Making Websites Disability Friendly
by Ian Talbot
As the technology behind producing web pages
to appear on our computer screens leaps forward with ever more "attractive"
and "exciting" features,
it is all too easy to forget that it is the content of most pages which
is the important part, not the appearance. Cramming every page with flashing,
twirling images and fancy fonts soon puts off any reader. If the reader
has
dyslexia,
or one of the many other disabilities that make reading from a screen
difficult, then you have just lost a reader, or a customer if it is
a commercial site.
Please don't think that I have all the answers,
far from it, there are many things within this simple site that can
be done better. What I think
you need to keep in mind is that you can create unnecessary problems
for a large number of people by inconsiderate design, and if you are
running
a commercial site then these readers are your customers too.
Browse the web for many
sites offering detailed guidance on what is good design, and there
are benchmarking sites such as Bobby
at webxact which will "measure" how
well your site has been written. They actually measure many of the
underlying technical aspects of the page design, it can't tell you
if you have picked
a good colour scheme or clear fonts, only people can do that. Have
a look at Sucky
to Savvy for some
ideas on design. Very American but makes some good points.
Keep it clear
There are so many ways that web browsing can be made easier for all
readers, but some basic considerations are
- choose fonts and colours that provide clear text with plenty of contrast
- no back ground images or confusing patterns
- keep layout, such as navigation buttons and menus consistent across
pages
- avoid rapidly moving images, and moving or flashing text
For example, it was suggested to me by WCDA
to use Comic Sans font as the general script, as this was found by
many dyslexics to be an easier font to read than the common
default of Times New Roman. I also experimented with writing
the javascript code
needed
to make the background colour change bar at the top of pages. I hope
you find this useful and that it works successfully in your browser.
I took the basic inspiration from other sites and books, but modified
it to better suit our needs.
Images and Frames
Many of us read pages with all the page content
shown, but some people need to use screen reading applications that
talk the text back to them.
These programs try their best, but can be totally confused by pictures,
unusual layouts and using a design technology called frames within the
page. Try to add alternative text to your page if important information
is held in a graphic, and test your layouts on a range of web browsers,
as
page layout behaviour varies from
browser to browser. There is no such thing as standard, all browsers
have their quirks.
Browser Compatibility
There are many different web browsing programs,
with the most common being Internet Explorer as it is the default program
that comes with
Microsoft Windows. It is by no means the "best", many people
will argue long and hard about which one is. Other choices include Opera,
Netscape
Navigator, and Mozilla Firefox. These browsers are free to download and
use, and have other features that IE currently doesn't use, such as displaying
pages as tabs so that you can easily switch between multiple pages. I
was very nervous about having multiple browsers on one machine in case
they interfered with each other. However, I currently have all four installed
on one Windows XP machine and they all seem to operate fine. This is
excessive I know, but I was doing a web design course and I needed to
see how one page works across multiple browsers. WARNING: always make
sure
you
have a backup of important data before installing ANY new program, in
fact make sure you have data backups anyway. Things do break and go wrong
even if you don't intentionally change anything, that is life!
Even Internet Explorer comes in many versions
depending on when it was written and
what type
of machine
it
operates
on.
These differences can all affect how a particular pages looks and behaves
on a particular computer. Add this onto everything else, and it can quickly
become a nightmare to make a page which is "all things to all people".
You may see on some pages "this site only
works in Internet Explorer v6" etc. Congratulations, they have immediately
excluded 10 to 15% of the browser world from their site!
Altering the look
As well as using customised controls, like
the colour control bar on this page, there are usually ways within
any
browser
to alter
the page layout, which can
make it easier to read.
Font size can be altered in Internet Explorer
from the menu bar under VIEW and TEXT SIZE. These sizes are expressed
as relative changes, larger and smaller, rather than a font size as
in a word processor. Some other browsers such as Mozilla Firefox have
keyboard
shortcuts to make this process really quick, for example using control
and + for larger.
Switch off images, will remove embedded
images leaving the text. Pages will load quicker, particularly if you
are using modem dial up and
the nice web designer has embedded a HUGE graphic in the page. Bit difficult
to find this in IE but it is under Tools, Internet Options, Advanced,
and then scroll down to the tick box for "show pictures". Opera
has an easy selection images on/off with a little drop down box on the
main toolbar.
There is an example of even more advanced
page control technology at the British
Dyslexia Association home page, using a toolbar from an organisation
called TEXTIC.
It integrates with the underlying design of their web page.
This allows alteration of many features of the page layout from a toolbar
which
is always
available at the bottom of the screen. There are also other tools on
the bar for spelling and sending emails. Very powerful indeed, but
well beyond my web writing capabilities,
at the
moment anyway.
Conclusion
As with most things, there is
no right way to write a web page, but with a little thought you can
easily see if you have got it
badly wrong. Clear, clean pages are good for everyone.
Happy browsing
Ian Talbot
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