Hi All,

I'm the owner of a Google Group for blind yarn crafters. One of the group 
members, who is a Window-Eyes user, wasn't able to read a sweater pattern on 
the Lion Brand site. she says that, with WE, she found the list of materials 
and other preliminary information, but not the actual instructions. I'm a 
Jaws user, and I found the instructions without any trouble.

when my knitter contacted Lion Brand for help, the site developer replied 
with some questions. My knitter wasn't able to answer them because she's not 
a proficient WE user. I'm wondering if anyone on the list can help answer 
the developer's questions. I've pasted her reply along with the original 
query at the end of this message.

The pattern my knitter was trying to read is at

http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/90464AD.html?r=1

there's a lot of clutter on the page. To find the beginning of the pattern, 
jump through the headings to the one that says, "Soft Ribbed Cardigan." 
Below that heading are the list of materials, some notes, some links or 
buttons that may be flash, and finally the instructions, which begin 
something like: "Cast on X number of stitches. Row 1 ...." this is the 
version of the pattern with images. To find the version without images, Use 
your screen reader to find the word "braille," and press enter on the "Veiw 
as Brailler Input" link.

You need to sign up (which is free) to access the patterns on the Lion Brand 
page. To sign up, visit

www.LionBrand.com

Thanks.

Ciao

From the Web developer:

I went on over the the Window Eyes site to see if they have a developer 
guide, but it doesn't look like they do.  I've written to their support, but 
meanwhile, can you tell me a couple of things about it?

First, are you using the [website] version with images or the one without?

I checked the version of the pattern that is presented without images and 
the pattern text is in the page; I have internal tags and addresses that are 
set up so that if you are a Jaws users, they appear as bookmarks and you can 
tab between them which makes finding the instruction text easy (I hope!). 
I'm not clear how Eyes handles this.t'   I've just changed this to be 
'Pattern Instructions Text'.

 Note that these do not appear to sighted people who are looking at the 
version of the webpage that appears in the browser; they appear to the 
brower as an A name=tag. I did not have these tags on the version with 
images; I've added them.

So, the second question is -- how does Eye's navigate?  Does it read the 
anchor tags to you so that these are useful?  Jaws does a thing where, if 
there is a title on an anchor tag, it reads the title in preference to the 
actual link in the anchor.   Does Eyes do this also?  Or does it do 
something else?

If it is more convenient, I can phone if there is a time when it suits you.

Original Query:

I use Window Eyes, which I don't like as much as JAWS. I have not learned to 
navigate a web site well. I was able to find the link to a pattern (soft rib 
cardigan) to be precise. However i could read all the preliminary 
information like materials and needles and the like, but then the pattern 
wasn't there. I understand that it is a PDF and there is something to click 
on to go to that link. Laura was kind enough to email the pattern to me but 
I'm curious as to why it's not all together. Here we are again, some of 
those pesky blind knitters.

 You're our heroin for all you've done for accessibility on the Lionbrand 
site. Thanks very much. 


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