Accessibility

From Dreamwidth Notes
Revision as of 16:38, 12 October 2009 by 173.48.172.175 (Talk)

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Goal

To make the Dreamwidth site and features more accessible.

Background

We need to figure out which parts/features of the site are causing trouble for disabled users, and which features don't cause any problems but can be improved (and how), and which features work great. Fix the problematic features, tweak the things that can be improved, document the good ones so that people will know where to find them/how to use them.

Note that making a site accessible is not the same as making it mobile friendly (and vice versa). While the two goals have some similarities, they are not always compatible.

Communication

The accessibility team communicates on the DW Accessibility mailing list

Biggest Needs

Someone with experience in accessibility concerns needs to go over the site with a fine-tooth comb, and say what is good and what is bad. New concerns should be listed in the Accessibility Wishlist.

Possible Items to Consider

Alt text

Dyslexic Users

  • Text/background contrasts which are too high can be a problem for dyslexic users as much as low contrast can be a problem for those with low vision. Suggest using Black Widow Alternative Color Contrast Analyzer on things so it marks high as well as low contrast.

Keyboard-friendly

  • tab-order
  • offer alternatives to functions that are triggered on mouse-over? (90% sure that everything is trim has a non-fancy way to get to it, but can't hurt to check)
  • offer simple alternatives to places where you will do control-click to get multiple elements off a list (e.g. choosing tags, where the keyboard alternative currently is to remember the names of your tags and type them in)
  • WAI-ARIA

Some styles can make text unreadable for some users

  • check sticky style=mine behavior Bugzilla
  • can ?format=light be made sticky, too?

Screen readers

  • JAWS Windows screen reader
  • WindowEyes Windows screen reader
  • VoiceOver Mac OS X screen reader
  • Fangs Firefox extension could help simulate?
  • FireVox
  • nVDA Windows-based, open source
  • [1] Linux, GNOME

Speech recognition systems

  • Dragon NaturallySpeaking Windows speech recognition
  • MacSpeech Dictate Mac OS X speech recognition
  • Windows Vista built-in speech recognition

emerging technology

  • WAI-ARIA
  • HTML 5 -- years away, but we should keep an eye on it
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