Hi, What aboutwww.w3c.org? There is an accessibility link that covers general accessibility rules and has tools for checking a web for accessibility problems. Marshall ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cheryl Homiak" <chomiak@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: "speakup" <speakup at braille.uwo.ca> Sent: Friday, July 23, 2004 9:34 AM Subject: Informing re: accessible website > I've been having a conversation with one of my grocery stores here in town > that has a service for web ordering and delivery (actually the service > includes this store plus two or three others in different towns). I > couldn't shop with it at all in lynx the cat or links the chain but did, > with great effort, make it through an order using freedombox, which means > that eventually those using gnopernicus and/or orca probably would be able > to do it with mozzilla. freedombox has a program called C-saw, whereby you > can put labels on imaged links and then submit them to a repository so > others on freedombox will see those when they go to the website instead of > just "link" "link" "link" for a lot of the links. However, the submission > key mapping for c-saw is alt+s, which the site uses to jump people to the > recipe search box. I can, however, still use alt+l, which is used in c-saw > to do the initial labeling, to look at the image url and link url. > I talked to somebody involved in the grocery deliver department, though > not a technical person. She seemed genuinely interested in how the website > could be made accessible. I'm afraid I wasn't very good at explaining to > her why, if they have a link with a graphic that does have the words for > the link within the graphic, I don't even get the words displayed. when I > explained to her that with C-saw I could see the name of the url and > thereby often deduce what it was but couldn't use the C-saw program > because they have alt=s (the key mapping used to do c-saw submissions) > mapped to a recipe search box, she immediately offered to talk to their > web design person about removing the alt+s keymapping from their site. > I've frankly never had anybody be so responsive. she also wanted to know > if I could point her to a website they could use as an example of how to > do things accessibly. This is where my writing to this list comes in. Can > anybody point me to a webpage to which I can point her for an example of > how they can still do their graphics but make the site accessible for > blind people? Also, is there a webpage that gives information they can > read > about how they could implement accessibility on their website with the > least wear and tear possible. I don't have to be as concerned about > javascript in freedombox, though I certainly am going to explain that this > can be an added barrier. If anybody wants to try looking at the website > with which I am dealing, it's http://www.sentryonthego.com > You'll see that by looking at the url title at the bottom of your page > when you are at each link, you can often get an idea what the link is but > not always. And to enter the store they use some kind of button that even > on links the chain just gives you an ok at the bottom of the page and > nothing happens when you try to use the link; you can get into the tour > and the tips for shopping but that's it. In freedombox i can shop using > the search box they have, but I haven't yet found the link that helps you > browse the aisles as they describe so I don't know if I'm missing it or if > there's some other reason I just can't get there. There are a whole lot of > inaccessibility issues with this website but I don't want to overwhelm > them by telling them to change a whole bunch of things at once. If they do > go ahead and drop the alt+s mapping it would indicate to me that they are > serious about accommodating blind customers. In that case, I'd like to > give > them the tools for educating themselves about what would help with their > site and give them some space to see how far they take it. I think when > somebody shows an eagerness to do what needs to be done to make a site > accessible, we want to encourage that, and sometimes if we point out a > whole list of things at once we can overwhelm people into feeling they > can't do what is needed and so they may react by doing absolutely > nothing. I think I may have a really receptive business here (they are > also usually very helpful to blind shoppers who come into the store) and i > would like to make the most of it. > Thanks for any suggestions. > > > -- > Cheryl > > "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." > > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup >
