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Hi everyone
I'm keen to make sure that my site doesn't exclude people who are using a text-to-speech browser, or who need to make the text bigger to read it. I've already done some work on making sure that the page looks OK when text is enlarged - but it could be better - and I'm also pretty sure that its inaccessible with text-to-speech (or with a user stylesheet or whatever).
Is anyone else working on this?
Thanks in advance.
( betterstories.wikidot.com )
Well… having never tried anything like this i thought i might spend 5 mins finding out.
I now have "textaloud" plugin on FF.
Taking your start page as an example i discover that…
i can hit play, and it bores me to death with all the stuff that i really dont want to hear…
But i can select the text that i want to hear, and its fine.
AS LONG AS,, i was to design my page accordingly.
ideally i would need to be able to select the text i want to listen to, so if i had little div boxes on my page with bits of text in, then i have to listen to that as well. which may bugger up the context of the main text.
So yes it will work a treat, as long as i lay my page out accordingly.
As an example, i might consider moving the text size info box into the side bar, leaving the text freely selectable.
Using "tables" to layout the page helps, as each cell is selectable.
HTH
Thanks for that Phil.
Unfortunately my Mac's too old for the equivalent Mac version of this software.
I'm guessing that textaloud will have given you text in the same order as can be seen by telling FF view/page style/no style.
Unfortunately this gives text in this order:
I could probably tidy that up a bit - but it'll be a big hassle. Perhaps taking the admin menu off the top menu bar and finding somewhere else for it would help (but only if there's a way to put it after the content). And I could do the same with the account menu text.
I think that readers are often able to jump from heading to heading in a document - and there we hit a problem in that the page title created by Wikidot (displayed with <div id="page-title">) isn't a heading! Is there a way to make it <h1> level?
There's another trick that can be used on normal webpages - which is to put an invisible link (e.g. from an invisible graphic) right at the top of the page content - to allow users to jump over navigation stuff to reach the main content. I'd like to do this, but through the theme not by entering it manually on each page (because other people won't know to do it if they create pages).
I'd guess that this might be possible, but my familiarity with CSS means I'd need to do a lot of experimentation to try (and I already spent the whole of today just getting font sizes and spacings sorted out a bit).
All ideas welcome.
By the way, anyone on a PC, particularly with IE available, could do me a real favour and confirm that the layout is OK. And is it still OK if you enlarge/shrink the text? Seems to work not too badly on FF (although I have spent most of today failing to change the CSS to stop the sidebar taking over the screen as the text is enlarged).
seems fine in ie7 and.. surprisingly IE6
I'm guessing that textaloud,
you guess correctly :-)
to put an invisible link…..
example url please ?
just for a giggle i stuck the side bar to the right to see if that would make a difference to the style sequence.
nope! ( but then thinking about if for 0.0001 sec afterwards,, cause it wont!)
Good news. Thank you very much for checking.
I tidied up the sidebar a bit - the main things being putting the text "navigation" at the top so that it's clear to a reader what it is. I might see if I can turn that into heading level text without it physically growing in size.
I'm still really stuck on giving people a way to jump to the beginning of the main text. And on getting the account stuff and the admin menu to shift to be after the main text.
i have had a quick play with restructuring the css sequence, without success :-(((
but that might be because i dont really know what i am doing, or understand the relationship between css and html, or why grass is green and the sky is blue, and i really think i need a cuppa tea:-)
I've got an idea - on making a link to jump all the menu text. Presumably I can put an anchor at the end of the sidebar (which is just before the content), and an invisible link to it at the beginning of the sidebar. That would work automatically on every page.
The next thing to do would be to move the other stuff to the sidebar (so it would be jumped). I wonder if that's possible. This means the account status stuff, the admin menu (currently in the top menu bar), and the header search box (currently present but invisible to ordinary viewers). The admin stuff could go in a folded up bit so it didn't show for most people. I wouldn't mind losing the search box completely. But I'd like the account status to display.
Hmmm…. sounds like a lot of messing around… does it sound doable anyone?
I, too, am concerned about this. I am part of a local community organization that is considering using Wikidot for our Web site. Because it can be quite difficult to switch wiki engines later, and because our site will be created by and targeted at our community, we need to consider carefully what software to use.
Wikidot's heavy reliance upon JavaScript concerns me. While it's true that most if not all modern, GUI, Web browsers support JavaScript, most text-based browsers do not. One simple way to evaluate a site's accessibility to those using screen reader software is to load it in a text-based browser like w3m, Lynx, Links, ELinks, or Emacs/W3.
For example, it is impossible to create an account or login to community.wikidot.com using w3m.
See also: W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative, WAVE evaluation of www.wikidot.com
OK. Accessibility is improved I think - but it would be good to do much more.
For anyone else who wants to try, what I've done so far is:
And what I'd still like to do is:
Hi Robert.
its good to see you having ago at this. it looks like you are alone in this challenge.
in respect to the text to speech part..
When you have got as far as you can, would you be as good as to write a "how to" ?
regards
phil
Yes, I'd already thought of that… but I could really do with someone who knows more about CSS commenting on whether my solution is elegant before I declare it to the world in a bigger way. Anyone…. please….?
I've been pondering the issue of the search box and account status information. I'm guessing that these are something I have no control over. The CSS can be used to change their appearance and even hide them, but not to actually remove them. Anyone know if I'm right about that?
Phil, could you do me a favour and see if the text-to-speech browser you used recognises the link/anchor in the sidebar?
Oh, I should say that I did have one further thought about a useful approach - but I couldn't make it work… I wondered about putting internal page navigation links (perhaps just one to the end of the sidebar) in the top menu bar (because structurally this appears early in the page). But due to the funny/limited syntax that this uses I couldn't get it to work.
For anyone already well informed about CSS etc: the main technical bit of the solution so far (assuming it's working) has been to put the following code at the start of the sidebar:
[[image /nav:side/Skip-navigation.gif link="#EN" alt="Skip navigation controls"]]
[[# EN]]
There might be a better solution - if the link at the start of the sidebar was text normally hidden with CSS (using the visibility or display properties). The current solution should work for people using text-to-speech but isn't apparent for someone just magnifying the text (having switched the CSS off - or using their own stylesheet) because the Skip-navigation.gif graphic is only one pixel and doesn't appear as any bigger than a dot. I want to know a bit more about the limitations of older browsers before I implement that though - because at least the current solution shouldn't mess up the visual appearance (whereas hidden text might have the habit of appearing accidentally).
I know enough about css to be considered bloody dangerous!
will give your site a good thrashing later, and report back soon.
happy to help where i can
phil
update.
Text to speech is not doing the jump.
As you say, it does "read out" what is on the page, ignoring any css.
viz:
As you see , no nav jump :-((
Betterstories
Diversity and stereotype in children's books
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On this site you should find reviews of children's literature, focusing on issues of stereotyping and messages about society. These reviews can be added and edited by anyone. Their purpose is to make it easier for parents to buy some books which contradict and undermine the stereotypes and messages they find their children being subjected to. We hope to concentrate on books which are positive in this way, but which DO NOT have OVERT/obvious messages like 'difference is ok' or 'women can be leaders too' (we're just interested in good stories in which these things are apparent!).
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The Betterstories site is in development: It is ready for use but has little content so far.
What you will find here are some initial book reviews, and some other pages about ideas, other resources, jobs to do, and about this site itself.
Betterstores is directed at people who already view stereotypes in children's books as a problem, and who would like to do something about it. There are interesting arguments to be had about how much of a problem it is, but this isn't the place to have them. We don't aim to convince anyone with this site, nor are we likely to respond favourably to people wanting to convince us that there isn't a problem.
Hmmm…. that's not good. The 'skip navigation' bit should be a link. I'll do some work to try to find out if other speech browsers work. Thanks for your help so far. Will report back when I know more.
Oh, and just a note to say that this is interesting as a tool for checking a page:
http://wave.webaim.org/
