Hi Chuck,
I think you checked Toys for Blind and Visually Impaired Children with
Bobby after they make their pages accessible. They now have add ALT tags
to the menu options and in my opinion this website is NOW ACCESSIBLE.
Thanks to the AFB, members of these listing and those people working behind
the discussion and help to make this website accessible.
Let we all learn for the future and try to get more websites accessible.
Websites where no blind organizations are involved.
But there are some unsolved questions remaining?
I think it is important that a standard message becomes available that
individual visitors of an inaccessible website can send to the webmaster to
ask him or her to make such a website accessible. A message that give the
webmaster short information about the problems of the disabled accessing
the web and how they can solve it.
I have the knowledge creating such a message, but english is not my native
language and too poor to do it.
Bobby is a good feature and I often use it. But there are some webmasters
I can not ask to use Bobby to check their website, because Bobby said
Congratulations there are no accessibility errors. You can see an example
at http://www.vpro.nl. This website is realy inaccessible.
There are websites that are not accessible because the designer didn't know
enough about accessibility. But there are also webdesigners who know their
websites are not accessible but say it is commercial not of interest to
make these websites accessible for all kind of browsers. In practice this
means that people who can not handle images and image maps can not access
these websites.
Why don't we make a black list for such unwilling websites owners?
Regards Peter Verhoeven
Internet : http://www.plex.nl/~pverhoe (The Screen Magnifiers Homepage)
At 11:19 6-10-98 -0400, you wrote:
>Peter,
>
>I don't disagree at all with your statement regarding Bobby. An electronic
>validator can only do so much although we are able to check most of the
priority
>one items from the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative working guidelines. If
you
>run Bobby on the toy site, or most any site for that matter, you will notice
>that there are many additional recommendations and tips provided by Bobby.
These
>are over and above Bobby approved but do require attention.
>
>By the way, we cannot know what combination of browsers, screen readers,
>magnifiers, single and multiple switch controls, and other adaptive
hardware and
>software will be in use by an individual user so I agree that we cannot
really
>say that a web page or any digital environment is truly accessible for every
>possible situation.
>
>Chuck
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: [log in to unmask]
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Peter Verhoeven
>Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 1998 3:38 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask];
>[log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask];
>[log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]
>Subject: RE: webwatch-l Toys for the Blind and visual impaired children
>inaccessable
>
>
>Hi Chuck,
>
>If you say that this homepage is quiet accessible it says more about Bobby,
>than about this website. You are right that the problem is that ALT tags
>are missing and I argued before that this website was not accessible
>because there were no ALT tags. As Lynx user you can click on a menu item
>without description and see there what the menu option was. The website is
>accessible if the blind users get the same menu as the sighted people.
>I found Bobby a good tool, but you can never say the website is accessible
>because this tool said so.
>It is true that the website Toys for Blind and Visualy Impaired Children
>can be made accessible in 15 minutes. This is what I wrote in my message.
>
>Regards Peter Verhoeven
>Internet : http://www.plex.nl/~pverhoe (The Screen Magnifiers Homepage)
>
>
>
>At 22:21 5-10-98 -0400, Chuck Hitchcock wrote:
>>I just checked the Toys site with our Bobby validator and discovered that
the
>>home page is quite accessible but that most of the other pages, if not all
>>others, do need alt text and few additional improvements. You can try this
>>yourself by going directly to http://www.cast.org/bobby. Type in the toy
>site
>>URL or any other ULR such as http://www.plex.nl/~pverhoe and click the
submit
>>button.
>>
>>Our free web access validator is available to the Toy Manufacturers
>Association
>>so someone might consider sending this information along to them to help
with
>>the effort required to make the site accessible.
>>
>>Chuck
>>
>>****
>>Chuck Hitchcock, Director
>>Universal Design Lab (UDL)and
>>Product Development,
>>CAST, Inc.,
>>39 Cross Street, Peabody, MA 01960
>>Voice 978 531-8555
>>TTY 978 531-3110
>>Fax 978 531-0192
>><http://cast.org/>
>><http://cast.org/bobby/>
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: [log in to unmask]
>>[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Peter Verhoeven
>>Sent: Friday, October 02, 1998 3:35 AM
>>To: [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask];
>>[log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: webwatch-l Toys for the Blind and visual impaired children
>>inaccessable
>>
>>
>>Hi all,
>>
>>Today I visit the homepage of "Toys for children who are blind or visually
>>impaired". After loading this page I got tears my visually impaired eyes.
>>Not because I was glad that such important information for the kids and
>>their parent was on the web, but because of because the pages are not
>>accessible!
>>The tears in my eyes changes to a real river after I read that the American
>>Foundation of the Blind has to do something with this website.
>>It is not my daily job to visit websites and analyse them to see if they
>>are accessible. But I'm doing this on a volunteerly base. I try to give
>>people information about how they can make their webpages more accessible
>>for everybody. I do this on my The Screen Magnifiers Homepage, that has a
>>special Accessibility corner and I do that as co-editor of a Dutch e-zine
>>about accessibility.
>>I can understand that a lot of webpages on the Internet are not accessible
>>because the webmaster have not the knowledge about accessibility. But I can
>>not understand, that a website created on the subject of toys for people
>>who are blind or visually impaired can be so inaccessible and I can not
>>understand that a blind organisation like the American Foundation for the
>>Blind can agree with such an inaccessible website?
>>It seems to me that the American Foundation for the Blind has no idea what
>>the problems are for visually impaired people regarding access to the
>>Internet.
>>
>>What is wrong with this website?
>>
>>If you disable your browser loading images or use a text-oriented browser
>>like Lynx or Net-Tamer you only see IMAGE IMAGE IMAGE in the menu.
>>They "forget" to use ALT tags with that images. I think it takes 15 minutes
>>to make this website accessible. I could not find an E-Mail address for
>>feedback.
>>
>>If somebody knows who is responsible for this website? Please forwared them
>>this message.
>>You can find the website at:
>> http://www.toy-tma.com/PUBLICATIONS/guide97/index.html
>>
>>
>>Regards Peter Verhoeven
>>Internet http://www.plex.nl/~pverhoe (The Screen Magnifiers Homepage)
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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