Web Access Centre Blog

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.

When I was at South by Southwest Interactive earlier this year, I attended a panel which had the intruiging title of “High Class and Low Class Web Design”. I’m not sure what I expected before I went in, but while I was in there, I had a bit of an epiphany.

Coming from a topic based on class, there was a lot of talk about respect for the audience and whether designers treat their audiences as equals and how do deal with audiences that aren’t in the same cultural, educational or peer group. One of the panelists worked for a wrestling magazine and described how after being initially skeptical, he came to understand, and then to respect his audience as he got to know more about them.

In amongst a lot of fascinating discussion, came an interesting point - that it’s difficult, if not impossible to design for an audience that you don’t respect - and it got me thinking…

…what if the reason that web accessibility (and accessibility in general) hasn’t got as far as it should have by now, is that the majority of designers/managers/people in charge of making stuff have no, or not enough knowledge of what life is like for people with disabilities, or what it’s like having a disability, and as a result, don’t understand, and don’t respect them.

It’s all very well to make a choice that you don’t want to design websites for wrestlers because you just don’t “get” them (or think that it’s a complete waste of time and money), but there really shouldn’t be a web designer out there who decides they don’t want to (or can’t) make websites for disabled people.

It’s not news that there’s a lack of understanding generally about disability, but this is particularly true when it comes to how people with disabilities use the web, and since coming back I’ve been having a look around the web to see what’s out there, and the truth is, there isn’t much. Yahoo have been doing some good things with videos of screen reader and screen magnification users, but the feedback I’ve been hearing is that while those are great, it’s still not enough.

So in the coming months, we’re going to try and do something about that.

First though, it seemed sensible to get some opinions from you - the readers of this blog, and the people who have been crying out for this information - as to what exactly you want.

Some of the ideas we’ve come up with are:

Profiles/text interviews, accompanied by photographs of how each individual uses the web.
Audio interviews/podcasts (with transcripts, of course)
Surveys of groups of disabled people
Videos (technology and hosting permitting)

What do you think? Anything else you’d like to see? Any particular group you’d like us to concentrate on first?