Making Accessible Websites
I have had the great pleasure to have had a number of chats with David Reynolds, a blind internet user. He has provided me with some very useful insights as to how website structure, coding and set-up can affect the accessibility of websites to the visually impaired.
I have already written a post on some of David’s coments about accessibility but one thing he has made so clear to me is the fact that visually impaired people absolutely depend on the internet for independant information. Any written material must either be read out to him, which necessitates someone being available to do this for him, or alternatively he can scan written material so that he can “read” its contents but this is very time consuming. David much prefers to research and find out the information he needs from the internet as this makes him independent of others, however he does need to be able to access the websites he visits and that is not always possible.
David told me “When building a site, it is important to recognize that many visually impaired people will be using a screen reader, which allows the user to hear the page spoken. Screen readers make various assumptions based on the way the page has been constructed, i.e. how the HTML code has been written. Further to this, it is important that appropriate text is used when describing links and pictures.”
With regard to page length and headings, ie. the h1, h2, h3 etc attributes
He says, “Never make pages too big. In my opinion, this is very bad practice. If someone can’t organize their ideas into subpages, then they are in the wrong job. Heading used heirarchically down the page allow users to use keyboard short-cuts to effectively “scan read” the page. Headings are my major obsession. Anyone with a brain should plan the site carefully, and be able to break it down by headings and/or subpages. Amazon for example has a huge home page, but in its defence, it does break it down by headings.”
Images and Alt Text
David’s view on images is “Alt-tagging, this is vital. As I said in a previous post, describing a picture as “This is Gill Keeble” is fairly meaningless, but “This is a picture of Gill Keeble using an embroidery frame” tells me a lot more. Bad or inaccurate alt text makes it extremely difficult for a visually impaired person to obtain a realistic description of the image being described.” David, I do not recall ever using an embroidery frame but if I had a picture of me doing this I would have used it!
Links cause particular problems
“Missing text on links makes it extremely difficult for a blind person to navigate. “Click here”, this is possibly one of the most annoying, and no tool will pick up the error. You’ll get something on a site which says: “For information about inflatable dinghies Click here”. The problem is that the link description is “Click here” rather than the whole link description. A lot of Visually Impaired people, including myself, use the tab key to move from link to link, but if all you hear is “Click here” a dozen times, it all becomes very confusing.”
With regard to Coding
David is adamant that coding should be valid under the W3C guidwlines as “HTML errors can seriously impair a screen reader’s ability to read the page correctly.”
Language Snippets Within Pages
David says, “I can’t find a good example of this at the moment, but if I do, I’ll send you the link. What happens is that some people include small pieces of text in a foreign language, E.G. Spanish. They correctly insert the tags to accommodate this, but, they forget to change them back. This is bad when using a screenreader, since it detects language changes, and can modify its pronunciation accordingly. I use this feature on a regular basis, since I can read both French and German.”
David advises that a free screen reader can be downloaded from the following link and suggests that you cover your computer screen whilst using the screen reader to test out your website, as this prevents you cheating.
http://www.nvda-project.org/wiki/Download
And so many thanks to David Reynolds for providing these hints and tips so that we can all create more accessible websites.
Related posts:
- Further Accessibility News
- Blindness and The Internet = Independence
- The Liberal Democrat Party Website
- Postscript to 3 Party Websites
- Who Wins the Accessibility Election?
Tags: accessibility, accessible websites, disability accessibility, visually impaired, website