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The problem
I use a screen reader. I do, really, and i must admit, 99% of web sites drive me to spare. Even though i don’t like to admit it, even my own does. Time to explain.
The problem is with branding, and introductions, welcomes, about me and links etc etc. This sits above the main content on most pages.
Now, speaking for myself (and only myself of course) I have that content there for a number of reasons. Design wise it is useful, and SEO / keywords wise it is useful. However after the first landing on the site it is no longer important.
Some Ideas?
When i am using my screen reader I have to listen though the introductory content which i do not want to do. I can hear you all shouting now saying that i could do a “Skip to content link” I could break logic (for the content) and reorder the content or i could do one of many other methods to sort the issue.
The thing which gets me with almost all of the methods (except maybe the ones in the comments you will correct me with) have the major disadvantage as for when i do want the content its not where I want it. If i was to be going to the site for the first time, i would want to hear the introductory content only on my first page landing?
A Solution?
So with this in mind i was thinking about how i could manipulate sever side technologies, semantic markup and CSS to give me the content i want. After thinking for a while for a decent name, all i could come up with is Accessibility on-the-fly.
What is accessibility on-the-fly?
So in the terms of my first usage case (Introductory content on this very site) i need a system which would know if this is your first visit to the site; as such reorder the page content accordingly. To this end i would create a system whereby the standard page design would not have the introductory content then, if a new visitor arrives on any page they will be greeted with the introductory content.
The bit i would be doing different is to still have the introductory content, but placing it lower in the source order.
The idea behind this is to improve the accessibility of the page. No longer should i need to listen to the introduction, or a click a skip to content link.
What do you think?
As is my standard practice, I have only been cooking this up for a few hours. I would be interested in your responses or usage cases? Do you think you could do accessibility on-the-fly
Paul, I think Jamie wants something more standards-compliant approach.
Besides, sometimes people use more primitive screen readers. Lately, I’ve been used FireVox. It is tightly integrated with Firefox and it supports dynamic content changes. Perhaps we can do something on JavaScript?
Alan (28481k)
I was thinking on the same lines as Alan but again, JS does have it’s limitations regarding accessibility. Using cookies would require JS, but what about a php approach in a similar way that a website recognizes a previous visitor that has stayed logged in, except in this scenario it would remember an address without the log in and will just skip to content.
I’m probably just waffling, but there has to be a method (not a js method) :-)
hiya,
Yeah, i was thinking of doing it using the session data, In fact, i was thinking of hijacking (well testing for) the presence of my own sites analytics cookie
I think relying for the client side to do this is dangerous. Most of the screen readers out there will probobly not have JS enabled in an meaningful way. Also, as the cost of Jaws is so much, i know many people using browser extension of inbuilt speech from the OS (on mac anyway)
Thanks for the comments so far.
licks
Jamie & Lion
I did something similar a few years ago with accessibility information on http://www.cata.co.uk/default.asp?accessstyle=access
I’d be interested to know how useful this is to you Jamie.
The idea is that that first time a disabled user comes to the site, it’s useful to know about the accessibility options, but it’s not so useful on every page.
Keep in mind this was done in 2004, so it might not be perfect!
Generally, I’m not sure hiding the branding stuff is a good idea.
If you’re not prepared to show it on every page, then perhaps you haven’t got the markup right.
What about some kind of “What site am I on?” link for screen reader users that appears on every page?
This keeps it short, but means they can orient themselves if needs be.
Also, the method you’re proposing could throw up SEO issues.
Sorry .. didn’t realize textile worked …
I think all of this can be quite easy.
You need to do two things:
A – Make sure you check if the user is a search engine. Most search engines identify themselves as such. Why not serve them the page SEO optimized only when a SE passes?
B – Use php or any other language to detect a user, write them a cookie, and not show them the content anymore after, let’s say, 3 visits? I do the same to not-show my advertisement to regular readers.
Make sure you check if the user is a search engine. Most search engines identify themselves as such.
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I use a screen reader. I do, really, and i must admit, 99% of web sites drive me to spare. Even though i don’t like to admit it, even my own does. Time to explain.
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Hi Jamie,
Apologies for “name dropping”, but Jeremy Keith told me about a nifty little trick to detect wether a user is using a screen reader or not.
FlashAid (http://osflash.org/flashaid) is a tiny flash movie that you hide on your page, which can detect the prescence of screen readers such as Jaws, and pass this information back to your javaScript.
There are, of course, caveats in that users must have flash enabled, and be using a screen reader that sits on top of IE, but it opens up the possibility of being able to re-order content specifically for screen readers.