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People with poor site use text readers to read web sites.
The navigation menu can not be read with text readers if you use a sub menu so looks like I will have to stop using nav bars on my web sites.
I also wonder how the makers of webstyle stand for making a product that the disabled cant use.
The reply I got from support was not to use sub menu for site that are to be read with text readers. I find this odd because every one should have equal access to the web.
Unless a lot of web site change it looks to me as lots of site owners will be taken to court under the new disability discrimination acts.
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People with poor site use text readers to read web sites.
The navigation menu can not be read with text readers if you use a sub menu so looks like I will have to stop using nav bars on my web sites.
I also wonder how the makers of webstyle stand for making a product that the disabled cant use.
The reply I got from support was not to use sub menu for site that are to be read with text readers. I find this odd because every one should have equal access to the web.
Unless a lot of web site change it looks to me as lots of site owners will be taken to court under the new disability discrimination acts.
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I dont think theyve made a program that outputs items which cannot be used by those with disabilities.
The program allows the user to select whether or not to apply sub menus to a navbar so it is up to the site designer!
Does anyone know where web-designers actually stand with this?
I had a look at a text reader from
helpread.com. The reader copied all text from the web page http://helpread.com/ and inserted it into the reader and began reading the text.
It didnt copy the text displayed on the menus within the page.
Even if readers do copy the text of a navigation bar then would it be able to copy text of objects in the page which are dynamically created?
I suppose it would be necessary to add text links to page in addition to having menus such as those within menu maker or from other menu providers.
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http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif An excellent Topic.
I understand that text readers use the Alt Text Fields. In support of your point lizmcuk the main menu items have the alt text fields enabled. but for submenu items they are excluded.
Bb2 - "I checked out that free program, and it is a clipboard reader. It will cut, paste and read only what it can see as text. Reading the web was an after thought for the people who developed that product. As we know the menus are really graphics not characters. I wouldn't be programming for this tool, but that could change if it becomes the most used tool."
lizmcuk
I'm basing my opinions on information I read at a microsoft site on this topic. A real web reader will look for all alt text. To make your website more accessible you should label every picture using the alt text field.
On the legal aspect. The visual navigation bar is obviously good for sited people. Car manufacturers are not going to be sued because blind people can't drive their cars. As long as a website has a sitemap, then the blind person can find every page. Should we make cars ugly and only use one color because blind people can't see the color. No, so, we use the alttext fields to supply what the blind people need when they use a real web reader, we don't change our webdesign to be visually impaired websurfer centric. I heard that the alttext field was created for the blind, but don't know if that's true.
On the ironic side, I found their site to be a little hard to read, due to the textured background. The tutorial controls didn't actually appear to be buttons, so I didn't try them right away.
Is there a free product that is a bonafied web reader? I would be interested in how it interprets my pages.
