Monday, October 11, 1998
Web sites pictures of frustration
Blind can't read graphics on pages
BY DEBORAH KENDRICK
The Cincinnati Enquirer
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How to get help
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To test sites for friendliness to the disability community, Web page designers need to be sure sites are accessible with Unix-based Lynx. A number of groups have developed guidelines to help people make their sites more accessible.
The Web Accessibility Initiative , a Massachusetts-based project of the World Wide Web Consortium committed to making the Web accessible to people with disabilities, is in the process of consolidating those guidelines as well as pushing for Web authoring tools that will help designers create accessible pages.
Subscribe to the WAI mailing list by sending an e-mail message to w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org.
To subscribe, place the word subscribe in the subject line, and leave the body of your message blank.
Meanwhile, a powerful tool called Bobby, made by the Center for Applied Special Technology, a non-profit organization committed to making the Web accessible to people with disabilities, will validate your site and provide a line-by-line detailed report of the site's accessibility.
To test a site, enter the address in the URL field (http: - - www.cast.org - bobby), select the Evaluation Criteria and click on the Submit button. If no problems are found, you can use the Bobby seal-of- approval logo on your site, which is a recognized symbol of disability access on the Web.
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Last year I went to the Abbey at Gethsemane, a lovely retreat center operated by Trappist Monks near Bardstown, Ky., and was surprised to learn that even they have a Web site.
''It must be www.monks.org,'' I quipped to my friend who held the brochure. But sure enough, that was exactly right.
And http: - - www.monks.org was what some of us call a ''good page.'' Put simply, a ''good page'' is one we are able to read.
Everybody from your favorite cooking magazine to your child's kindergarten has a Web page now, and for people who have traditionally been unable to access conventional print on paper, it's a magnificent breakthrough.
People who are blind or visually impaired can now read national newspapers in the morning on their computers. They can make vacation plans, get tourist information, read their bank statements or follow their favorite sports teams.
If your computer is equipped with an oversized monitor and a magnification program or a speech synthesizer with screen read or a refreshable Braille display, you can find just about any information you need on the Web.
Whether you can read it or not, however, is another matter.
Doug Wakefield, telecommunications specialist for the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board in Washington, cites a page for federal employees as a good example. ''It's a page where you can look at your own pay statement,'' he explains, ''but it's driving us crazy.''
This particular ''bad page'' is difficult, Mr. Wakefield says, because it presents text as a moving target.
Java is an underlying script that can make things visually very interesting on your computer screen, Mr. Wakefield says.
''Sighted people read moving headlines and can handle it, but for us (using Braille displays or screen readers) it's next to impossible.''
Mr. Wakefield and his wife, who are both blind, have conducted countless training sessions on the Internet for professionals nationwide.
At one time, he says, one of their favorite examples of a ''bad page'' was the Enquirer's home page (http: - - www.Cincinnati.com). The page is now a great page, as he demonstrated by zipping through lists of community events and dining opportunities sent to his Braille display.
What constitutes good and bad pages? Primarily, the difference is text and graphics. If you are reading a computer screen via a Braille display or speech synthesizer, the playing field is level in the land of reading text. Pictures, however, cannot be translated.
If your Braille display annoyingly repeats the word ''LINK LINK LINK,'' you know you've come to a page you probably can't read. If your speech synthesizer says ''IMAGE'' or ''USMAP,'' you can probably forget accessing information you came here to find.
The good news is that text is genuinely more efficient than graphics for everyone. The businessperson on the road with a laptop will have the same difficulties, in general, as a blind or visually impaired person with a screen reader.
If Web designers keep mobile computing in mind, they will be making their sites more accessible to blind people as well.
As Mr. Wakefield puts it: ''A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it also takes a thousand times longer to load.''
Deborah Kendrick, a Cincinnati free-lance writer, is a nationally recognized advocate for people with disabilities. Write: Deborah Kendrick, Cincinnati Enquirer, 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202; e-mail: 71340.473@compuserve.com.
KENDRICK ARCHIVE
