Hello Everybody,
I feel I must post to thank Vasilis publicly for his kindness in helping to achieve greater web site accessibility to many visually impaired people.
I have been asked to create a site for my sister who is a children’s nurse.
She is looking after terminally ill children with various disabilities, including some visually impaired.
There are many types of visual disabilities, partial sighted, tunnel vision, and the colour blind and although we now have the tools available many web designers do not always put them to good use. Some use the tools just to make their site fancy or funky, which is ok but might think of including other options.
Some believe that they are helping by creating a site that is 100% wide with very bright colours, therefore accessible to almost all but the totally blind. This is not necessarily the case.
Some visually impaired people have monitors to help them view a web page according to their disability, either extra magnified or very narrow for people with tunnel vision.
Tunnel vision: seeing only the middle of the visual field.
Problems faced:
• Only able to see a narrow area of web page (usually middle)
Or
Central field loss: seeing only the edges of the visual field.
However, if the web page is fixed at design point it causes unnecessary visual difficulties even with special monitors.
This problem can be addressed if the user has the option to adjust the font size, layout of the web page to other than default.
Some people suffer from partial blindness. Or colour blindness which is a lack of sensitivity to certain colours. Common forms include difficulty distinguishing between red and green, or between yellow and blue. Sometimes colour blindness results in the inability to perceive any colour, except black or white.
Protanope: red weakness
Deuteranope: green weakness
Tritanope: blue/yellow deficit
Problems faced:
• Colour used as a unique marker to emphasize text or hyperlinks.
• Text that inadequately contrasts with the background, colour or patterns.
Or Font or typeface not legible.
To overcome this:
• The option to select specific combinations of text and background colours (e.g. 24-point yellow font on a black background).
• Certain typefaces especially legible for particular vision requirements.
Many barriers listed for the visually impaired, can be addressed.
Some problems faced:
• Web pages with absolute font sizes which do not reduce or enlarge easily.
• Web pages which lose context when enlarged/narrowed due to inconsistent layout or without the option to alter size or colours.
Therefore the site must have maximum accessibility access.
However, I am far from being an advanced css web designer and obviously I cannot possibly hope to create a skin which can tackle every disability but I aim to try.
In order to help achieve this I have downloaded the Speerio Skinergy (http://skinergy.net) controls that can help make the site more accessible to people of all abilities. All I need to do is learn how to put it to good use. I am also convinced that using table free css web page design will speed the page and give greater visual control e.g. z index etc..
But as I said I am still learning. I therefore downloaded the Boxed4CSS skin from: (http://www.thinkofdesign.com/Downloads/tabid/54/Default.aspx) in order to combine the table free skin with the accessibility tool and customise accordingly.
I want to take this opportunity to say how helpful and supportive Vasilis Terzopoulos from www.thinkofdesign.com has been.
I first had a problem replacing the body style taken from Skinergy Speerio Style sheet into my Boxed4CSS skin.css.
Skinergy css.
Body, .Normal, .NormalTextBox, TH, TFOOT, THEAD, TD, SPAN, DIV, A
{
font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Sans Serif;
font-size: 8pt;
font-weight: normal;
}
Boxed4CSS.css
/*Common*/
html, body{ background:#EFEFEF; border-left:0px; border-right:0px; scrollbar-base-color:#EFEFEF; height:100%; }
The result was the skin, was blown out of all proportion. I tried several combinations but to no avail. I emailed Vasilis with this problem and within minutes he suggested:
body, html{ background:#EFEFEF; border-left:0px; border-right:0px;
scrollbar-base-color:#EFEFEF; height:100%; }
.Normal, .NormalTextBox, TH, TFOOT, THEAD, TD, SPAN, DIV, A{
font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Sans Serif; font-size: 8pt; font-weight: normal;}
This solution worked immediately. I then found I had great problems controlling the layout as the Boxed4CSS design relies entirely on pixels which also accommodate the specified width containers. I tried converting to % several times but so far with terrible consequences. I reluctantly (I didn’t want to keep bothering him) emailed Vasilis to see if he had a suggestion, he replied immediately and said that he was busy. But sometime in the very near future within a week or so, he would publish an updated version of Boxed4CSS complete with accessibility tools incorporated.
Wow what a nice guy. Can't wait.
Thanks Vasilis
Lynn.
.