Who Is SimplyRaydeen?

My real name is Raydeen Gallogly, I've been involved in website accessibility for over 20 years. Why do I continue to do this for so long? ... Besides being the right thing to do, website accessibility has and continues to be my real passion.

Not much has changed over the years, the concept is still the same but web site developers still struggle with making the most simple things seem to be very hard.

"Accessible Tags -- A basic adaptation that makes Web sites accessible is the addition of alt tags. These pop-out windows are attached to text and graphics, providing material for screen readers for the blind. Alt tags are critical to accessibility. Using a program such as JAWS, from Freedom Scientific, a screen reader can breeze through text on a screen at the speed desired by the user. Even PDF pages can be made accessible with Adobe's newest tools and plug-ins.

 

Sometimes, the failure to create accessibility is ironic. Jeff Bennett, who analyzed Web accessibility for New York's Office for Technology, demonstrated a Web site that had offered shopping services for disabled individuals. As a blind user, he could shop for groceries and household items from the comfort of his home. Although the Web site was beautifully constructed with excellent descriptions given of the products available, it eventually sported one glaring error. In the center of the screen on the home page was a letter announcing that the company was going out of business. The letter was in Portable Document Format and unavailable to the screen reader that Bennett depends upon. He could still order groceries and, when they failed to arrive as usual, he would never know why.

 

Bennett espoused his Web philosophy, "KISS" (keep it simple, stupid). He says this easily remembered acronym is the backbone of accessible design. "The best thing to do is to keep it simple," Bennett said. "Label all graphics, label all links, make sure all links can be accessed by a keyboard and do not require use of a mouse, and avoid using mouse-over links."

 

Comments

Add New Search

Write comment
Name:
Email:	do not notifynotify
Title:
UBBCode:	-color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge

  

 nbsp;"