The Unofficial
WebsiteAccessibility
For some time I have been meaning to address the subject of site accessibility. I tried a few months ago to add access keys to my links. Although I used generally accepted access keys the same as those used on the BBC I failed to get them to work. Not as clever as I thought I was! In 2007 I have decided not to pursue the inclusion of access keys on RTUW and will look at the XHTML Role Access Module at a later date – see notes.
Notes from the Wikipedia site:-
"In the summer of 2002, a Canadian Web Accessibility consultancy did an informal survey to see if implementing access keys caused issues for users of adaptive technology, especially screen reading technology used by blind and low vision users. These users require numerous keyboard shortcuts to access web pages, as "pointing and clicking" a mouse is not an option for them. Sadly, their research showed that most key stroke combinations did in fact present a conflict for one or more of these technologies, and their final recommendation was to avoid using access keys altogether.The World Wide Web Consortium, the organization responsible for establishing internet standards, has acknowledged this short-coming, and in their latest draft documents for a revised web authoring language (XHTML 2), they have deprecated (retired) the ACCESSKEY attribute in favor of the XHTML Role Access Module."
As for making the site available in differing text sizes I decided that this was a complete waste of time as most browsers provide this facility anyway. The ones I've checked work as follows:-
- Netscape Navigator 7 – Go to View and use Text Zoom. The site seems readable and OK from 75% to 150%.
- Mozilla Firefox – Go to View or press 'Alt' + 'V. Select Text Size with the mouse, or press 'S' twice then > Increase or Decrease. Use mouse or the up and down arrow keys followed by Enter. Or you can press 'Ctrl' + '+' to increase the text size or 'Ctrl' + '-' to decrease the text size. 'Ctrl' + '0' returns you to the default.
- Opera – Go to View and Zoom. The site seems readable and OK from 80% to 150%.
- Internet Explorer 7 – Seems to work in text size larger and medium, but anything less than medium is too small to be easily readable. How to increase the font size in Internet Explorer:–
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- Open the View menu with the mouse, or press 'Alt' + 'V'.
- Select the Text Size option with the mouse, or press 'X'.
- Choose your preferred text size with the mouse, or use the up and down arrow keys followed by Enter.
- Some websites have fixed the size of their text so cannot be altered through View. To use your larger text on these sites:–
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- Click on the Tools menu with the mouse, or press 'Alt' + 'T'.
- Click on Internet Options option with the mouse, or press 'O'. You should now see the Internet Options box.
- Click on the Accessibility button with the mouse, or press 'Alt' + 'E'.
- Click the Ignore font sizes specified on web page checkbox, or press 'Alt' + 'Z'.
- Click the OK button twice with the mouse, or press Enter twice, to return to Internet Explorer.
- If this does not work local intranet settings may prevent the use of differing text sizes. Contact your system administrator.
There are one or two minor differences in the display of pages if you are viewing them in a bigger text size. They are still there as I haven't found a way to eradicate them yet!
I have also adding comments tags to the HTML to try and make things clearer for anybody using a reader.
You can also change your Windows' settings to make your computer more accessible. For instructions on how to do this please visit Accessibility Resources for More Microsoft Products.