Access Matters – Blog Archive – Speaking ALT Text The excellent new site Access Matters has provided recordings of how Jaws, Window Eyes, and Home Page Reader handle alt text or the lack of alt text. Very enlightening to hear it really read by a screen reader and most helpful to those of us who don’t have the software but need to teach other people how to code the alt attribute for nonessential images. I hope Access Matters will continue creating test cases for other topics and providing recordings of the results for us to hear. This is a valuable service and a breakthrough idea.
Firefox extension emulates screen readers
Standards-schmandards has the extension Fangs for Firefox that creates a textual representation of a web page similar to how the page would be read by a screen reader.
TrustRank new from Google
New Scientist Google searches for quality not quantity – Technology Google is going to rank news search results by quality using a system they have patented under the name TrustRank. Note that the same patent could be used to rank other services beyond news, based on factors such as price and reputation.
Mime type basics
XML.com: The Road to XHTML 2.0: MIME Types will give you a quick rundown on mime types for HTML/XHTML documents.
Spend a few bucks, save lots of time
Two articles by Sheri German at Community MX explain their collections of CSS snippets for Dreamweaver. CSS tutorials – Introducing the CMX CSS Snippet Collection – Part One – Intermediate tutorials for CSS and Part Two. Not only do they provide the snippets to install in Dreamweaver, but they also provide tutorials that explain what each snippet does and when it is needed.
Well golly, gee whiz and wow
About Adobe – Adobe to acquire Macromedia This is one corporate merger than I am really interested in and surprised to hear about. I hope the new lack of competition between the two giants will bring more emphasis on standards.
Accessibility: Super Nanny for the Web
Okay, so I have a dirty little secret. I watch Super Nanny. Here’s the scenario: there is this family with two parents, kids, a home, jobs, everything according to the American dream. Except that there is total chaos at home because the kids are out of control. What should be the fulfillment of a dream is more like a nightmare. Super Nanny arrives to save the day and issues the same basic instructions everywhere she goes:
- Be consistent
- Set rules and follow them
- Get on their level
- Reward good behavior
- Give advance warnings
- Explain everything
- Facilitate good choice-making
It strikes me that Super Nanny is like accessibility–bringing order to a dream that manifests as a nightmare for those with barriers to success.
The July 2004 Working Draft from the W3C, How People with Disabilities Use the Web, is a highly readable (especially for the W3C) description of some of the barriers to success for people using the web, and the super-nanny-like accessibility help that can let them be successful. Check it out and follow the links to more information if you aren’t already doing what is needed.
In a perfect world, every family would have good parenting and every website would have good accessibility. If you can move the world closer to perfection in either of those areas, please do.