A quick Part 3 Website Building-Disability access continued

This is just quick, a bit redundant from yesterday, but with some new stuff. The reason is that I spent the day in the hospital with my mother who has pneumonia. Excuse me if I do not post for a few days. Hopefully, she will only be in there a day or two but she has a lot of heart problems so everything can be scary.

Much of today’s information came from a PDF file downloadable from www.terpsys.com

Your web site building should involve a good deal of research to make it the best you can. I have spent a lot of time working on a website only to find there was a better way to do it. I have always been one to jump into a project, but the advice to lay out your web design, before jumping into it, is sound advice. Get out a tablet and draw your site out on paper, second. First, is to check out a lot of similar web sites and what they offer and what you feel works; all the while noting what does not work so that you can avoid it.

I spent most of yesterday researching the disability issue for my web site. It is estimated that twenty percent of your audience has some type of disability. Me? I’m getting cataracts and this little print is hard on my eyes. I also have arthritis in my fingers. Other disabilities include blindness, deafness, color blindness, and even just the confusion that comes with aging. And, losing twenty percent of your readers is a large loss.

Then, you have the disability that those of us on low-speed dial-up have. I do not watch any movies. I do not even stay on a page with movies, usually. Images are a similar problem, and I do not have time to wait around for them to load. Sound is just a personal thing. I like quiet. A hint though, a lot of people in their cubicles are cheating a wee bit by viewing “non-work related” web pages and if your music blares out, they are going to click that “X” and turn you off and may never come back. So, think music through before you add it. You need to have a mute, in plain sight and/or make it so they have to click the music on.

The other problem is that assistive technologies, those that convert non-text information have their own requirements. Text is converted using speech synthesizers or Braille displays. So, what do you do to make your website fully accessible?

First, what I mentioned in the last post, always use the alternative text descriptions; for everything: maps, bullets in lists, graphical buttons, spacers, links, etc. One bit of advice is to pretend you are reading the document aloud over the telephone. How would you explain the need for and use of this image on your web page?

Second, do not rely on color for understanding. Print your page out in black and white to see if all the text and images are still visible. Check for color contrast, also. There are many people who have difficulty with contrast and colors. Again, printing the page out will help you see what works and what does not. Don’t forget to show it to grandma and get her advice.

My next research is about the use of tables. I like tables but it seems to be turning out they are not always good for disability access. More on that next time.