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"It's entirely possible quite a few of us are now breaking the law..."

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Fri 19/09/03 at 17:10
Regular
"MildlyAmusing.co.uk"
Posts: 5,029
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/3117050.stm


So, it's now illegal for an individual or company not to make their site blind-friendly.

The law just keeps getting better...
Sat 20/09/03 at 22:20
Regular
"l33t cs50r"
Posts: 2,956
cjh wrote:
> Thanks for taking the time to inform us.
>
> Just out of interest Tyla, what are your views on CSS rollovers.
> Using CSS positioning to move a background image to give the effect
> of a rollover. Good or bad??

Excellent... It removes the need for Javascript and gives a little more freedom in what you can swap.

http://www.pixy.cz/blogg/clanky/cssnopreloadrollovers/

Here's something of slightly different interest... Styled lists for navigation as effectively navigation should be displayed using a list for rendering in non standards compliant browsers:

http://www.maxdesign.com.au/presentation/listamatic/
Sat 20/09/03 at 21:50
Regular
"It goes so quickly"
Posts: 4,083
Thanks for taking the time to inform us.

Just out of interest Tyla, what are your views on CSS rollovers. Using CSS positioning to move a background image to give the effect of a rollover. Good or bad??
Sat 20/09/03 at 20:00
Regular
"l33t cs50r"
Posts: 2,956
My dears, you have it all wrong...

As of OCtober 2002 it is now a discriminatory offence to restrict the use of public services to the disabled which includeds websites, but only those held by british registered companies (LTD's etc)

The minimum standard is to comply with the RNIB accessibility standards in this country but only to level/priority 1 (there are 2 in total) Thje only reason this has hit the news is due to the RNIB supporting over 100 cases of discrimination through websites going to court at the moment.

I'm currently studying this subject in deatil as the sites i look after have to be 508 compliant by the end of 2004 for the american domain, so at the same time, we will be trying to make our UK sites WAI compliant in the same time period, but 'tis a damn difficult task!

As for descriptive elements in pages, the correct way is the "longdesc" attribute which is a link from the image to a seperate text file containing descriptive text about that image i.e.




This is only relevant to images though. Links have to contain the "title" attribute, Forms have to be laid out using , tables should contain headers if used for data as well as a summary for that data. Sitres using CSS should still be accessibile if the CSS is switched off. Mark-up should strictly be only tags using css to style them... the list goes on!

My current project is to make the GUI for this 100% accessible: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/

So far we have: http://wip.blackwellpublishing.com/synergygui Its taken over 4 weeks just to get this far, but it's not until you get into the data driven stuff that you realise how expensive and complicated this can get!
Sat 20/09/03 at 14:47
Sat 20/09/03 at 14:22
Regular
"It goes so quickly"
Posts: 4,083
If you code your web site in HTML/xHTML and CSS, using good coding practice, then you're almost already there. Screen readers do the hard work, all you have to do is make it understandable for them by writing HTML/xHTML as it should be done.

But also, make sure you include descriptive ALT="" information for images, as well as more descriptive information within links, using the TITLE="" attribute.

Image. - not good.
This is a photo of me. - better.
This is a photo of me in my brand new BMW. - better still.

Page 1 - not good.
Page 1 - better.
Page 1 - better still.

Its about being considerate to people who aren't able to view the images/pages as well as others. Screen readers will take care of passing on the information, you just have to be willing to spend an extra few seconds to make that information meaninful.

Don't be lazy.
Sat 20/09/03 at 14:01
Regular
"Eff, you see, kay?"
Posts: 14,156
If you're blind you just have to accept you reasonably can't do as many things as people who aren't - it's a fact of life.
Sat 20/09/03 at 00:04
Regular
"MildlyAmusing.co.uk"
Posts: 5,029
From what I've heard, it's not as simple as that. For example, tables can confuse the reading program.

So I tried downloading one aimed at people who had disabilities, it read the title of my page, then stopped. How fun :)

The BBC site, of course, worked fine *grumble grumble*
Fri 19/09/03 at 19:09
Regular
"Chavez, just hush.."
Posts: 11,080
It isn't that hard.

Just putting the title on a link to what it is allows that MS narrator thingy to read the links, even if they're images...
Fri 19/09/03 at 17:49
Regular
Posts: 10,437
WTF!?! So we have to, not only make sure websites work on most browsers and deal with bugs and other such problems, but make sure blind people can 'look' at our websites?

However ignorant I may sound, it should be the web designer's choice if they make it completely user-friendly, not some crappy law.

*is annoyed*
Fri 19/09/03 at 17:43
Regular
"Pouch Ape"
Posts: 14,499
What, make it brail? *feels screen, gets static shock* I'm suing!

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