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ardsfc
Starting Member
29 Posts |
 Posted - 11 March 2003 : 06:12:37
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| I consider myself fairly well versed on the WAI guidelines and like to think I can make most sites meet A-AAA standards. Having recently downloaded this forum I've been going through the coding making the necessary changes. I was wondering what plans are there for the futures to improve the Snitz forums accessibility? |
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Nikkol
Forum Moderator
USA
6907 Posts |
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pweighill
Junior Member
United Kingdom
453 Posts |
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ardsfc
Starting Member
29 Posts |
Posted - 11 March 2003 : 08:17:37
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| The main things I can see the forum missing is table summaries and labels and titles on forms. There are other minor issues but I was just wondering do the developers have the knowledge to implement these changes to future versions? |
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Roland
Advanced Member
Netherlands
9335 Posts |
Posted - 11 March 2003 : 11:40:34
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I'm sure the Dev Team is knowledgeable enough to implement those changes, especially seeing what great work they've done with the changes in each new version.
Whether or not those changes get made, and the forums will get improved accessibility according to the W3.org standards depends on the Dev Team that's working on the next version. However, as Nikkol said, it's a good idea to look into this, and where possible make the necessary changes. |
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ardsfc
Starting Member
29 Posts |
Posted - 12 March 2003 : 05:45:10
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Accessibility is something most webmasters know little about and many that do think it is some kinda added extra. All websites should at least meet priority one requirements, it's only good coding apart from anything. Now I'd be the first to praise these guys for the excellent forums they have designed but building accessible websites is a different matter altogether and not just a skill you develop overnight.
I guess what I'm saying is if they need advice, I'm willing to lend a hand. |
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PeeWee.Inc
Senior Member
United Kingdom
1893 Posts |
Posted - 12 March 2003 : 05:48:59
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You said you have started to do this yourself, right?
Could we have a look at how you have done so far? |
De Priofundus Calmo Ad Te Damine |
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ardsfc
Starting Member
29 Posts |
Posted - 12 March 2003 : 15:22:20
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I've added labels and titles to the registration form then I decided to hang back and concentrate more on getting the forum up and running. Fixing the rest of the code is going to take me a while - things like links so users with screen readers can skip the repetitve links at the top of every forum page, table summaries, warnings for pop up windows and so on and son.
This is my forum
www.acquiweb.com/comber/forum/
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ardsfc
Starting Member
29 Posts |
Posted - 01 August 2003 : 10:53:43
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I see there have been changes made to the header on each page relating to the home, profile, register links etc. The change is an incorrect one as the acronym tag is used like so
<a href="index.htm"><acronym title="go to the homepage">home</acronym></a>
Firstly this is the improper use of the acronym tag. It should only be used with an actual acronym, an abbreviation which is said as a word eg NATO, NASA. Obviously none of these links are acronyms so already we've bad markup.
Secondly if you must provide more info on the link you should use the title attribute of the <a> tag. So the example above should read like so.
<a href="index.htm" title="go to the homepage">home</a>
Just one other small point, don't use "go to the homepage..." as in the Snitz template files. Why? Well a screenreader will read "go to the homepage dot dot dot". Just leave out the leader dots! |
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davemaxwell
Access 2000 Support Moderator
USA
3020 Posts |
Posted - 01 August 2003 : 11:33:39
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Instead of doing this piecemeal, can I suggest you document exactly what you've changed where and place it in one large post? That way we (the developers) can look at the whole list and work on incorporating it into a later version of Snitz (probably not 3.4.04, but perhaps 4.0).
Accessibility is important, but I don't think anyone here has the expertise to recognize the required changes. |
Dave Maxwell
Barbershop Harmony Freak |
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MasterOfTheCats
Junior Member
103 Posts |
Posted - 01 August 2003 : 13:01:51
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http://forum.snitz.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=26784&SearchTerms=,accessibility
Under item G, that deleted guy/gal had some related stuff in the to do list. As far as I can understand v4 is a multi-language version. The more text you add will make it harder to prepare.
ardsfc, that information you give will me of utmost importance I think... (dot dot dot) Hmm, that's quite an interesting measure to take into account when writing the code.
What happens to the actual forum posts?
Are these readers English only?
How do they read?
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ardsfc
Starting Member
29 Posts |
Posted - 04 August 2003 : 10:00:41
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Dave yes I'll take on board what you said. When's v4.0 likely to be released and are you the same user who frequents Sitepointforums? :)
MasteroftheCats, most screen readers will literally read what they seen on the screen and in a linear fashion. Some will read in English only, others different languages. You should try downloading Jaws for Windows which has something like a 40min trial. It's worth seeing how it reads web pages and it'll make you think twice about how you design them. |
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davemaxwell
Access 2000 Support Moderator
USA
3020 Posts |
Posted - 04 August 2003 : 11:59:21
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not sure when 4.0 is going to be released. It's a lengthy process, but it is underway. Making sure it's fast, accurate, secure, etc is a timely thing. I think that you have plenty of time to get your work done with the 3.4.03 version and we'll still have time to look at incorporating it into 4.0
And yes, I'm the davemaxwell over at sitepointforums. |
Dave Maxwell
Barbershop Harmony Freak |
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MasterOfTheCats
Junior Member
103 Posts |
Posted - 04 August 2003 : 13:03:47
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Thank you for the info, I'll test it :)
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