RE: Blind People/Internet

Before I forget, I wanted to answer Linda's question about how I use the internet. And no, asking those kinds of questions is not offensive at all. It is much preferable to going around talking about something you know nothing about like the people who said that blind people can't use the internet.

There are different ways blind people access computer technology. I use a combination of a program called Window-Eyes and another called Zoomtext. Window-Eyes is a voice output program. It reads everything on the screen aloud in a synthesized computer voice. My keyboard is exactly like yours, but I don't use the mouse with this program. You actually can use the mouse, but basically you'd just be wandering around the screen playing hit and miss with the cursor and nothing would make much sense. Window-Eyes uses a combination of the already existing keyboard commands in Windows, like Control-C for COPY, and also has its own set of keyboard commands to do most everything else. Much of the navigation around the screen in Window-Eyes uses the number pad. There is a lot more memorization of all of these commands than if you were to just point and click with the mouse. Also, there are some additional commands you have to remember when you hear them. It will read capitals in a higher pitched voice, it will read a link as "link:home, link:contact, etc." It takes some practice to get used to hearing all the ways it reads things aloud.

Zoomtext is a screen enlargement software program that basically blows up the screen to as big as you want it. But it then only shows like one fourth of the screen at a time. Or one eighth or one sixteenth depending on how big you are blowing it up. You then have to sort of scroll around to get to different parts of the screen. Zoomtext is very annoying in this way. I only use it when everything else has failed. Obviously, Zoomtext is not an option for every blind person. One thing I use it for is when I comment on all of your blogs and you have that image of the jumbled letters that I have to type out to prevent spam. I hate those things. Some of them have a little wheelchair icon that you can click and then it will give you the letters aloud to type in or bypass it all together. Sometimes I'm screwed and it takes me two or three tries to get it right. If you have one of these on your blog and I comment on it, then I must really like you because I really hate these and avoid them when I can.

Incidentally, deafblind people can use the internet, but it adds one more layer of tricky. They use the same voice output software like JAWS or Window-Eyes, but then instead of getting translated into a voice that reads aloud, it gets translated into a refreshable braille display. This is a line of braille mechanized pins that raise and lower as the computer reads each line of text. These suckers are incredibly expensive.

I am not an expert on web accessibility. I know when a site is easy to navigate or harder, but I don't know all the whys and hows of how to build an accessible webpage. Straight text that is managed neatly in discernible columns or tables is easy to read, as are text links. When people make their websites with the columns of text going all over the place, it may look OK to the eye, but the screen reader will read it across the columns and it gets all jumbled up. Sloppy HTML makes screen readers really have to work extra hard. Also, graphics based navigation is harder and needs to have alt text in order to be accessible. Pictures should be captioned with descriptive text. (Something I am trying to get better at on this site.) When you get into flash and other multimedia, things start getting impossible. Flash needs to have an HTML or text based option. There are other things that web designers can do to make webpages more accessible. I know I have several blind readers here who probably know way more than me about all this. What are your ideas or expertise about this?

There are a lot of websites that are not accessible at all, but most of the problem sites can be accessed with headache inducing struggle. It depends on how much you really want to read what is one the site as to whether you are going to spend your time deciphering it. The easier the website is to access, the more you are apt to use that site. Web designers can do some simple easy things to make their site easier to navigate and read, and thus open themselves up to a broader population of users. See? Win/win for everyone. Just like most all accessibility issues can be.

Comments

[Janice]

Thanks for this explaination! I had been wondering also. Most of all, I want to wish you a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!! Just wait a few years and you'll wonder how on earth you could have possibly thought you were old right now. I can tell by reading that you are a wonderful person and you deserve the most awesome day ever. Bask in your day!

[Angela]

I hate the letters you have to type at the end of a comment too. I either have to press that wheelchair icon or ask my husband. Both are a pain. I have to use these letters on my blog because I got a lot of spam comments on my blog and now I don’t.
I did some 508 compliance testing for a company three years ago. That is testing the accessibility of websites. I would offer suggestions and the people I was working with did not seem to listen, all they needed me for was to teach them how to use JAWS my screen reader. I ended up quitting that job because I had to move. You are right if a website is a pain to read I usually don’t come back to it. No suggestions on your blog it works fine for me. I usually just skip all your links in the beginning.

[BR]

I had to test some sites for my company a few years ago - I remember one site had a long pulldown menu that used lines of underscores to group the menu options into related categories. Each time the screen reader encountered one of these lines it read "UNDERSCORE UNDERSCORE UNDERSCORE UNDERSCORE ..." Doh! I think all web site developers should be forced to use a screen reader against multiple websites just to develop a little empathy!

[Linda]

Fascinating. Thanks for the explanation. The idea of having a webpage read out loud to me is overwhelming since I'm a "skim" kind of girl. Does the web reader make allowances for people with crappy spelling? Also, there have been many times when I have to type in those jumbled spam-preventing letters a couple of times. They're really hard to read sometimes.

[Shannon]

It's a shame about the jumbled letters, because they really, really cut down on the spam...