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How People Who Are Blind See the Internet

August 26, 2010 By Deborah Edwards-Onoro

Image of blind man reading on the web

Your eyes are absorbing this webpage. They’re passing over this, this, then this word, right now. That’s how reading works, online: you take this for granted. But what if you couldn’t?

We grant our gaze to electronic screens for most of the day, and in return, they give us anything we want. We stare; they glow. We rarely speak, and neither do they.

And this makes sense! The internet is a boundless collection of text, images and video, channeled to flat pieces of glass and plastic, beamed through lens, retina, and nerve, all the way into our brains. It can show us anything, and for most web users, that’s exactly what it does.

Illustration by Sam Spratt. Check out Sam’s portfolio and become a fan of his Facebook Artist’s Page.

via m.gizmodo.com

John Hermann’s article, Giz Explains: How Blind People See the Internet, is spot on in describing how those who are visually impaired navigate web pages and “see” content.

If coded correctly, websites can make browsing the web with text-to-speech programs easier for people who are blind.

Slowly the web is becoming universally accessible. However, as more programs (applications) are written for mobile devices, developers need to stay aware of how to create applications that work with accessible technology, like VoiceOver in OSX or JAWS for Windows.

Filed Under: Accessibility Tagged With: user experience

Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design

May 23, 2010 By Deborah Edwards-Onoro

Want easy-to-understand information on how you can improve the accessibility of your websites, applications, or products? Look no further than Shawn Henry’s online book Just Ask, it’s a “must-read!”

Shawn Henry is Outreach Coordinator of the Web Accessibility Initiative at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), where she leads worldwide education and outreach activities promoting web accessibility for people with disabilities.

Did I mention the online book is free?

Welcome to the online version of Just Ask

The entire contents of the book is online here, and also available in a print version.

Improve your websites, software, hardware, and consumer products to make them more useful to more people in more situations.

Develop effective accessibility solutions efficiently.

Title cover to the online Just Ask book

Accessibility is designing products so that people with disabilities can use them. Accessibility makes user interfaces perceivable, operable, and understandable by people with a wide range of abilities, and people in a wide range of circumstances, environments, and conditions. Thus accessibility also benefits people without disabilities, and organizations that develop accessible products.

Overview

Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design provides:

  • The basics of including accessibility in design projects
    • Shortcuts for involving people with disabilities in your project
    • Tips for comfortable interaction with people with disabilities
  • Details on accessibility in each phase of the user-centered design process (UCD)
    • Examples of including accessibility in user group profiles, personas, and scenarios
    • Guidance on evaluating for accessibility through heuristic evaluation, design walkthroughs, and screening techniques
    • Thorough coverage of planning, preparing for, conducting, analyzing, and reporting effective usability tests with participants with disabilities
    • Questions to include in your recruiting screener
    • Checklist for usability testing with participants with disabilities

via uiaccess.com

Filed Under: Accessibility, Web design Tagged With: Shawn Henry, W3C

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