Comments on: Open Up, Be Accessible… http://ueblog.habaneros.com/2007/01/25/open-up-be-accessible/ Habañero User Experience Blog Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:24:23 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Benjamin Hawkes-Lewi http://ueblog.habaneros.com/2007/01/25/open-up-be-accessible/#comment-63 Benjamin Hawkes-Lewi Wed, 21 Feb 2007 09:59:36 +0000 http://ueblog.habaneros.com/2007/01/25/open-up-be-accessible/#comment-63 "If you feel that images are a necessary part of the workflow, ensure you provide a textual equivalent or supplement (such as a title tag, caption, etc)." I know it's basic, but it would have been nice to stress the importance of the ALT attribute here: http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/altAttribute Unfortunately, according to Freedom Scientific one cannot test websites with JAWS without purchasing the product (895 USD minimum). Thankfully, one can download and test with many other screen readers for free, most importantly GW-Micro's Window-Eyes, where developers may use a fully-functional demo version with a time limit of 30 minutes per Windows session. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screen_readers and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-voicing for a list of current screen readers and self-voicing applications. Most of the commercial ones have demos; there are also now several open source alternatives. “If you feel that images are a necessary part of the workflow, ensure you provide a textual equivalent or supplement (such as a title tag, caption, etc).” I know it’s basic, but it would have been nice to stress the importance of the ALT attribute here:

http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/altAttribute

Unfortunately, according to Freedom Scientific one cannot test websites with JAWS without purchasing the product (895 USD minimum). Thankfully, one can download and test with many other screen readers for free, most importantly GW-Micro’s Window-Eyes, where developers may use a fully-functional demo version with a time limit of 30 minutes per Windows session. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screen_readers

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-voicing

for a list of current screen readers and self-voicing applications. Most of the commercial ones have demos; there are also now several open source alternatives.

]]> By: Habañero User Experience Group » Fangs: the Screen Reader Emulator for Firefox http://ueblog.habaneros.com/2007/01/25/open-up-be-accessible/#comment-61 Habañero User Experience Group » Fangs: the Screen Reader Emulator for Firefox Mon, 19 Feb 2007 20:07:40 +0000 http://ueblog.habaneros.com/2007/01/25/open-up-be-accessible/#comment-61 [...] I want to add another tool to Mark’s post on accessibility. [...] [...] I want to add another tool to Mark’s post on accessibility. [...]

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