[Sigia-l] 508 Compliance - Alt Tags for Button Images

[P.J. Gardner]

Tanya,

Whitney is a better source for answers about research than I am.  I learned
some interesting information about problems with mispronunciation of words
and acronyms in the article she mentions.  That is a definite problem for
JAWS users.  You can teach a screen reader to change the pronunciation of
specific words, but that creates other problems if there is more than one
pronunciation for the same word.

My experience with computer impairments is more direct.  What I have done
is: 1) Download an evaluation version of JAWS to my own computer (it is good
forever, but you have to reboot after every 40 minutes of use), 2) Make
connections with a local organization of blind and low vision computer users
and start attending meetings, 3) Make connections with people who support
blind users and others in learning and using assistive technologies to
access the computer, and 4) Participate in the uvip-web-test at yahoogroups.com
user group, which is designed to create a dialog between web designers, and
blind and low vision users who are willing to evaluate web sites for
accessibility.

Through the uvip-web-test list (which you can join by sending a blank e-mail
to uvip-web-test-subscribe at yahoogroups.com), I made connections with one of
the people who works for Freedom Scientific, the company that makes JAWS--
which has been extremely valuable to me.

Of course, I am working on a graduate certificate in Accessible Web Design
at Northeastern University and I founded Boston-IA (www-Boston-IA.org), an
organization bringing Information Architecture together with Internet
Accessibility, so this is my area of specialty.  What I have spelled out in
this discussion is what I have learned through personal experience, not
research.

I hope this helps.

Best Regards,

P.J. Gardner
Information Designer
..............................................
Gardner Information Design, Inc.
pjgardner at GIDI.biz
www.GIDI.biz
781-646-6849
Custom & Accessible Websites
Information Delivery Strategies
..............................................
Boston-IA
info at Boston-IA.org
www.Boston-IA.org
Bringing Information Architecture
and Internet Accessibility Together
..............................................




-----Original Message-----
From: rabourn at columbia.edu [mailto:rabourn at columbia.edu]
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 7:12 PM
To: P.J. Gardner
Cc: sigia-l at asis.org
Subject: RE: [Sigia-l] 508 Compliance - Alt Tags for Button Images


P.J.

This is a lot of interesting information that you've shared. I
have to admit that when I initially began thinking about
accessibility I didn't find much information out there about what
the users who benefit from such concerns actually do. So I hadn't
bothered to research the subject lately. From your posts, I'm
gathering that's changed. For example you mentioned:

> One of the most frequently used JAWS features is a dialog box that users
can
> bring up that gathers all the links on the page in alphabetical order.

Can you point us to any published user studies that go over such
things? All I seem to come across are articles that suggest best
practices based on the capability of screenreaders like JAWS,
rarely do I find studies of how users actually use JAWS. Any
studies that you could point to involving observation of actual
user behavior among groups that benefit from sites that are built
to be "accessible" would be appreciated.

-Tanya
___________________________________
Tanya Rabourn <rabourn at columbia.edu>
[User Services Consultant]
AcIS R & D <www.columbia.edu/acis/rad>
tel: 212.854.0295
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