Hi List,

I need some help:

I am part of a design team developing a web site aimed at the diseases of
the aging eye, more specifically Glaucoma, Cataracts, Macular Degeneration,
Diabetic Retinopathy, & Dry Eye Syndrome, as well as a resource for Low
Vision.  Before we dive into reorganizing the site we thought it would be
nice to find out a few things from the kinds of people who might be using
this resource, ie, low vision users.  (If you are interested in previewing
the existing site you can see view it at http://www.agingeye.org )

The types of questions we have are:

1.  What is the best way to present information?  ie, should we put up
text?  Audio?  Both?

2.  How is a site best organized for low vision?  Do you like menu driven
sites or is a site map better or both?

3.  What percentage of low vision users have accessibility tools built into
their computers like screen readers etc?  Should we expect the user to have
their own screen reader or should we provide our own audio?  How good are
screen readers in general?  Do you get robot voices or is it easy to follow
and how do they deal with uncommon words?

Finally, for ease of use how would you like information organized on a web
page?  As a sighted person I can skim a page of text in seconds and know
where I want to go, If I had to rely on a reader it would take a lot longer
to get to the same point.  Is there a better way to organize a site to make
it more useful?  Perhaps a page abstract at the top followed by the full
text or would that just make it more confusing?

Thank you for your help,

Best regards,

Bruce


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