Doesn’t this contradict the articles’ “don’t do anything to images”? Personally, I can’t understand why making the image zoom with the text is bad (other than it’s pixelated, but it will get that way whether the designer or the assistive technology does the zooming).
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Huw
Alot of screen magnifiers are expensive and it seems unfair to penalise people with low vision. So we developed a screen magnification software package called WorksView which is free for the end users. It’s a browser plug-in and is currently being used by various councils and commercial organisations:
www.havant.gov.uk
www.macclesfield.gov.uk
www.kingston.gov.uk
www.casio.co.uk
www.solicitors.co.uk
We have also developed a zooming tool called WorksEye which is on the Casio website. If anyone’s got any feedback it would be much appreciated.
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Jesse the K
Having both modest vision impairment and cognitive impairment, I deeply appreciate Joe’s article and encouraging responses.
As far as “what do we do with the links?” my preference is: distinguish them semantically, let me choose their display.
I turn off link underlines, because they reduce readability, and besides, underlining is a typewriter artifact that clashes with real fonts.
I want all my links to be purple. That way I don’t have to decode each site, “ok, which color is text and which color is link?” My brain is wired so that color-to-function mapping is slow.
I set these colors in my UA. Don’t over ride them for me or I just have to over ride your design, again.
—- I turn off link underlines, because they reduce readability, and besides, underlining is a typewriter artifact that clashes with real fonts.—-
@ http://www.alistapart.com/discuss/lowvision/3/#c9835
This is the web now. Everyone knows that a link outside of context (like a nav menu or some other ordered structure) should have an underline underneath it.
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Alistair Knock
Circus, the Microsoft/Forrester studies (http://www.microsoft.com/enable/research/default.aspx) may be of use, but it’s all a little convoluted. They say (for US working-age adults):
Approximately one in four (27%) have a visual difficulty or impairment.
16% (27.4 million) of working-age adults have a mild visual difficulty or impairment, and 11% (18.5 million) of working-age adults have a severe visual difficulty or impairment.
That’s a fair amount, but be aware that “mild visual difficulty” will include people for whom glasses/contact lenses are their assistive technology. Having said that, a high proportion of people who already wear glasses do still benefit from other technologies, such as the ability to enlarge/shrink text at will and particularly to reduce glare by changing white backgrounds to a pastel/grey colour (this also applies to many people with specific learning difficulties).
I welcome Joe’s ideas and the continued education/discussion of more than just screen reader users, but we have to be careful not to make too many assumptions. A fully featured and customizable stylesheet switcher (where you can set various options rather than just between the author’s favourite blue and green themes) is a great idea for loads of your visitors, and it’s entirely redundant and overcomplex given that users who are in the know are aware they can fire up their own user stylesheet and override styling anyway. One of the big disadvantages of site-based stylesheet switchers is that it doesn’t follow you around once you leave; a user defined stylesheet does.
Web developers and designers determine the content and the presentation that information is published in, but it’s the user and their user agent that determine the environment the information is received in.
In an ideal world, where users were able to self-educate (or were interested in the technicalities of the web), and where everything was coded according to standards and the standards were more exciting than what they are, we wouldn’t need any skip navigation links (because page navigation is the job of the user agent, and site navigation sections would be a distinct and identifiable element), nor we would need any stylesheet switchers and so on. We could just publish freely in the knowledge that the standards folks and the user-agent folks were happy and cheery and helpful and dreamy and knew what they were doing, rather than having to hack accessibility into everything.
I’m experimenting a bit with stylesheets and trying to include the comments made in this discussion. As I gather from what is said:
– Just add the minimal CSS to turn vertical list navigational elements to a horizontal list
– Add some borders and/or alignment statements for data that is presented in a table
– Leave as much possible to the settings of the browser.
– Reset to a one column layout whenever feasible.
I wonder though how much visually impaired people actually know how to set their own stylesheets. Changing standard link colours, background colours, foreground colours, fonts and typesizes are elements in the preferences panels of most browsers, but adding your own stylesheet might be a bit too technical.
Are the standard browser interface settings enough to give the right user experience, or do we need some options to be configurable and written to a stylesheet?
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Mark Lee
Ironically, the link in your comment isn’t underlined.
If the link color (for links outside of context) is consistent throughout the site and sufficiently distinct from the normal text color then underlining is not necessary.
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Alistair Knock
TechDis used to have a create-your-own-stylesheet wizard which was fairly simply to use (http://www.techdis.ac.uk/seven/wizards/) but it seems to have fallen by the wayside. The principle was sound though and could be reinvestigated. Of course, it’s all about knowing where to find it, too…
I am not visually impaired yet I found myself using a little favelet to zap pages with black or very dark background all the time. And then I turn up font sizes a few notches.
Two buttons, ‘change colors’ and ‘change layout’ in the top left corner might be a good solution. One could cycle through a set of color schemes and layout options independently and save it in a cookie.
Any non-default selection could force all links to be underlined.
I’ve added a stylesheet to my website to give users maximum flexibility in their preferred visuals of the site.
The site is located at http://www.noipo.org and the stylesheet can be selected through ‘preferences’.
It’s quite simple, I’ve done nothing but styling the navigational items a bit and leave the rest up to the browser settings.
Navigation is before content, but since the navigation area is flexible in size I haven’t figured out a way to put it below the content in the mark-up, but above the content using CSS.
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Jesse the K
I described my personal user agent choices as it relates to my visual abilities and aesthetic preferences.
“That’s a slap in the face for accessibility people who advocate all links should be underlined!”
I = me. I >< people who advocate underlined links.
As long as the links are semantically distinct, every user gets choice. Many browsers I’ve used don’t offer a “personal style sheet,” but every one I’ve used offers an “underline links?” toggle.
As a student, I am really appreciating everything that I learn from this site. It is great that we can provide so many accessibility options for people who would otherwise not be able to use the Internet.
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Tom hopper
The Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) recommends the use of Clear Print instead of large print. A one-page summary of the Clear Print recommendations can be found at http://www.shef.ac.uk/secu/clear_print_guidelines.pdf
Their site, with lots more info, is at http://www.rnib.org.uk; check in the “Good Design” section (link at the top of the page).
Actually, no, the RNIB does not “recommend the use of clear print instead of large print.” The document (a PDF) says: “the RNIB advocate[s] clear print as an alternative to large print…. For many partially-sighted people, well-designed print information at 12 or 14 point is satisfactory.” Nobody’s replacing anything here.
They then go on to queer the deal by essentially recommending you use New Century Schoolbook bold (or, I suppose, “Universe” bold, whatever that is). If that isn’t horrific enough for you, you can always follow their recommendation to use Arial bold without italics. By the way, what are “ornate” typefaces? I have a vague idea, but the last time I saw one of those was a tattoo on a guy’s back in blackletter.
We are, in any event, discussing Web sites and not print.
I would be rather surprised if the RNIB, known for its truculence and touchiness about Web accessibility (and for resolutely questionable advice for same), actually has verifiable research to back up the eyebrow-raising claims in this document.
Tea Bore: > Two buttons, ‘change colors’ and ‘change layout’ in the top left corner might be a good solution.
These functions should provide browser or OS on any page. Why implement “low-vision support” to every website? The only way is to improve browser and OS. Some applications do that even today (Opera, IE with Web Accessibility Toolbar etc.) so, why not the others?
I agree to Chris Hester’s post [1], he just takes the words out of my mouth – several things need to be differentiated, be it existing features or alternative workarounds.
Setting up a preferences page must of course be subject of further testing.
I’ve skimmmed through the comments quickly, but I didn’t see anything about my query. If we have a single column but fixed width layout, like many of the ‘current’ designs, to what extent do we need ‘zoom’ layouts?
If someone has poor vision, I’m guessing they’d use a lower resolution to make everything bigger? In that instance the single column would be nearly full width, and the only thing in danger would be a horizontal navigation bar…
Or have I missed something somewhere?
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Paul Eley
If a user has standard assistive technologies installed, the feature in this article results in a “double zoom”. A violation of s508 since it constitutes interfering with an existing assistive technology.
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Jeff McGinnis
I’m glad to see discussion seems to be expanding to address the vast majority of people with visual impairments (VI). Most people with VI have some vision. In fact, only about 10% of the blind/VI population in the U.S. are totally blind. And yet most of the talk about acessibility seems to assume that users have no vision.
I wonder how many web designers have really spent time watching how someone with a visual impairment, or any disability, works at a computer. My guess, not so many. A field trip to an agenty in your community that work with people with blindness and VI’s might be worth doing. Go see how someone really uses the computer, and what kind of technology is really being used.
It’s great to read about studies and best practices, but nothing replaces experience. And just like any usability study, people don’t always do what you might expect, they do what is effective for them.
By the way, I once did some training, in another field, using some devices that simulated some of the more typical types of VI. It was pretty revealing. If you are really intereted in this, mobility trainers (professionals who teach people with vision loss how to move about in the world) have these devices, and you can simulate this yoruself.
Copy & paste the code below to embed this comment.
Guest
For me, I love CSS and XHTML layouts – but I don’t really see what the point of creating an inverted CSS style, as most users that I know who are visually impaired will either have this turned on my default on their PC or Mac, or they’ll hate it!!
And using an inverted stylesheet in this mode means they have to turn off their own settings!!
Paul Ely, someone using a screen magnifier would have to opt into a zoom layout, just as someone not using a screen magnifier would. And it is not at all clear that a zoom layout that never exceeded the sides of the screen would be harmful to a user of assistive technology. So the zoom layout makes everything 15% bigger and the device makes it a further 50% bigger. I mean, you can’t just dial back your device to a lower magnification?
So no, in fact, using a zoom layout causes no affront whatsoever to 508.
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Dagmar Noll
This article recommends doing nothing to images in this zoom process.
I am currently struggling with a way to make images of maps as clear as I can for anyone with less than excellent vision. Maps are very detailed, and while I am providing text information alongside the map, many individuals are very visual learners, and a blurry map with a text description isn’t going to do them a whole lot of good. Why not provide an option to a larger and clear image?
49 Reader Comments
Back to the ArticleBrian LePore
Doesn’t this contradict the articles’ “don’t do anything to images”? Personally, I can’t understand why making the image zoom with the text is bad (other than it’s pixelated, but it will get that way whether the designer or the assistive technology does the zooming).
Can someone please enlighten me on this?
Block Sheep
that way you can let the user use the text zooming (or page zooming) built into the browser
Huw
Alot of screen magnifiers are expensive and it seems unfair to penalise people with low vision. So we developed a screen magnification software package called WorksView which is free for the end users. It’s a browser plug-in and is currently being used by various councils and commercial organisations:
www.havant.gov.uk
www.macclesfield.gov.uk
www.kingston.gov.uk
www.casio.co.uk
www.solicitors.co.uk
We have also developed a zooming tool called WorksEye which is on the Casio website. If anyone’s got any feedback it would be much appreciated.
thanks
Huw
Chris Hester
Shame it only works in IE!
Jesse the K
Having both modest vision impairment and cognitive impairment, I deeply appreciate Joe’s article and encouraging responses.
As far as “what do we do with the links?” my preference is: distinguish them semantically, let me choose their display.
I turn off link underlines, because they reduce readability, and besides, underlining is a typewriter artifact that clashes with real fonts.
I want all my links to be purple. That way I don’t have to decode each site, “ok, which color is text and which color is link?” My brain is wired so that color-to-function mapping is slow.
I set these colors in my UA. Don’t over ride them for me or I just have to over ride your design, again.
apartness
Shame what only works in IE?
Chris Hester wrote:
> Shame it only works in IE!
Dustin Diaz
—- I turn off link underlines, because they reduce readability, and besides, underlining is a typewriter artifact that clashes with real fonts.—-
@ http://www.alistapart.com/discuss/lowvision/3/#c9835
This is the web now. Everyone knows that a link outside of context (like a nav menu or some other ordered structure) should have an underline underneath it.
Circus Royale
Is there a good source for statistics as far as low-vision web-surfers?
Alistair Knock
Circus, the Microsoft/Forrester studies (http://www.microsoft.com/enable/research/default.aspx) may be of use, but it’s all a little convoluted. They say (for US working-age adults):
Approximately one in four (27%) have a visual difficulty or impairment.
16% (27.4 million) of working-age adults have a mild visual difficulty or impairment, and 11% (18.5 million) of working-age adults have a severe visual difficulty or impairment.
That’s a fair amount, but be aware that “mild visual difficulty” will include people for whom glasses/contact lenses are their assistive technology. Having said that, a high proportion of people who already wear glasses do still benefit from other technologies, such as the ability to enlarge/shrink text at will and particularly to reduce glare by changing white backgrounds to a pastel/grey colour (this also applies to many people with specific learning difficulties).
I welcome Joe’s ideas and the continued education/discussion of more than just screen reader users, but we have to be careful not to make too many assumptions. A fully featured and customizable stylesheet switcher (where you can set various options rather than just between the author’s favourite blue and green themes) is a great idea for loads of your visitors, and it’s entirely redundant and overcomplex given that users who are in the know are aware they can fire up their own user stylesheet and override styling anyway. One of the big disadvantages of site-based stylesheet switchers is that it doesn’t follow you around once you leave; a user defined stylesheet does.
Web developers and designers determine the content and the presentation that information is published in, but it’s the user and their user agent that determine the environment the information is received in.
In an ideal world, where users were able to self-educate (or were interested in the technicalities of the web), and where everything was coded according to standards and the standards were more exciting than what they are, we wouldn’t need any skip navigation links (because page navigation is the job of the user agent, and site navigation sections would be a distinct and identifiable element), nor we would need any stylesheet switchers and so on. We could just publish freely in the knowledge that the standards folks and the user-agent folks were happy and cheery and helpful and dreamy and knew what they were doing, rather than having to hack accessibility into everything.
Until then, comrades.
Martijn ten Napel
I’m experimenting a bit with stylesheets and trying to include the comments made in this discussion. As I gather from what is said:
– Just add the minimal CSS to turn vertical list navigational elements to a horizontal list
– Add some borders and/or alignment statements for data that is presented in a table
– Leave as much possible to the settings of the browser.
– Reset to a one column layout whenever feasible.
I wonder though how much visually impaired people actually know how to set their own stylesheets. Changing standard link colours, background colours, foreground colours, fonts and typesizes are elements in the preferences panels of most browsers, but adding your own stylesheet might be a bit too technical.
Are the standard browser interface settings enough to give the right user experience, or do we need some options to be configurable and written to a stylesheet?
Mark Lee
Ironically, the link in your comment isn’t underlined.
If the link color (for links outside of context) is consistent throughout the site and sufficiently distinct from the normal text color then underlining is not necessary.
Chris Hester
“I turn off link underlines, because they reduce readability”
That’s a slap in the face for accessibility people who advocate all links should be underlined!
“Shame what only works in IE?”
The WorksView software described in the comment above mine.
Alistair Knock
TechDis used to have a create-your-own-stylesheet wizard which was fairly simply to use (http://www.techdis.ac.uk/seven/wizards/) but it seems to have fallen by the wayside. The principle was sound though and could be reinvestigated. Of course, it’s all about knowing where to find it, too…
Tea Bore
I am not visually impaired yet I found myself using a little favelet to zap pages with black or very dark background all the time. And then I turn up font sizes a few notches.
Two buttons, ‘change colors’ and ‘change layout’ in the top left corner might be a good solution. One could cycle through a set of color schemes and layout options independently and save it in a cookie.
Any non-default selection could force all links to be underlined.
Martijn
I’ve added a stylesheet to my website to give users maximum flexibility in their preferred visuals of the site.
The site is located at http://www.noipo.org and the stylesheet can be selected through ‘preferences’.
It’s quite simple, I’ve done nothing but styling the navigational items a bit and leave the rest up to the browser settings.
Navigation is before content, but since the navigation area is flexible in size I haven’t figured out a way to put it below the content in the mark-up, but above the content using CSS.
Jesse the K
I described my personal user agent choices as it relates to my visual abilities and aesthetic preferences.
“That’s a slap in the face for accessibility people who advocate all links should be underlined!”
I = me. I >< people who advocate underlined links.
As long as the links are semantically distinct, every user gets choice. Many browsers I’ve used don’t offer a “personal style sheet,” but every one I’ve used offers an “underline links?” toggle.
Joe Clark
I wrote an implementation hack for an automated method of recognizing zoom layouts using rev=“zoom”:
http://axxlog.wordpress.net/archives/2005/01/14/zoom-hack/
It may or may not be of interest. I dunno.
Bob Duncan
As a student, I am really appreciating everything that I learn from this site. It is great that we can provide so many accessibility options for people who would otherwise not be able to use the Internet.
Tom hopper
The Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) recommends the use of Clear Print instead of large print. A one-page summary of the Clear Print recommendations can be found at http://www.shef.ac.uk/secu/clear_print_guidelines.pdf
Their site, with lots more info, is at http://www.rnib.org.uk; check in the “Good Design” section (link at the top of the page).
Tom hopper
http://www.rnib.org.uk
(the semi-colon in my previous post screwed up the link)
Joe Clark
Actually, no, the RNIB does not “recommend the use of clear print instead of large print.” The document (a PDF) says: “the RNIB advocate[s] clear print as an alternative to large print…. For many partially-sighted people, well-designed print information at 12 or 14 point is satisfactory.” Nobody’s replacing anything here.
They then go on to queer the deal by essentially recommending you use New Century Schoolbook bold (or, I suppose, “Universe” bold, whatever that is). If that isn’t horrific enough for you, you can always follow their recommendation to use Arial bold without italics. By the way, what are “ornate” typefaces? I have a vague idea, but the last time I saw one of those was a tattoo on a guy’s back in blackletter.
We are, in any event, discussing Web sites and not print.
I would be rather surprised if the RNIB, known for its truculence and touchiness about Web accessibility (and for resolutely questionable advice for same), actually has verifiable research to back up the eyebrow-raising claims in this document.
Vlastimil Svoboda
Tea Bore: > Two buttons, ‘change colors’ and ‘change layout’ in the top left corner might be a good solution.
These functions should provide browser or OS on any page. Why implement “low-vision support” to every website? The only way is to improve browser and OS. Some applications do that even today (Opera, IE with Web Accessibility Toolbar etc.) so, why not the others?
Jens Meiert
I agree to Chris Hester’s post [1], he just takes the words out of my mouth – several things need to be differentiated, be it existing features or alternative workarounds.
Setting up a preferences page must of course be subject of further testing.
[1] http://alistapart.com/discuss/lowvision/#c9807
Steer Ethelston
I’ve skimmmed through the comments quickly, but I didn’t see anything about my query. If we have a single column but fixed width layout, like many of the ‘current’ designs, to what extent do we need ‘zoom’ layouts?
If someone has poor vision, I’m guessing they’d use a lower resolution to make everything bigger? In that instance the single column would be nearly full width, and the only thing in danger would be a horizontal navigation bar…
Or have I missed something somewhere?
Paul Eley
If a user has standard assistive technologies installed, the feature in this article results in a “double zoom”. A violation of s508 since it constitutes interfering with an existing assistive technology.
Jeff McGinnis
I’m glad to see discussion seems to be expanding to address the vast majority of people with visual impairments (VI). Most people with VI have some vision. In fact, only about 10% of the blind/VI population in the U.S. are totally blind. And yet most of the talk about acessibility seems to assume that users have no vision.
I wonder how many web designers have really spent time watching how someone with a visual impairment, or any disability, works at a computer. My guess, not so many. A field trip to an agenty in your community that work with people with blindness and VI’s might be worth doing. Go see how someone really uses the computer, and what kind of technology is really being used.
It’s great to read about studies and best practices, but nothing replaces experience. And just like any usability study, people don’t always do what you might expect, they do what is effective for them.
By the way, I once did some training, in another field, using some devices that simulated some of the more typical types of VI. It was pretty revealing. If you are really intereted in this, mobility trainers (professionals who teach people with vision loss how to move about in the world) have these devices, and you can simulate this yoruself.
Jeff
Guest
For me, I love CSS and XHTML layouts – but I don’t really see what the point of creating an inverted CSS style, as most users that I know who are visually impaired will either have this turned on my default on their PC or Mac, or they’ll hate it!!
And using an inverted stylesheet in this mode means they have to turn off their own settings!!
Joe Clark
Paul Ely, someone using a screen magnifier would have to opt into a zoom layout, just as someone not using a screen magnifier would. And it is not at all clear that a zoom layout that never exceeded the sides of the screen would be harmful to a user of assistive technology. So the zoom layout makes everything 15% bigger and the device makes it a further 50% bigger. I mean, you can’t just dial back your device to a lower magnification?
So no, in fact, using a zoom layout causes no affront whatsoever to 508.
Dagmar Noll
This article recommends doing nothing to images in this zoom process.
I am currently struggling with a way to make images of maps as clear as I can for anyone with less than excellent vision. Maps are very detailed, and while I am providing text information alongside the map, many individuals are very visual learners, and a blurry map with a text description isn’t going to do them a whole lot of good. Why not provide an option to a larger and clear image?
Dagmar