Re: So you think your site is easy to navigate?? Try this .....

http://www.hj.com or alternatively http://www.fredomscientific.com  
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peggi & Ben Rodgers" <woodduck(at)mbay.net>
To: <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2001 6:42 PM
Subject: Re: So you think your site is easy to navigate?? Try this .....


Anybody have any address information for the creator of JAWS?  I'd like to 
get a bit more information about how it works before I redesign my sites to 
accommodate it.  That way I can make sure things work properly.

Thanks,

Peggi

At 12:21 AM 6/4/01 -0400, Ray T. Mahorney wrote:
>A Men Brother!  I am a JAWS user and you have hit on every point I have 
>run across!  Spot on! and
>Good on you!
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Mike Kear" <choicemag(at)hotmail.com>
>To: <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>
>Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2001 11:39 PM
>Subject: So you think your site is easy to navigate?? Try this .....
>
>
>I have just come out of a most enlightening session with a blind user,
>running though a client's web site with JAWS, a screen reading program that
>turns the web page into synthesised voice.
>
>I thought I was quite aware of accessibility issues before, and was
>comfortable in thinking that my sites were better than the average in
>providing access to the blind and people with other disabilities.  This
>session was educational to say the least.
>
>I am still convinced my sites are better than average, but I am bound to
>inform you that the average is pretty damn poor.   I know some people are
>really concerned about accessibility for the disabled and others have
>decided that the disabled are such a small portion of their userbase, it's
>not worth changing everything to allow for them.
>
>I'm here to tell you that it's not difficult to design a good site to allow
>for access, it just takes a little understanding of how programs like JAWS
>works.   To be truthful, I think that if I were blind, I'd go stark raving
>mad at all the frustrations of life but trying to surf the web wouldn't make
>life any easier that's for sure.
>
>For example, he took us through a page of our bookshop.   And we'd arranged
>things to look nice on the page, but there were parts of the catalogue page
>where he didn't know what the "add to basket" graphic was referring to -
>this book or the previous one.   And some nested tables were simply awful
>and impossible to work round.    We all think putting navigation buttons on
>the top of every page makes for easy navigation, but blind people have to
>wade through (in our case) 50 navigation links before getting to the guts of
>the page.  On a search of our site, the resulting page has a nice header at
>the top with links to all our site's catgegories and sub-categories and then
>a sidebar with links to other parts of the site, and finally the search
>results itself.  Visually it looks fine - quick and simple to move around
>the site.  But using the screen reading software it took **AGES** to get to
>anything related to the search.  By just laying out the page differently, we
>could have made this page FAR easier to navigate for him.
>
>I'm not suggesting we should all go about redesigning our sites just for the
>relatively few blind users, but just understanding how the software works,
>has made me re-think many of the forms I build.   The user also said that
>Government sites tended to be the worst of all.  I'm not sure if that's
>because they're designed by developers with an eye on the government money
>or because they are specified by bureaucrats.  Certainly of all the sites
>that ought to know about accessibility, Government sites ought to be the
>leaders, and apparently they aren't.
>
>
>I think as web developers, you'd all be doing A Good Thing if you arranged
>for a meeting like we just had at Australian Consumers Association - have a
>blind person come and work your site for you using their screen reading
>software.  At the risk of being accused of making an off-colour joke, it's a
>real eye-opener.
>
>
>Cheers,
>Mike Kear
>AFP Webworks,
>Windsor, NSW, Australia.
>
>_________________________________________________________________________
>Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

Peggi Rodgers
Flash Programmer
Misty Canyon Designs
Pacific Grove, CA
prodgers(at)mistycanyon.com
www.mistycanyon.com

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