Web Access Centre Blog

At W4A today there was a demo given of WebAnywhere which is a free screen reader that can be accessed from any PC anywhere. Produced as part of the University of Washington and the WebInSight project from the Univeristy of Washington the software will be fully available in MAy 2008.

WebAnywhere is a web-based screen reader. It requires no special software to be installed on the client machine and, therefore, enables blind people to access the web from any computer they happen to have access to that has a sound card.

All you need to do is switch a PC on, plug in your headphones, execute a couple of keyboard commands so that you open up the WebAnywhere home page, switch it on and away you go. What sets WebAnywhere apart from other text-to-speech software, free or otherwise, is that it can be used on any website rather than only sites where that software is installed.

This is fantastic on so many levels:

• Enables people who can’t afford costly screen readers to access the web
• Enables people with slight sight problems who don’t yet use a screen reader but may want audio support to have it
• You can use it on other PC’s and laptops if you’re traveling or unable to access your own i.e in libraries, schools and colleges
• Enables people with reading problems to get reading and audio support
• People browsing in a second language can use it to help understand written text
• Is an additional tool in the web developers toolbox when testing websites for accessibility

The software is also open source which is a huge bonus.

Visit their site to see WebAnywhere being demo’ed.

Today I attended a presentation at CSUN on Creating Blogs, Podcasts and Use of Social Media Tools with Screen Readers presented by Mika Pyyhkala from the Association of Blind Citizens.

The focus of the session was to walk blind and partially sighted users through how to blog using Wordpress, use Twitter, Facebook and what poscasting tools there were out there. It was a really well thought out presentation which was written up in a Wordpress blog together with tools, resources and links. This was made all the better as everyone was sat at a laptop or PC all of which had a screen reader running.

Twitter was the area Mika seemed most excited about and talked the most in depth about. In fact his enthusiasm was such that when he asked how many people in the room used Twitter only two said yes. By the end of the session people were signing up and following his feed.

Most social networking sites have a way to go to make them truly accessible to all users with disabilities but it is great to see people taking advantage of these tools as far as they canm and Mika’s resources are a great place to start if you want to get into it. I’m a true believer in signing up to Facebook, Twitter and blogging in order to spread the word about web accessibility as well as keep up to date with what is going on.

Join us on Facebook and Twitter and follow news soundbites as well as updates on what we are up to.

With the help of Barrier Break Technologies we have pulled together a list of Jaws and WindowEyes keystrokes for Flash and PDF. These are based on certain versions of each screen reader, Flash and PDF. Most of these are standard keystrokes but useful to flag within the context of using or testing accessible Flash and PDF. Also included are some useful links.

We’d be interested to hear your feedback, how you get on with the keystrokes, or if you have any more tips and advice that others may find useful.

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At Techshare 2007 I had the honour of being allowed to speak on one of my hot topics within the field of web accessibility. The presentation, on how to avoid some of the hidden barriers that make web sites difficult for disabled people who don’t have the benefit of screen readers was well received, (phew), and I promised to make it available as a download..

So for those of you who have been expecting it, and anyone else who’s curious, download
Avoid the hidden barriers to accessibility (zip file) 495KB.

Please note: Use Internet Explorer to view the presentation. It refers to issues that don’t affect other browsers. Thanks to Sheena for pointing out that I hadn’t given enough emphasis to this point.

Lastly, many thanks to all of you who attended Techshare 2007, perhaps had no homes to go to, and stayed for my presentation, which was in the last time slot of the last day of the conference.

We talk a lot about making PDF’s accessible and how we should present them on the web but rarely do we touch on making PowerPoint accessible. As with PDF the bottom line is that if the content of the PowerPoint can not be made accessible then an accessible alternative should be given.

Accessibility is about access to information for all types of people regardless of ability or disability including people with hearing cognitive, mobility and sight impairments. For the purposes of this article however we’re looking at how people with screen readers can both access PowerPoint to read and also use when delivering presentations.

The general consensus is that PowerPoint files are not as accessible as HTML pages, and that, while there are ways to improve on the accessibility of slides, it is advisable to provide a Text or HTML alternative.

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Victor Tsaran, Accessibility Program Manager over at Yahoo! is filmed here explaining what screen readers are and how people interact with them. As he carries out tasks such as navigating his desktop and browsing the web he describes what he is doing and how e uses the keyboard to navigate. This is a great video and introduction to screen readers.

View Victor’s screen reader demo