Comments for Crazy Bat Designs http://crazybat.ca Helping you reach the most people possible Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:27:25 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Comment on Nablopomo – Day 29 – Future of Web Accessibility in Canada – Update by Sharlyn Ayotte http://crazybat.ca/blog/nablopomo-day-29-future-of-web-accessibility-in-canada-update/#comment-179 Sharlyn Ayotte Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:27:25 +0000 http://crazybat.ca/?p=573#comment-179 As another web savvy, blind Canadian, I think this court decision is a sign of real progress and makes glaringly clear that more is required. As founder of a company that helps organizations, including the federal government, provide their information in accessible formats, I believe this move offers more than just universal access. It also provides protection from fraud and identity theft, thus limiting risk to the government and its people, and that is good for Canada. http://www.tbase.com/en/blog/landmark-case-government-websites-good-canada As another web savvy, blind Canadian, I think this court decision is a sign of real progress and makes glaringly clear that more is required. As founder of a company that helps organizations, including the federal government, provide their information in accessible formats, I believe this move offers more than just universal access. It also provides protection from fraud and identity theft, thus limiting risk to the government and its people, and that is good for Canada.

http://www.tbase.com/en/blog/landmark-case-government-websites-good-canada

]]> Comment on Nablopomo – Day 17 – Skip links by crazybat http://crazybat.ca/blog/nablopomo-day-17-skip-links/#comment-90 crazybat Thu, 18 Nov 2010 17:29:01 +0000 http://crazybat.ca/?p=321#comment-90 Hey Ritchie. Good question. I did struggle with this decision for a bit. I definitely want to attemp on having a consistent experience for all users. However, with the different challenges that people have and the nature of the current user agents, it's definitely a tall order. I try my best. As a bit of an aside from this, there's a whole section I was going to mention in this post about <abbr title="Accessible Rich Internet Applications">ARIA</abbr> landmarks. (It got way too technical though and was straying from what I was trying to focus on.) Long story short, I currently use this in my template: <code><nav role="navigation"></code> With the current version of <abbr title="Job Access With Speech">JAWS</abbr>, it supports this landmark (not the nav element but the role attribute) and will jump to the content much like a skip link. <abbr title="Job Access With Speech">JAWS</abbr> will identify all <abbr title="Accessible Rich Internet Applications">ARIA</abbr> landmarks in the document. So for my template, it would annouce: banner, navigation, contentinfo (twitter, delcious links, etc.), search, main, complimentary, contentinfo (footer). For people with mobility challenges and who use a keyboard to navigate, they can still reach the navigation, based on the order of the template structure. For the people without challenges, it's a matter of simply having my navigation stand out from a visual design perspective. Basically, I'm following the best practices of contrast / brightness / layout, as well as implementing proper hover effects on the anchors. I feel that the navigation stands out effectively. Based on that, I believe that I'm putting a good effort towards a better user experience. As I said above, it's tough to make it completely consistent with different challenges and user agents, but at least I'm making it accessible. Now, getting back to the article, the intention is to focus more on the skipping to dynamic content, rather than static content. But, you do bring up a good point and have me thinking about this again. (Which you are always good at ;) Perhaps a follow-up is in order to focus more on the accessibility aspect. For this, I wanted to focus more on the nature of the content in relation to the skip links themselves. But of course, I'd welcome any addition thoughts :) Hey Ritchie. Good question.

I did struggle with this decision for a bit. I definitely want to attemp on having a consistent experience for all users. However, with the different challenges that people have and the nature of the current user agents, it’s definitely a tall order. I try my best.

As a bit of an aside from this, there’s a whole section I was going to mention in this post about ARIA landmarks. (It got way too technical though and was straying from what I was trying to focus on.)

Long story short, I currently use this in my template:

<nav role="navigation">

With the current version of JAWS, it supports this landmark (not the nav element but the role attribute) and will jump to the content much like a skip link. JAWS will identify all ARIA landmarks in the document. So for my template, it would annouce: banner, navigation, contentinfo (twitter, delcious links, etc.), search, main, complimentary, contentinfo (footer).

For people with mobility challenges and who use a keyboard to navigate, they can still reach the navigation, based on the order of the template structure.

For the people without challenges, it’s a matter of simply having my navigation stand out from a visual design perspective. Basically, I’m following the best practices of contrast / brightness / layout, as well as implementing proper hover effects on the anchors. I feel that the navigation stands out effectively.

Based on that, I believe that I’m putting a good effort towards a better user experience. As I said above, it’s tough to make it completely consistent with different challenges and user agents, but at least I’m making it accessible.

Now, getting back to the article, the intention is to focus more on the skipping to dynamic content, rather than static content. But, you do bring up a good point and have me thinking about this again. (Which you are always good at ;) Perhaps a follow-up is in order to focus more on the accessibility aspect. For this, I wanted to focus more on the nature of the content in relation to the skip links themselves.

But of course, I’d welcome any addition thoughts :)

]]> Comment on Nablopomo – Day 17 – Skip links by Ritchie http://crazybat.ca/blog/nablopomo-day-17-skip-links/#comment-89 Ritchie Thu, 18 Nov 2010 16:17:13 +0000 http://crazybat.ca/?p=321#comment-89 Now while I like the fact that you're providing skip links to the search. Don't you think that to provide a consistent experience for people who aren't challenged with the people who are that you should at least make them aware of the nav? Which is really an argument to have skip links to the navigation. Now while I like the fact that you’re providing skip links to the search. Don’t you think that to provide a consistent experience for people who aren’t challenged with the people who are that you should at least make them aware of the nav? Which is really an argument to have skip links to the navigation.

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