Accessibility requirements

[mentorman]

Thanks guys,you have confirmed my initial thoughts regarding having a site compliance to the Nth degree (and undefined). It is of course a matter of common sense in attempting to do whatever you can or is possible to meet the requirements.Will wade through the links given and advice offered and do my best and hope for the best.

Much thanks to the excellent team of Egg & Acorn. I feel a logo coming on

Ken

[restless]

We got an inquiry from a blind man who asked if our home study courses would work for him since we use so much visualization in them. I assured him that blind people often do better than sighted people. He loves the course.

I asked him to check the site and let me know how it worked for him. He sent me a recording of his screen reader and it was terrible. I couldn't even figure out what the screen reader was doing while I was looking at the home page!

It read the main title, then the copyright notice in the footer, then something from the sidebar, then a section from the main page body, then back to the sub-title at the top, then to something else in the side bar - it was AWFUL.

Turns out that he build Wordpress websites and blogs on them. So I asked him if he could teach me how to build a Wordpress website. He did. My new blind friend taught me how to build a Wordpress website. It works much better with the screen reader.

So I went back to the Xara site and put a very short note at the top, with a link, to Visit our Screen Reader Friendly website.

I was hoping that the screen reader would find it quickly. But it didn't. I tried it in the header, at the top of the sidebar, etc. Finally found a spot where it doesn't take too long to get to it.

My conclusion is that the best way to make a Xara site screen reader friendly is to replace it with a Wordpress site.

[gwpriester]

Have moved this to Dear Xara in hopes that someone will see it and take note. Not holding my breath though.

[restless]

Thanks. My best friend in college (60 years ago) was blind, and through him I met most of the other blind students. Life is hard for them. That is why I set up a 35-page "accessible" website with all of the information from our main Xara website. Not to make money, but to help people.

The typical blind person has better visualization than most sighted people. They use their hands to "see" what you look like - they place their hands gently on your face. That is how they can "visualize" your face later on.

Anything we can do to help make life a little easier for them is worth doing, imho.

Ed

[Jonopen]

I’m a bit saddened, but not surprised to read that accessibility is still such an issue nowadays. Producing highly accessible websites should be a natural, ethical starting (and selling) point and benefit to all.

I don't do anything webby now, but I was involved with the creation and maintenance of an intranet website for a local government organisation in 2001. In those days websites were often ‘hard coded’ (and hand coded) using programs like Macromedia Dreamweaver, but even back then, accessibility was a hot topic to be taken seriously and designed in from the start.

The latest UK government guidance can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/he...e-your-service