dear listers,
first, I am sorry to have posted this messages to both the themes and the support lists, but I just am not sure where this would fit more.
I am concerned with the accessibility of drupal powered websites for the blind and visually impaired. I have searched the drupal website and read what I could find about this topic but it seems to me that this has received little attention so far. none of the posts I read was elaborate enough.
here are some points to contemplate about:
1. for visually impaired users, I want them to be able to change the font size / color / contrast on the fly. one site that does this beautifully, but it's not drupal powered is our strategic partner's website at: www.yourdolphin.com
2. provide keyboard users the possibility of reaching some parts of the website using accesskeys. I know that this method isn't preferred from what I read about it, but may be the listers can share their views about this point. I am blind myself, and never need to use accesskeys as my screen reader has built in commands to reach to various elements on most websites. actually, most modern screen readers have this possibility.
I am thinking that structuring the website's documents well will often be most handy. like using different heading sizes, and using bulleted and numbered lists.
the project I am involved in currently is for the company I work for, which specializes in assistive technology for the blind and visually impaired. it's at: www.nattiq.info it still requires lots of work, specially that it's going to be multilingual and has a right to left language. still, I would highly appreciate it if some of you could give it a look and steer me in the right direction. any comments will be warmly welcomed.
Regards, and thanks in anticipation.
Mohammed al-shar'
Mohammed Al-shar' wrote:
Hi Mohammed!
first, I am sorry to have posted this messages to both the themes and the support lists, but I just am not sure where this would fit more.
I am only replying on the support list since I am not subscribed to the themes list.
I am concerned with the accessibility of drupal powered websites for the blind and visually impaired. I have searched the drupal website and read what I could find about this topic but it seems to me that this has received little attention so far. none of the posts I read was elaborate enough.
Our problem is that we don't have blind people who give us input.
here are some points to contemplate about:
- for visually impaired users, I want them to be able to change the font size / color / contrast on the fly. one site that does this beautifully, but it's not drupal powered is our strategic partner's website at: www.yourdolphin.com
There is a module somewhere that allows you do change the size of the font, IIRC. It should be easy to extend to change the contrast too by switching to a different theme. There is a switchtheme module which might be usable for this.
- provide keyboard users the possibility of reaching some parts of the website using accesskeys. I know that this method isn't preferred from what I read about it, but may be the listers can share their views about this point. I am blind myself, and never need to use accesskeys as my screen reader has built in commands to reach to various elements on most websites. actually, most modern screen readers have this possibility.
The problem with Drupal is that it is a dynamic application and adding access keys automatically is very hard.
It might be possible to include access keys in the path alias definition feature, but that would be future development.
I am thinking that structuring the website's documents well will often be most handy. like using different heading sizes, and using bulleted and numbered lists.
I like to think that Drupal as such is quite good at this.
the project I am involved in currently is for the company I work for, which specializes in assistive technology for the blind and visually impaired. it's at: www.nattiq.info it still requires lots of work, specially that it's going to be multilingual and has a right to left language. still, I would highly appreciate it if some of you could give it a look and steer me in the right direction. any comments will be warmly welcomed.
I've had a short look. I like the design it is plain and simple (not that I am not a designer). What I didn't like are the two images on the top of the site. The left image shows a guy who looks as if the earth would end tomorrow (very sad). The right shows a couple of people in an office. The people on the photo all look rather European and not very Arabic. That doesn't really make sense to me.
Cheers, Gerhard
hi Gerhard!
thank you for this quick response.
----- " Our problem is that we don't have blind people who give us input."
-----
I hope I will be of help in this regard. I am blind myself, and has been using drupal for sometime now.
-----
There is a module somewhere that allows you do change the size of the font, IIRC. It should be easy to extend to change the contrast too by switching to a different theme. There is a switchtheme module which might be usable for this.
------
can you help me locate that IIRC module? I don't seem to be able to find it. as for the theme switcher, I don't like to do this as struggling with one theme for Arabic "rtl" and English "ltr" has been very troublesom. how ever, I think that making different versions of the same theme with different color and font size companations might work. understandably, I hate to struggle with colors myself as I haven't finished the task of modifying the current stylesheet to more blue, and wouldn't mind, will actually apreciate, a hand in doing this.
---- I like to think that Drupal as such is quite good at this. ------ absolutely, I can't agree more.
----- I've had a short look. I like the design it is plain and simple (not that I am not a designer). What I didn't like are the two images on the top of the site. The left image shows a guy who looks as if the earth would end tomorrow (very sad). The right shows a couple of people in an office. The people on the photo all look rather European and not very Arabic. That doesn't really make sense to me. ------
thanks for the nice words about the design, although the credit goes to a guy named Ayman who made this bidi theme. as for the image, I can't comment, but will pass this to my sighted colleagues who gave me these images.
Again, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with me.
Regards, Mohammed al-shar' ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerhard Killesreiter" gerhard@killesreiter.de To: support@drupal.org Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2006 3:27 AM Subject: Re: [support] accessibility of drupal sites
Mohammed Al-shar' wrote:
Hi Mohammed!
first, I am sorry to have posted this messages to both the themes and the support lists, but I just am not sure where this would fit more.
I am only replying on the support list since I am not subscribed to the themes list.
I am concerned with the accessibility of drupal powered websites for the blind and visually impaired. I have searched the drupal website and read what I could find about this topic but it seems to me that this has received little attention so far. none of the posts I read was elaborate enough.
Our problem is that we don't have blind people who give us input.
here are some points to contemplate about:
- for visually impaired users, I want them to be able to change the font
size / color / contrast on the fly. one site that does this beautifully, but it's not drupal powered is our strategic partner's website at: www.yourdolphin.com
There is a module somewhere that allows you do change the size of the font, IIRC. It should be easy to extend to change the contrast too by switching to a different theme. There is a switchtheme module which might be usable for this.
- provide keyboard users the possibility of reaching some parts of the
website using accesskeys. I know that this method isn't preferred from what I read about it, but may be the listers can share their views about this point. I am blind myself, and never need to use accesskeys as my screen reader has built in commands to reach to various elements on most websites. actually, most modern screen readers have this possibility.
The problem with Drupal is that it is a dynamic application and adding access keys automatically is very hard.
It might be possible to include access keys in the path alias definition feature, but that would be future development.
I am thinking that structuring the website's documents well will often be most handy. like using different heading sizes, and using bulleted and numbered lists.
I like to think that Drupal as such is quite good at this.
the project I am involved in currently is for the company I work for, which specializes in assistive technology for the blind and visually impaired. it's at: www.nattiq.info it still requires lots of work, specially that it's going to be multilingual and has a right to left language. still, I would highly appreciate it if some of you could give it a look and steer me in the right direction. any comments will be warmly welcomed.
I've had a short look. I like the design it is plain and simple (not that I am not a designer). What I didn't like are the two images on the top of the site. The left image shows a guy who looks as if the earth would end tomorrow (very sad). The right shows a couple of people in an office. The people on the photo all look rather European and not very Arabic. That doesn't really make sense to me.
Cheers, Gerhard -- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
On 10/17/06, Mohammed Al-shar' mohammed@atexplorer.com wrote:
I hope I will be of help in this regard. I am blind myself, and has been using drupal for sometime now.
That will certainly be helpful if you can provide additional specific examples of ways to improve Drupal's accessibility.
There is a module somewhere that allows you do change the size of the font, IIRC. It should be easy to extend to change the contrast too by switching to a different theme. There is a switchtheme module which might be usable for this.
can you help me locate that IIRC module? I don't seem to be able to find it. as for the theme switcher, I don't like to do this as struggling with one theme for Arabic "rtl" and English "ltr" has been very troublesom. how ever, I think that making different versions of the same theme with different color and font size companations might work. understandably, I hate to struggle with colors myself as I haven't finished the task of modifying the current stylesheet to more blue, and wouldn't mind, will actually apreciate, a hand in doing this.
I think Killes meant IIRC to be "If I Remember Correctly". Here is a link to a page which discusses a fontsize module: http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/fontsize and has links to a version of that module. In my experience, the module doesn't work very reliably (hence it's unmaintained/sandbox status). You may want to resurrect it and work to improve it. Part of that unreliable nature is probably that the module requires the theme to have certain features which are not always available.
Also, the Meta theme has this feature: http://drupal.org/node/43376 which could be used as an example.
I think it would be great if there were a theme that catered specifically to people with bad eyesight and/or who are blind. I imagine that there are some Drupal themes which do reasonable well in this regard, but making one that had that as its main goal would certainly provide the best solution.
Regards, Greg
Greg Knaddison - GVS wrote:
I think it would be great if there were a theme that catered specifically to people with bad eyesight and/or who are blind. I imagine that there are some Drupal themes which do reasonable well in this regard, but making one that had that as its main goal would certainly provide the best solution.
Is not the main point of accessibility that all sites should be accessible???
On 10/17/06, Lennart Borgman lennart.borgman.073@student.lu.se wrote:
Greg Knaddison - GVS wrote:
I think it would be great if there were a theme that catered specifically to people with bad eyesight and/or who are blind. I imagine that there are some Drupal themes which do reasonable well in this regard, but making one that had that as its main goal would certainly provide the best solution.
Is not the main point of accessibility that all sites should be accessible???
I don't think so. I run several sites that are for a specific group of people. They don't need or want changes to the theme to make the sight accessible. Other sites I've worked on target individuals age 55+ and were therefore made easier to read with bad eyesight (higher contrast font/background and larger text).
All public sites should be at least minimally accessible, but if we are talking about people who have impaired eyesight, then many of the recently proposed "new themes for core" have off-black text on a greyish-? background which leads to difficult reading (even for folks with perfect sight). And little attention has been paid to that issue. It's also impractical to say that we won't allow themes into CVS if they aren't sufficiently accessible - people will make what they will make.
Regards, Greg
Hello,
Op woensdag 18 oktober 2006 01:59, schreef Mohammed Al-shar':
- for visually impaired users, I want them to be able to change the font
size / color / contrast on the fly. one site that does this beautifully, but it's not drupal powered is our strategic partner's website at: www.yourdolphin.com
IMNSHO this is a browser feature. Get a 'good' browser and you can enforce resizing on all websites, and with a plugin you can alter even more[1]. IMO adding buttons to your website that toggle styles (with JS or not) is *not* the same as making your site accessible. Designing your site in a way that the browsers can resize etc. has a far bigger impact!
- provide keyboard users the possibility of reaching some parts of the
website using accesskeys. I know that this method isn't preferred from what I read about it, but may be the listers can share their views about this point. I am blind myself, and never need to use accesskeys as my screen reader has built in commands to reach to various elements on most websites. actually, most modern screen readers have this possibility.
I would love to see accesskeys used more often. IMO we could/should start this on a theme level, and then, once people use and improve such an access-key-enabled theme, document that, and let it trickle back into Drupal in the form of patches for forms, links etc.
I am thinking that structuring the website's documents well will often be most handy. like using different heading sizes, and using bulleted and numbered lists.
In .nl there is a great organisation, called Drempels Weg (Doorsteps be gone) [2], which has an official certificate, they provide reviews of your site, and they have good documentations and forums on how to get your site accessible. It could be good to look at this concept, for Drupal (documents, a certificate, and a forum), or even for all OSS CMSes.
Bèr
[1] http://cita.disability.uiuc.edu/software/mozilla/ [2] http://www.drempelsweg.nl/
-
Bèr Kessels -
Gerhard Killesreiter -
Greg Knaddison - GVS -
Lennart Borgman -
Mohammed Al-shar'