[Web4lib] RE: [AccessibleWeb4lib] Library Website

Tue Apr 18 16:25:32 EDT 2006

Ian, 
  You provided a great story background for the needs of users with low vision as well as some good tips. The ability to seperate the content from the display so cleanly is exactly why I love CSS.

  When designing for accessability, web creators need to consider users with hearing and mobility issues as well.

  I am severely hard of hearing and the web, which used to be the most deaf-friendly place in the world has been increasingly hosting sound only files. Now, for music and other files that were never meant to be information based this is fine! The problem comes from those sites that record interviews, speeches, classes, even tutorials and do not provide either a transcript or captioning. Captioning is most preferred for multimedia, since it's pretty boring to just read and there are often facial and body language cues in the video. I recently saw a reasonably priced cationing software that is meant to be used with multi media files. I have no idea how well it does the job, from my quick reading it appeared that the author/producer adds the captioning. More on captioning for 508 compliance can be found on About.com .

  Some designing decisions for users with mobility issues involve ensuring the site can be navigated with speech to text navigation -- as you need to do for low vision users. In addition, make sure that your tab order makes sense. Someone who is unable to use a mouse may be using keyboard, joystick, mouth stick or other input device that will utilize the tab key command. Similarly, make sure that your site does not require users to use a mouse to get information. Some sites have wonderfully interesting hover effects, but make sure that users who are unable to hover do not miss important information. For more on mobility user information check out the HTML version of Joe Clark's book on accessible design. It is slightly out of date in that he focuses more upon tables than CSS -- but he does include stylesheets.

  I recently found a few websites that show what users with different forms of color-blindness see when they see certain combinations of colors via sample pictures. There is one color scheme selector that will display your selected colors as they would appear to a green/blue and to a red/green color blind users. I found them very interesting and have rethought my tendencies to convey information via color!
  My newly discovered favorite free color tool is the ColorSchemer
   written by Pixie on wellstyled.com

  You can check your actual website after it is public by using::
  http://colorfilter.wickline.org/ 

  I have also seen some suggestions for better enabling students with Dyslexia and other reading disorders to use the website. Frankly most of the suggestions I've seen are good guides to good web-based writing for general audiences. 

  You also said:
     had not thought to contact our Disability Support Services office to find users who could help test the site. 
  I love this idea for those who are in academic libraries. Just be sure to request that students with a variety of disabilities join the testing.
  In addtion, thanks for the firefox extension :)

  Kelly Green
  KM Content Analyst

Ian Chan <afitc at uaa.alaska.edu> wrote:

Hi Jon,

There is a practical reason -- it helps the user who has difficulty visually accessing web content.

<snipped for bandwidth>
While accessibility guidelines were very helpful, listening in as she used our site - and hearing her frustrations - was even moreinstructive. 

<snipped> Visually, the menu still appeared on the left (via CSS), but when the page was read by a screen
reader the menu links were read last. 

<snipped> accessibility standards as time permitted but had not thought to contact our Disability Support Services office to find users who could help test the site. 

I learned that a little testing with diverse users can help. It doesn't cost much but does take more time. We did not fix every problem but we did receive feedback that our fixes were helpful.

There are a number of websites, articles, and books (some written by librarians) that will provide excellent justification for striving to meet accessibility guidelines.

BTW -- checkout these extensions for IE6 and Firefox:
http://www.visionaustralia.org.au/ais/toolbar/ &
https://addons.mozilla.org/addon.php?id=60. They offer quick links for testing accessibility.

Regards,

---------------------------------------------------------
Ian Chan
Assistant Professor
Web Services Librarian
UAA/APU Consortium Library
http://www.lib.uaa.alaska.edu/
907.786.1835

-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Goodell [mailto:jgoodell at pulaskitech.edu] 
Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2006 5:17 AM
To: Stiofan Perkins; Ian Chan; web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: RE: [Web4lib] Library Website

Hi Steven,

Can you explain in more detail why these standards are important to
libraries, especially in the community college context? How should I
explain this to my library director and her superiors?

Thank you,
Jon

Jon Goodell
Technology Services & Reference Librarian Pulaski Technical College -
Ottenheimer Library North Little Rock, AR
501-812-2718
jgoodell at pulaskitech.edu

________________________________

From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org on behalf of Stiofan Perkins
Sent: Fri 4/14/2006 7:26 PM
To: Ian Chan; web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: RE: [Web4lib] Library Website

Ian:

An interesting list. Only two of them pass the W3 HTML validator, four
of them pass the automated section 508 tests at Cynthia Says, and none
of them pass the automated WAI tests also at Cynthia Says.
While those results do not mean the pages are unaccessible, they do
indicate that more attention needs to be paid to accessibility in
library web page design.

Regards,

Steven C. Perkins
Coordinator of Reference Services
MD Anderson Library
University of Houston
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