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Do the Blind Deserve More Effort on the Web?
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?"
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
I tried using Googlephone yesterday and I found it to work quite well. It had some trouble understanding my speech but it got the job done and it didn't sound like Stephen Hawking. Sure it's only a computer substitute for directory assistance but I don't see why this can't be adapted for use by the blind.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
I think it's a bit of a false dichotomy to compare what it's like being a diabetic to being completely blind. I don't think it's unreasonable to account for some access for people who can't actually see websites. I mean we have diet coke.
I have nothing compelling to say
I recently developed a website for reasonably large and successful company that sells access devices and accessories. These are devices that enable those with disabilities to perform everyday actions such as hold a conversation, use a computer, etc. Initially they specified accessibility as a requirement - it came to about 10% of the quote. The quote was higher than they had budgeted for so accessibility was the part they chose to eliminate. Is it any wonder that the rest of the web isn't accessible?
you know, the "to hell with the blind let them fend for themselves" rhetoric is getting old. I mean really, the only arguments so far seem to be either along the lines of it's too expensive to introduce basic accessibility into web pages or that we shouldn't bother because you think it would be an inconvenience. that's... just... disgusting.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Ding! See what Janus recently did to their front page. Because it uses Flash, not only can't the blind get to their accounts, but they have now forced people to use an insecure interface to access their account. Brilliant!
The same applies for those links you see. Click on 'Institutional Cash'. See what happens?
This is why, Flash must die!
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Ugh... One person's musical web page is another's noise (and its specially galling when people have multiple videos on their web pages that all play simultaneously. PUKE!)
... (the list is endless.)
As for the usability issues, they are indeed a "shitty web design" problem.
Program for events and NOT for triggers and your interface can be adaptive.
Most web (2.0 or not) stuff is coded like it was thought up by a twelve-year old and QAed by a thirteen year old.
Kids too ignorant to ever be let loose near firearms.
But instead there put in charge of things and pout when people complain that they didn't think of
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I think this can be generalised as
Individualist: We are all different but should be treated equally under the law.
Collectivist: "Something must be done" to correct a tragically imperfect world.
The collectivist approach has the propensity to piss me off, because of course it results in more and more obscure laws.
If your on-line shop is unfriendly to screen readers you will likely lose blind customers. I think that this is punishment, and motivation enough.
On any number of projects where I've provided a web interface, I've been told in no uncertain words that I was to make pages that were tailored for exactly the browser and screen that the project's manager uses.
Thus, I've often been told that the pages must be forced via things like width= attributes to be exactly N pixels wide, even when there's nothing in a page that is dependent on any particular width. I've been ordered to present some data in pictorial form, even when simple text data was easier to understand and took less screen space.
So very often, managers explicitly order their developers to produce web pages that are inaccessible to anyone other than people exactly like them.
There are some ways that one can fight this. In a few cases, I've found that I can "go over the boss's head" by showing a higher-up something that they find useful. I happen to know that they have a Blackberry or a Treo that they love and use all the time, and my boss's declared page structure won't work on their machine, so eventually orders come down to make the web interface usable on the higher-ups' favorite little handheld gadget. While doing this, I can also sneak in things that make it more accessible to the disabled.
But this is a passive-resistance approach, and it's not always successful. I like to also try to get across the idea that you, yes you, may find yourself handicapped by this time next week, in a way that you can't predict. The sensible thing would be to guarantee that your minions' efforts are usable even after that accident or medical emergency has left you restricted in what you can see or read.
But few managers are willing to take such a long-term view of the situation. So all too often, my pages aren't as accessible as I know how to make them.
It would be nice to learn of other ways that we developers can fight such management intransigence.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
What we need is a ACID-like test for web sites:
-Do all relevant pictures have AltText field used and valid.
-"How annoying is navigating the site" Index
-etc
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
The problem is the shitty readers, a reader should be able to read any webpage that a person can see, but because of all the javascript, flash, and images that are prevalent now they probably don't work too well. They need to just render the page as an image, then put it through a OCR program, then read that, then the reader program works as a person does, by seeing and reading the page, not by hacking through the HTML.
Have the blind tried using mobile pages? They are much simpler and would be much easier for a reader I would think.
Until the blind come together and put their money where their needs are and build a program that works, the demand doesn't justify the cost. No soup for you I guess.
I have looked into developing for screen readers in the past, but the biggest problem I've run into is the software being used by the disabled.
1) there are great disparities between how the screen readers interpret things.
2) the most popular screen readers are expensive, and offer no free versions for developers.
The Microsoft Narrator didn't hit my radar. I don't know anything about it, but if it's free and of high quality, that's a major step forward.
You forgot that
- People use different versions of Flash.
- People have different resolutions. Normal font can be very tiny on some screens.
- Some people don't have Flash at all.
So there goes your control.
YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING SPECIAL TO MAKE THE WEBSITE EASIER TO USE FOR THE BLIND Just stop using those damned javacrap shit unnecessarily
The first post, as does your own, nicely glossed over the fact that all of those points count as "doing something".
Why script a link? Because I want to break wget. Because where it goes might change in response to something else on the page. Because the next page heavily depends on JSt and I can use JS links to filter out those with noncompliant browsers. Because I can. Why not?
As long as a page remains compliant to its declared doctype, not using a given feature very much amounts to handicapping the author in favor of the reader.
I was going to post something about how mad it made me as a kid when I was told I couldn't take peanut butter sandwiches to school, the ONLY thing my mother could put in a sack that I would eat. Seriously, I know I'm being picky, but how is someone else's allergy my problem? I've rewritten this twice to make it less offensive, but isn't there something (no matter how inconvenient, the problem is on your end after all) that you or your daughter could to to shield her from the peanut particles? It isn't like anyone is force feeding her peanuts -- is there anything short of a hazmat suit, or just staying at home, that would keep her from dieing without infringing on anyone else?
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
Since this article hits on both, conveniently I am both diabetic and have vision problems (I can see, but I have a horrid prescription to do so, and even then cannot see anywhere near 20/20).
:-) ), I am (almost rabidly) opposed to the idea of government enforcement to do so. The quickest way to ruin something good is to add government intervention.
While I think its nice if businesses accommodate those who are visually impaired, and I think its in their own best interest to do so (just because I have trouble seeing doesn't mean I don't spend money
There are a number of websites, both commercial and not, that I have trouble reading. Know what I do? I go browse somewhere else.
What are we going to require next? Special keyboards at public internet stations for those who are prone to hangnails?
If I had a commercial website and someone or some government entity *demanded* or *required* that I arrange my page a certain way, etc, quite frankly I'd tell them to go get fucked.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Website design is probably the biggest problem. I sincerely doubt anyone with any impairment whatsoever would be able to navigate OpenLibrary's website very well, which is ironic at best. In the same way that web browsers and servers can already support the identification of the user's language, it should be possible to support the identification of common requirements. However, as almost nobody uses the language identifier, I can't see anyone using a requirements identifier even if it did exist.
The next-biggest problem, however, is in the hands of the open-source community. There really isn't much serious competition to the companies selling thousand dollar screen readers. Festival doesn't exactly enjoy the same level of development as, say, Firefox. For that matter, as far as I know Firefox can't even make use of Festival and the only "screen reader" I ever found for Linux required the user to cut and paste the text into a window. There may well be plugins and packages I'm not aware of that can handle all that. I hope I've missed something. I'm rather concerned that I might not have.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Most music on the background sites that I know of, had the music added because they can. I know a few people who where making novice web pages a while back who felt that it was a sense of accomplishment or achievement when they got music to load in the back ground. I think this is why it is so popular on the myspace pages and stuff.
I attempted to prove a point and duct taped a Walkman to an old phone extention and stated turning it on low enough to hear Queen in the background when he would call. He finally got pissed and asked why I was doing it and I told him because every time I visited his site, the same music started automatically playing and I thought he would like it. The music on the site was gone in about 2 days and when it came back, it had one of those flash player buttons where you could start and stop it but you had to start the music first.
I don't think they realize how annoying the stuff is because they are more or less fascinated that they could get it working that way.