Accessibility

[Mrs. Marie]

In the introduction to web design course that I teach, we will be discussing, at some point, what accessibility is and why it's important. So here I pose a question to you, how many of you have websites and forums that are accessible by all users? This includes the deaf and blind. What are some things you can do to make your site more user-friendly and accessible? Why is accessibility important for websites, forums and blogs?

 

[Chadook]

Umm, this actually never came to my mind, i've never thought of those situations before.

 

[Red Herring]

I'm not sure the deaf require more "accessibility" than the standard users. Not for a forum, anyway. If there's video content available, I expect I'd add in subtitles if we had any deaf members. As for the blind, I feel it would simply be much too impractical to attempt to cover their accessibility, even for the partially blind.

When it comes to browsers, on the other hand, I definitely ensure that I at least try to cover accessibility from all browsers. It can be a challenge though, if you intend to make use of modern elements. Internet Explorer, especially older versions, is not particularly fond of jQuery and webkit elements.

 

[Mrs. Marie]

I'm not sure the deaf require more "accessibility" than the standard users. Not for a forum, anyway. If there's video content available, I expect I'd add in subtitles if we had any deaf members. As for the blind, I feel it would simply be much too impractical to attempt to cover their accessibility, even for the partially blind.

When it comes to browsers, on the other hand, I definitely ensure that I at least try to cover accessibility from all browsers. It can be a challenge though, if you intend to make use of modern elements. Internet Explorer, especially older versions, is not particularly fond of jQuery and webkit elements.

Accessibility, for the blind, is actually not that hard. For example, most blind users use a screen reader to access a website. You just need to make sure that your links have titles, your images have the alt attribute attached do them, etc. There are a lot of things you can do in the HTML to make the site more accessible for blind consumers or viewers.

 

[Delirious]

I always use alt tags with my links even on image links just in case the image breaks. I never though that the blind would need to use the alt tags so that it can read the link for them. I just assumed it was for SEO purposes only. Good to know that blind people are using the alt tags though. Like FTON said it never came to mind.

 

[Red Herring]

Accessibility, for the blind, is actually not that hard. For example, most blind users use a screen reader to access a website. You just need to make sure that your links have titles, your images have the alt attribute attached do them, etc. There are a lot of things you can do in the HTML to make the site more accessible for blind consumers or viewers.

That's quite interesting indeed. I did not know that screen readers utilized alt tags in such a way. I've always made use of them in the past for SEO optimization and, as Delirious mentioned, in case an image breaks. Good to know. I'll ensure that my alt tags are quite compatible with the blind in the future.

Learn something new every day.