[OpenID] OpenID and accessibility

tom tom at barnraiser.org
Thu Apr 26 08:37:23 UTC 2007


Hi Chris,

They were using IE6 and Firefox with Windows. Mikael Holmgren who was 
our guide for the day is blind. He uses a Braille keyboard and no 
monitor (kind of obvious but we'd not anticipated it). They actually set 
up a monitor especially for us so that we could "see" what he was doing. 
He was using specialised software which renders the HTML to speech, 
hence the importance of getting the HTML correct.

Visually impaired people make use of operating system accessibility 
features,  however I'd like to note that this is "accessibility in using 
Windows" and "accessibility in using IE to surf" and not "accessibility 
in interacting with a web site". At this point the onus in on the web 
site developer to ensure that W3C accessibility standards are met.

There has been a test case in America where "Target" (an e-retailer) was 
sued for not complying with the Americans with Disability Act [ details: 
http://www.ibls.com/internet_law_news_portal_view.aspx?s=latestnews&id=1647]. 
Microsoft are doing a great job of looking after disabled people (as are 
the browser manufacturers). It looks to me that web site developers have 
a long way to go before they can claim that;)

Tom









Chris Drake wrote:
> Hi Tom,
>
> What browser and operating systems do most blind people use?  I would
> imagine they all use IE7 and Windows, since the accessibility stuff is
> all integrated into that?
>
> Kind Regards,
> Chris Drake
>
>   


-- 
Tom Calthrop
Founder, Barnraiser.

dedicated to giving people the tools they need to share 
knowledge and advance society through social software.

http://www.barnraiser.org/




More information about the general mailing list