Web pages for the disabled


Tip
For the sight-impaired, surfing the World Wide Web can be like stumbling through a dark art gallery: you can't distinguish the pictures from the doors. Your audio screen reader can't tell you what's in a picture. Image maps hold no information for you. You can't correctly "hear" what's in a table, because your screen reader jumbles its content into one long sentence.
Numerous efforts are under way to make the Web more accessible to visually impaired users. They range from defining HTML standards for tagging graphics with a good spoken description, to encouraging Web page owners to offer text-only versions of their pages.
The Web site of WGBH, a US public television station (http://www.boston.com/wgbh/pages/access/accessinstructions.html), offers a continuing experiment in accessibility solutions for both blind and hearing-impaired users. For those with limited vision, for example, a giant letter D precedes images on the WGBH site -- clicking on the D displays a two- to three-sentence description that can be heard through a screen reader.
Making your own Web site (business or personal) accessible to users with disabilities doesn't require a lot of work (see "Seeing clearly").
Offering a text-only version of your page is a good start. You'll find a complete guide on how to make a Web site more easily accessible at the Web site of the Trace R&D Center (http://www.trace.wisc.edu/world/web/index.html).
As one blind Web surfer notes, "The number of solutions is proliferating. The great thing about the Web is that it offers something for everyone."
- Judy Heim


Category: Internet
Issue: Mar 1997
Pages: 193

These Web pages are produced by Australian PC World © 1997 IDG Communications