes admission to all:
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Keynotes
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Educational Sessions
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Networking Events
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Technology Exhibit Showcase
Don’t miss this practical, hands-on educational conference and technology showcase on Section 508!
Google Chrome – Some Nice New Features
Originally posted September 4, 2008
Jason Hiner of ZDNet posted a list of nice features of the beta Google Chrome web browser. I agree with his list of five best new features. I do have a couple of accessibility observations though.
- New Tab Page – features a page that shows thumbnails of your most visited Web sites, a list of your recent bookmarks, and a search box that allows you to search your history. Hopefully, the history tab has accessibility alt tag support for the thumbnails. This tab could be a handy navigation aid.
- Web Application Support – allows you to create desktop, start menu or quick launch icons for your web applications. Hopefully these icons are 508 compliant. This could be very helpful.
I hope this browser has assistive technology for the blind. The increased speed could help make usability better for the sighted and those with disabilities.
Nice Feature Contrasting Information
Originally posted August 29, 2008
Using contrasting gray scale to contrast information is very helpful. I like this use of contrasting color by the Safari browser team at Apple. Notice that the search words are highlighted in white and the first word found is in yellow. All other text has a gray background. This helps put things in context and helps the user find the search word quickly. This same feature could be used for other applications:
- Text editors – could use contrasting colors to help highlight the script construct being edited.
- Word processors – could use gray scale contrast to highlight the sentence and paragraph being edited or selected.
- Web Browsers – could highlight only the text or object being viewed, (as defined by the mouse pointer location).
- Photo editing software – could brighten the pixel area being edited and dim the rest of the photo.
- Code debuggers – could highlight the trace walk-back item and dim the other statements.
You get the idea. This feature should be optional. For many low vision users, contrast is a great way to pin-point something and make it obvious.
Apple Support Responds to Magnifier Focus Post
Originally posted August 28,2008
Apple support responded quickly to my Mac OS X requirement suggestions. Some of their responses indicate to me that they are not standing still on making their magnifier a state of the art tool for low vision users. Apple is a leader in OS accessibility and that is why I use a Mac.
- Provide text smooting. – Apple provides image smoothing but not text smoothing. When text is magnified beyond 4x, the user can see “digital jag”. The text has raged edges where the magnifier shows individual pixels. This could be resolved. Performance issues will have to be overcome. Commercial magnifiers have this feature. [Apple]: http://developer.apple.com/leopard/overview/ mentions Apple is already moving toward resolution independence which will ultimately enable on-screen elements to scale without jaggies.
- Provide a magnification spotlight. – This will allow the user to only magnify a small area of the screen. This helps with context. Windows allows the user to determine the size of the magnification rectangle. All magnifiers need this feature. The user should be able to toggle between full screen and spotlight quickly. [Apple]: Apple includes a developer tool called Pixie, that provides “spotlight” magnification in a window up to 12x magnification. (it’s on the Mac OS X DVD in case you didn’t install the developer tools on your Mac.) It ships with every Mac. Your thoughts on how it might be useful as an end-user application would be appreciated.
- Provide keyboard shortcuts. - Shortcuts should be one-handed. Shortcuts are needed for; toggling magnification on/off, moving the magnification focus up/down/left/right, switching from full-screen/spotlight and increasing/decreasing magnification. This would help with keeping magnified information in context. Sighted users who are working with visually impaired users would GREATLY APPRECIATE this support! [Apple]: Mac OS X provides shortcut keys for enabling and disabling zoom, changing magnification and smoothing, and provides for trackpad and mouse scrolling control of the magnification (press the Control key while dragging the trackpad or scrolling the mouse). Zooming is also enabled by default in Mac OS X.
This is good news about the text smoothing support. I will try the Pixie tool and report back on it. It would be nice if the Pixie tool could be made part of OS X and integrated with the magnifier as described above. Two magnifiers are not needed. I will encourage Apple to include additional shortcuts as described above. It is worth noting that Apple provides a real time magnifier that is ahead of competition. We will report on Microsoft’s response.