Web and blog accessibility is more than checking off a seemingly long list of technical requirements, possibly to avoid legal action. Web and blog accessibility is about people. It’s about enabling people with all kinds of abilities and disabilities, using a variety of technologies, to use websites and blogs. It’s about enabling people to use sites independent of assistance from others. It’s about freedom. It’s about empowerment.
As blogger extraordinaire Liz Strauss so eloquently put it:
For blog and web developers to see accessibility as more than a checklist of technical requirements, it is beneficial to hear from people with a wide range of abilities and disabilities who use various technologies to access the Internet, to hear about the obstacles they face online, and to hear ideas and feedback for potential solutions.
With this sharing of personal experiences, then real understanding for the need of accessible sites and blogs can begin to happen. From there, a collaboration between bloggers or web developers and the readers or end-users can take place.
To that end, I’d like to invite people of all abilities to share your stories of surfing the internet. What works for you? What drivers you nuts? What do you wish bloggers and web developers would do differently or would understand?
I would like to invite you to share your personal experiences in either a guest post or in question-and-answer post. Ideally, I would like to share a couple of stories per month. If you’re interested in sharing your story, please leave your name and your preferred format in the comments below and I’ll be in touch to arrange a date for your time in the spotlight.
Let the story sharing and collaboration begin!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by jebswebs and Amy LeForge, Peg Mulligan. Peg Mulligan said: Blog Accessibility is about People: Share Your Story http://bit.ly/eg31Xz [...]
The #1 thing that drives me nuts is the predominance of moving or flashing images in many adverts many sites carry. If I drag the browser to the right (so that the offending item is off my screen), then I don’t have access to the scroll bar. And even as you scroll down, some sites have distracting stuff that actually follows you down the page – unbelievable!
I can’t read while I’ve got that distraction. And sometimes just the fact that those ads are there scrambles my brain and makes me jittery. Oh please people, can those kinds of ads!
I’m not sure I can post a guest post on accessible blogging, although I would love to, as a long-term blogger and JAWS (screen reader) user. I use WordPress for blogging, and use it with relative ease, although there are some accessiblity issues.
The other issue I’m really annoyed by is with commenting on Blogger/Blogspot blogs. This is in fact what led me to this blog, and I’m hoping some people can help me solve this. On the Blogger comments thing, there is one mode that has a drop-down menu. I am unable to get JAWS to access this drop-down menu, so that I cannot post on blogs that have this comment mode enabled. Does anyone else who uses JAWS or other screen readers have this problem, or is there a solution?
I have a real interest in accessibility, as part of my current job involves optimising websites for search engines, and the golden rule is to optimise for humans first! I would be happy to share some of my experiences in a guest post as I have seen many weird and wonderful sites over the years and the sad thing is there are some things that just won’t go away – intrusive pop-ups that interfere with screen readers, and I agree with Isha about flashing ads they are a real pet hate with me!