Giving the Blind Better Web Access

crimeandpunishment writes "Decades ago, the breakthrough for the disabled was making buildings wheelchair accessible. Today, it's making their world Web-accessible. Disabled groups are hailing new legislation Congress has sent to the President. Among other things, the measure will give the blind greater Internet access through smart phones, and require devices like iPhones and Blackberrys to be hearing-aid compatible. 'It breaks down barriers for all of us,' says Mark Richert of the American Foundation for the Blind."

Comments

New blacktop for the road to hell

[elrous0]

These sorts of well-intentioned pieces of legislation are the kind of thing that ostensibly are for our betterment and they always look great on paper. But when you're actually have to design a website and you start running into the requirements of Section 508 and other such well-meaning laws, the feel-good shine wears off fast. Inevitably they mean considerably more work in the best case scenario, and a "dumbing down" of a website in the worst case scenario (if you follow the "suggested" best-practices). You can look at the "cultural heritage" laws in Quebec as an example of where good intentions can go. It starts off with a noble goal of not excluding French-speakers from public life, and eventually leads to something like Bill 101, which all but outlawed English in the region, complete with a language gestapo.

I'm all for the blind being able to use the web. But wouldn't it be much better to approach the issue as a technological one on the viewer's end, and not a legislative one on the designer's end? I would much rather be asked to do something that TOLD to do it, under threat of law.

Re:New blacktop for the road to hell

[Peach Rings]

This used to be a really evil thing, but now it's a blessing in disguise. The right way of making a web page (nice clean <p>s and unordered lists, alts on all the images, styled with CSS) is extremely accessible. The more people do that, the better!

Re:New blacktop for the road to hell

[Wyatt Earp]

I'm at a conference about accessibility right now and I was just looking at the giant display of the history of disability, so I'm getting a kick out of your post.

Seriously, without legislative mandates pushing this kind of thing, the disabled will just continue to be overlooked by the big vendors and ripped off by small vendors. We are doing things with iOS 4 and iPad for $4-600 that a year ago we had to spend $5000-7500 on.

With a law forcing this, the tech will get cheaper and better.

Re:New blacktop for the road to hell

[Lunix Nutcase]

Will we all be stuck with text only websites, which is what Section 508 virtually sets up as the ideal.

No. It's called graceful degradation. You can have all the fancy shit you want but your webpage should be a coded in a way that if certain features aren't available that it gracefully degrades into a simpler form.

Re:New blacktop for the road to hell

[DragonWriter]

I'm all for the blind being able to use the web. But wouldn't it be much better to approach the issue as a technological one on the viewer's end, and not a legislative one on the designer's end?

The technological problem on the viewer's end is largely solved, so long as existing web standards and best practices regarding separation of content and presentation are adhered to.

Aside from technology that essentially cures blindness, though, your never going to get a technological solution on the viewer's end that deals with the choice to use inaccessible presentation as the only way of getting at the content on the designer's end.

Re:New blacktop for the road to hell

[Lunix Nutcase]

Exactly. The only people who are whining about stuff like this are the idiots making whole websites entirely in flash or who don't know how to follow best practices for web development. Making a website accessible to text readers, etc is extremely trivial if you follow web standards.

Re:New blacktop for the road to hell

[SirGarlon]

Agreed: Handicapped accessible == machine readable. For too long has the Web been dominated by marketing people who care everything about controlling the "visual experience" and just don't get the concept of separating layout from semantics. If you grok HTML and CSS then I fail to see how an accessible design costs a whole lot more than a non-accessible one. Well, aside from the fact that CMS designers don't seem to give a damn about accessibility or standards compliance either.

Disclaimer: this comes from a guy who works at a company whose idea of putting information on the Intranet is to post a link to a Word document. *facepalm*

More than just the blind...

[codegen]

It also has provisions for CC or subtitles for the HOH/deaf. This has me hoping. Despite the fact that most of the players support CC, the online video/movies seem to ignore it. It strikes me as odd that every DVD has either CC or Subtitles (they have to by law), but only 18 movies in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy catetory at the itunes store have CC.

Re:Can't we just delay for a bit?

[hedwards]

It's really not that hard, put a blind fold on and use a screen reader. Of all the disabilities out there, blindness is one of the easiest to simulate.

Analytics reporting blind users?

[snsh]

Google Analytics tells me that I got 20k visitors yesterday. Four of them used NS4. 1500 of them used IE6. There are few NS4 users that I honestly don't care how my site renders in their browser. There are enough IE6 users that I do have to care how my site renders in their browser.

How can I get Google Analytics to tell me how many of my visitors are blind and using screen-readers?

Re:Breaking down barriers?

[guruevi]

How would it put up barriers for anyone creating web content? All blind people need is for the webpage to be correctly coded according to the HTML specs and not have the important content in a fancy JavaScript that alters the DOM after the page has loaded (although web readers can usually put up with it). It would break down barriers not only for blind people but also for computers and browser makers as well as the general public, open source operating systems (no more IE-only websites) etc. etc.

As for devices, Apple's Mac OS X is compatible with most screen readers and braille keyboards, even the iPhone has some fancy accessibility built-in, Apple does a really good job at making it accessible from the get-go. Even Windows and most Linux distro's have accessibility built-in although a lot of applications could use some shining up in that area (hot keys being one of them and again, not putting main content in obscure places).

Re:I am all for just

[Zerth]

Here's one: Tom Mundy and his lawyer Morse Mehrban both make an estimated $300,000 a year suing small businesses

Mundy says he has filed more than 150 lawsuits in 18 months demanding damages from small businesses in violation of the exacting requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
[...]
Mundy, a beefy ex-contractor with longish brown hair and a daily routine of dining out and enjoying the ocean, spies an 8-inch concrete platform on which a woman in a dark-green sari has set up a table of sunglasses under an awning.

"There's nothing in there that I'd want to buy but this might be of interest to a judge," 50-year-old Mundy, a paraplegic since a 1988 motorcycle accident in Maryland, observed with a knowing air.

[...]
"Confined to a wheelchair in California?" Mehrban asks potential clients on his website, www.mehrban.com. "You may be entitled to $1,000 each time you can't use something at a business because of your disability."

Re:I am all for just

[tehcyder]

That is just an example of people gaming your silly US legal system, which relies on individuals suing each other rather than the government enforcing laws. It should be a simple health and safety issue - if a business contravenes regulations, the authorities step in and get them to correct it, if they refuse then the government should fine them and use the money to enforce the change.
br> Yeah, blah blah, it's socialism and distorts the free market. Whatever.