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Do the Blind Deserve More Effort on the Web?

Posted by Zonk on from the some-effort-would-be-a-good-start dept.

dratcw writes "An article was posted this week to ComputerWorld, detailing the frustrations faced by blind people struggling to use the Web. The piece shows how little progress has been made and the inadequacy of solutions such as Microsoft's Narrator screen reader. While the article generated many positive comments, one reader said the disabled should 'get a grip' and maintained they 'have no more right to demand that others provide for their needs than I, as a diabetic, have a right to demand that sugar no longer be used.' Should Web sites and software makers do more, or does the reality of today's economics dictate that the blind/disabled will continue to struggle and learn to live with it?"

4 of 663 comments (clear)

  1. Shitty web design is not a "blind" problem by seanadams.com · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If we work on the broader problem then we get better web sites for everyone, especially the disabled, without even making any particular effort for them. For example:

    - A link to download a file should just go to the file, not some clever javascript crap that tells you to please wait while you're redirected, your download should start in a few moments etc.

    - Quit breaking stuff up into dozens of tiny bite sized pages. My scrollbar works just fine thank you very much, and it lets me scan all of the content in an instant instead of having to click through it all. Yes, I know that some people do this to goose their ad revenue, but you see it other places too.

    - Don't use clever little graphics and pop-ups for every link, text works much better.

    - I don't need links to "print this page" or "email it to a friend".

    - You don't need to know what region of the world I'm in before I can download a damned printer driver.

    - Don't use ridiculous URLs that query stuff from a CGI with a zillion arguments just to serve up a static page.

    I could go on all day... fixing any of those design problems would automatically improve accessibility, not just for blind users but for mobile devices as well.

    Thankfully we've mostly gotten rid of the horrible "splash pages", flash animations, and musical home pages. I'm sure in due time people will get their head around some of the other basic issues I've mentioned, but unfortunately people keep coming up with dumb new ideas much faster than that.

    1. Re:Shitty web design is not a "blind" problem by What+Would+NPH+Do · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Unfortunately, though, more and more companies are making their pages entirely flash based. I think that's a far more of an egregious problem than the stuff you mention. Why the fuck I need to waste my time loading fucking flash movies to navigate a page when it works better in plain HTML is beyond me.

    2. Re:Shitty web design is not a "blind" problem by longLiveTheShell · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Those anoying videos and songs are the reason as a blind computer user I refuse to use myspace, there's nothing more anoying then trying to view someones page and having mili sirus pop up drownding out your speach software.

  2. Re:My philosophy by CyberData4 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Stop being a drama queen. I have peanut butter allergies too. I just don't eat the shit. Problem solved.