Google Lauded for Accessible Search

With the recent release of a modified version of their search engine, Google is receiving praise from many different groups. The new Google Accessible Search was released as a Google labs project which prioritize pages based on their likelihood of being accessible to visually impaired users after the original search results are returned. From the article: "The best-known guidelines for building an accessible site are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) from W3C. But these are not the basis of Google's new service. Raman said: 'We don't test against WCAG. We think in the spirit of those guidelines, but we don't test against them verbatim.' Instead he endeavored to identify 'what works for the end-user,' describing a process of 'experimentation, training and machine learning.'"

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Re:In related news

[jlarocco]

Does that make MSN.com the most accessible compliant search page? I know/read that MSN.com has the highest complaince for CSS and HTML compared to the other portal pages. But accessible I think not.

This is blatant FUD. Unless you're blind, previously blind, or some kind of useability expert specializing interfaces for the blind, nobody gives a fuck about your opinion. Do you have ANY evidence whatsoever that MSN's search results are less accessible to the blind? Have you done some kind of study or something? No, you haven't, so shut the fuck up. You're just saying that because you're a Google whore, or because you hate Microsoft.