External style-sheet for disabled people.

  • Thread starter Luigi Donatello Asero
  • Start date
A

Andy Dingley

Luigi Donatello Asero said:
What is an external style-sheet for disabled people?

No such thing - and this is a rather vague and sloppy way of wording
things, so it's hard to see what's really being discussed here.

For one thing, there are no "disabled" people. There are people with
disabilities, but you can't lump them all together into one pot lile
this. Good accessibility for a blind user doesn't make the same
demands that accessibility for a poorly-sighted person might do, let
alone someone with motor control problems or autism. A totally blind
user might be using a screen reader and that benefits from some
additional descriptive markup, the partially sighted reader might be
able to read text for themself, so long as they can enlarge it
sufficiently and still get a reasonable scroll order. Fortunately
there are design techniques that help to meet all of these constraints
simultaneously - it's rare that improving accessibility for one group
would reduce it for others.

CSS is no guarantee of accessibility, and it's not even much help to
achieving it. What is useful is the "CSS mindset" when applied to
design. You can't achieve accessibility just by using <link
media="disabled" ... /> and a magic stylesheet that makes the page
accessible. And if you could do so, why wouldn't you serve that to all
users ? For presentation stylesheets, there _is_ a problem that making
it accessible for one group might make it worse for another. Although
individual users might be able to meet their needs by applying a user
stylesheet, we (as page designers) can't do this for them because we
don't know just what their needs are. There is no single group of
"disabled" people.

"CSS techniques" allow us a couple of useful avenues for accessible
design though. Mainly they separate content and presentation, so the
ability to easily offer a content-only version of the page can itself
be helpful. The most accessible page is often not the one with special
"disabled styling", but the one with all styling and CSS turned _off_.
This either simplifies things, or it allows the user to apply their
own styling - it's their disability, they're the best judge of it, and
they often understand best how styling can help. Maybe it's as simple
as mapping all red or green colours to different brightnesses, so as
to overcome red/green colour blindness.

The core of good CSS design is to strip presentation out of the
content, and to leve behind content that is still usable without any
CSS. Think about document order, getting the sections in a meaningful
sequence. Imagine using the page as a single long line of ticker-tape
and having to scroll back and forth through it - how easy is this ?
Can internal jump menus within the page help ?

Then there's the annotation aspect of usability. Use title attributes
generously (I hope I don't have to describe alt usage again !). Wrap
related items in <div>s and give the <div> a relevant title. Even
though you might not want this as a heading, it can help with
navigation around the page. You may even wish to use a "breadcrumb"
approach for the content of these titles. Get your spelling right too,
for most screen readers can pronounce their dictionary words better
than mis-spellings.

General design stuff: Put things on the page because they're useful,
not otherwise. Enough of the animated .gif eye-candy, the Flash
banners, the JS-only menus. You don't _need_ this stuff, it causes
problems, so don't do it.

Maybe you do need some complex Java applet client-side data browser
(sometimes these problems are just hard and their solutions are
complex). Then build an alternative if you have to, and you can't make
the mainstream route accesssible itself.

When it finally comes to CSS, the techniques are generally better
known. Use text size units that are easily user-scalable. Allow for
fluid layout on devices with unusual window sizes. All that good
stuff.

"Example of source code: <link rel=stylesheet type="text / css"
href="section508.css>"

I cannot imagine any scenario (suggestions welcome!) where
"section508.css" is either a sensible intention for a CSS stylesheet,
or a sensible name for a generalised CSS stylesheet. Don't segregate
accessibility like this - build it into your mainstream styling.


Incidentally, I'd regard that as a poor page-usability wise.
 
S

SpaceGirl

Incidentally, I'd regard that as a poor page-usability wise.

Perfect. People need to *think* once in a while, instead of just jumping
on yet another bandwagon.


--


x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

# lead designer @ http://www.dhnewmedia.com #
# remove NO SPAM to email, or use form on website #
 
R

rf

Andy Dingley said:
"Luigi Donatello Asero" <[email protected]> wrote in message

Incidentally, I'd regard that as a poor page-usability wise.

That page tells other people how to do things. That does not mean the the
page should do those things itself. It is, after all, a page produced by a
government :)
 
E

Els

rf said:
That page tells other people how to do things. That does
not mean the the page should do those things itself. It is,
after all, a page produced by a government :)

<g>
 
L

Luigi Donatello Asero

Andy Dingley said:
"Luigi Donatello Asero" <[email protected]> wrote in message

No such thing - and this is a rather vague and sloppy way of wording
things, so it's hard to see what's really being discussed here.

For one thing, there are no "disabled" people. There are people with
disabilities, but you can't lump them all together into one pot lile
this. Good accessibility for a blind user doesn't make the same
demands that accessibility for a poorly-sighted person might do, let
alone someone with motor control problems or autism. A totally blind
user might be using a screen reader and that benefits from some
additional descriptive markup, the partially sighted reader might be
able to read text for themself, so long as they can enlarge it
sufficiently and still get a reasonable scroll order. Fortunately
there are design techniques that help to meet all of these constraints
simultaneously - it's rare that improving accessibility for one group
would reduce it for others.

CSS is no guarantee of accessibility, and it's not even much help to
achieving it. What is useful is the "CSS mindset" when applied to
design. You can't achieve accessibility just by using <link
media="disabled" ... /> and a magic stylesheet that makes the page
accessible. And if you could do so, why wouldn't you serve that to all
users ? For presentation stylesheets, there _is_ a problem that making
it accessible for one group might make it worse for another. Although
individual users might be able to meet their needs by applying a user
stylesheet, we (as page designers) can't do this for them because we
don't know just what their needs are. There is no single group of
"disabled" people.

"CSS techniques" allow us a couple of useful avenues for accessible
design though. Mainly they separate content and presentation, so the
ability to easily offer a content-only version of the page can itself
be helpful. The most accessible page is often not the one with special
"disabled styling", but the one with all styling and CSS turned _off_.
This either simplifies things, or it allows the user to apply their
own styling - it's their disability, they're the best judge of it, and
they often understand best how styling can help. Maybe it's as simple
as mapping all red or green colours to different brightnesses, so as
to overcome red/green colour blindness.

The core of good CSS design is to strip presentation out of the
content, and to leve behind content that is still usable without any
CSS. Think about document order, getting the sections in a meaningful
sequence. Imagine using the page as a single long line of ticker-tape
and having to scroll back and forth through it - how easy is this ?
Can internal jump menus within the page help ?

Then there's the annotation aspect of usability. Use title attributes
generously (I hope I don't have to describe alt usage again !). Wrap
related items in <div>s and give the <div> a relevant title. Even
though you might not want this as a heading, it can help with
navigation around the page. You may even wish to use a "breadcrumb"
approach for the content of these titles. Get your spelling right too,
for most screen readers can pronounce their dictionary words better
than mis-spellings.

General design stuff: Put things on the page because they're useful,
not otherwise. Enough of the animated .gif eye-candy, the Flash
banners, the JS-only menus. You don't _need_ this stuff, it causes
problems, so don't do it.

Maybe you do need some complex Java applet client-side data browser
(sometimes these problems are just hard and their solutions are
complex). Then build an alternative if you have to, and you can't make
the mainstream route accesssible itself.

When it finally comes to CSS, the techniques are generally better
known. Use text size units that are easily user-scalable. Allow for
fluid layout on devices with unusual window sizes. All that good
stuff.



I cannot imagine any scenario (suggestions welcome!) where
"section508.css" is either a sensible intention for a CSS stylesheet,
or a sensible name for a generalised CSS stylesheet. Don't segregate
accessibility like this - build it into your mainstream styling.



Incidentally, I'd regard that as a poor page-usability wise.
Did you read the content of that page?
 
N

Neal

That page tells other people how to do things. That does not mean the the
page should do those things itself. It is, after all, a page produced by
a
government :)


It's like taking fitness advice from a fat guy.
 
M

Matthias Gutfeldt

Neal said:
It's like taking fitness advice from a fat guy.

That's like not taking heart surgery unless the surgeon has a heart
defect himself.


Matthias
 
N

Neal

That's like not taking heart surgery unless the surgeon has a heart
defect himself.


Matthias


Well, how about refusing a heart surgeon because he doesn't have a heart?

People do argue that priests are not qualified to counsel married couples,
as they're not allowed to marry themselves.

But still, my point is that if someone is giving advice, even totally
sound advice, it's hard to believe the individual knows what they're
talking about if they themselves aren't doing it. A site teaching graphic
design should have good graphic design. An HTML tutorial should have sound
HTML. A website detailing accessibility should be accessible.

Example - I accompanied my girlfriend (who danced for 20 years and was a
dance instructor until a few years ago) to a mutual friend's daughter's
dance recital. There were three "teacher" dances in the recital. I'm no
dancer, but I didn't think they were all that impressive dancers as
teachers. But my gf, being a little more knowledgeable about these things,
pointed out that the teacher dance is a perfect way to show parents, "This
is why your son/daughter should study in this studio." They failed at that
- the dance wasn't either technically showy or particularly visually
interesting - and as a result of that (and other factors, likely), this
studio's enrollment happens to be going down.

In a nutshell, "practice what you preach."
 
A

Andy Dingley

rf said:
That page tells other people how to do things. That does not mean the the
page should do those things itself.

This is perhaps allowable (the "Nielsen Defence"). However it ought to
refer to at least one example of "best practice", and there's no
reason why this couldn't be the page itself. Directives that some
requirement must be met, without assistance to do so, help no-one.

And IMHO, the Nielsen Defence is entirely bogus.
 
K

Karl Groves

But still, my point is that if someone is giving advice, even totally
sound advice, it's hard to believe the individual knows what they're
talking about if they themselves aren't doing it.

Your first day in town, you're taken aback by how little this small town has
to offer.
For one thing, they only have two barbers! One guy has a shabby little shop
that looks like an abandoned building. The place is messy, stinky, and the
guy that runs it is a big slob with a bad haircut.
Right across the street is his competition - a nice young man, with a
beautiful shop, like-new equipment, and a great haircut.
Which man do you go to for your haircut?


-Karl
 
E

Els

Karl said:
Your first day in town, you're taken aback by how little
this small town has to offer.
For one thing, they only have two barbers! One guy has a
shabby little shop that looks like an abandoned building.
The place is messy, stinky, and the guy that runs it is a
big slob with a bad haircut. Right across the street is his
competition - a nice young man, with a beautiful shop,
like-new equipment, and a great haircut. Which man do you
go to for your haircut?

The first one; if he is still in business despite all the stuff
you just mentioned, he must be good ;-)
 
N

Neal

Your first day in town, you're taken aback by how little this small town
has
to offer.
For one thing, they only have two barbers! One guy has a shabby little
shop
that looks like an abandoned building. The place is messy, stinky, and
the
guy that runs it is a big slob with a bad haircut.
Right across the street is his competition - a nice young man, with a
beautiful shop, like-new equipment, and a great haircut.
Which man do you go to for your haircut?

The slob, of course, as he obviously gave the other barber his haircut!

Surely its next to impossible to give yourself a decent haircut. Are you
suggesting that an accessibility expert cannot make one's own site
accessible?
 
D

Dylan Parry

Karl said:
Which man do you go to for your haircut?

The first one. The second one obviously goes to the first to get his hair
cut as there are only two barbers, whereas the first has poor hair because
his competition isn't very good... IYSWIM?
 
K

Karl Groves

Neal said:
The slob, of course, as he obviously gave the other barber his haircut!

Surely its next to impossible to give yourself a decent haircut. Are you
suggesting that an accessibility expert cannot make one's own site
accessible?

Not at all.
What I'm saying is that while it'd be nice for the physicians to heal
themselves first, it isn't an automatic disqualifier if they do not.
The quality of work should stand out on its own. One of the problems that we
face at the company I work for is that we're far too busy with work for our
clients to really put forth an A+ effort on our own site.

-Karl
 
K

Karl Groves

Neal said:
In the eyes of the layperson, should != will.

I hate to sound like Whitecrest, but the layperson doesn't know the
difference.
As my company's President is known to say "I compete against clueless
vendors for business with equally clueless clients".
If the layperson knew the difference, they'd be doing the work themselves.

-Karl
 
N

Neal

I hate to sound like Whitecrest, but the layperson doesn't know the
difference.
As my company's President is known to say "I compete against clueless
vendors for business with equally clueless clients".
If the layperson knew the difference, they'd be doing the work
themselves.

Well, swinging this back around - suppose I go to a site looking for
advice on good web design. I encounter a page with bad UI, ugly colors and
the like. Am I likely to take their advice, no matter whether it happens
to be good?

Agreed, someone shopping for a web designer is going to look at the
various sites they've done and pick someone who's done something they
like. They aren't going to look under the hood. But even then, they are
looking for something.

Certainly, whatever you're hawking on your site, you should be employing
any aspect of it on your site which is relevant to your site. Clearly any
site which looks to the layperson like it's breaking its own rules, not
showing itself off to their greatest potential, is not going to be as
successful as it could be.

Some of your customers will know what they are doing, and to ignore their
business is akin to ignoring the blind because how many of them are
actually going to be looking atyour content anyway?
 
K

Karl Groves

Neal said:
Well, swinging this back around - suppose I go to a site looking for
advice on good web design. I encounter a page with bad UI, ugly colors and
the like. Am I likely to take their advice, no matter whether it happens
to be good?

Now you're talking about aesthetics. The impact of good vs. bad visual
appeal cannot be overstated.
In the "real" world, almost nothing else matters. Impressions are
everything.
But this original discussion began about accessibility, and the inaccessible
nature of some sites for companies that sell accessibility.

Users don't notice when something is "good", because they expect it to be.
They only notice when it is bad. The only people who will notice an
inaccessible site are those who either need it or who know enough about
accessibility to tell. My claim is that if they knew about accessibility,
they'd be doing it themselves

-Karl
 
R

rf

Karl Groves said:
Your first day in town, you're taken aback by how little this small town has
to offer.
For one thing, they only have two barbers! One guy has a shabby little shop
that looks like an abandoned building. The place is messy, stinky, and the
guy that runs it is a big slob with a bad haircut.
Right across the street is his competition - a nice young man, with a
beautiful shop, like-new equipment, and a great haircut.
Which man do you go to for your haircut?

The first one, of course. Who cuts the *other* barbers hair?
 

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