Author: Dennis

Categories
audio podcast screenreader

Podcast #58: Aural Style Sheets

Dennis and Ross explain aural style sheets, a nifty part of CSS2.

Download Web Axe Episode 58 (Aural Style Sheets)

News & Announcements

What are Aural Style Sheets?

A way of controlling speech synthesis and auditory icons with CSS2, usually through a screen reader.

H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6 {
voice-family: paul;
stress: 20;
richness: 90;
cue-before: url("ping.au")
}

Supported by: Emacspeak, Fonix SpeakThis, and the Opera Browser

Benefits

  • More control over how screen readers will render your documents
  • Also beneficial for those who want your content in a mobile manor (on the road, exercising, almost podcast-esk)
  • Near future, more devices may access internet that you may want read, such as car

Example: Speak-numeral element

digits: a string of numbers is spoken as a whole number (123 = one hundred twenty-three)

continuous: numbers in a string are read successively (123 = one two three)

Elements

  • volume
  • speak
  • pause
  • cure
  • play-during
  • spacial elements (ways to have two voices appear from different areas)
  • voice character
    • speech rate
    • voice family
    • pitch
    • pitch-range
    • stress
    • richness
  • speak-punctuation
  • speak-numeral

Links

Categories
articles javascript

Email Spambot Buster

Web Axe host Dennis Lembree has published an article describing an accessible method of coding email addresses on web pages which blocks spammers, the Email Spambot Buster. Sample code is provided. The technique implements progressive enhancement and unobtrusive JavaScript. JavaScript-enabled browsers display a “normal” email link and other browsers display the email using “email munging”.

Categories
law webaim

Section 508 to be updated

In the post Section 508 to be updated on WebAIM, Jared Smith announces that Section 508 (of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973) is going through the process of being updated. There are also some excellent comments on this post.

The portion of Section 508 dealing with web sites is outdated and badly needs this revision. The guidelines are loosely based on WCAG 1.0 Priority 1, which also needs updating (see Podcast #55: WCAG Samurai).

Related Links:

Categories
articles

Web Accessibility Myths

In the article Web Accessibility Myths, common misunderstandings of accessible web sites are addressed and rebutted. Be it a poorly marked-up article, the content has some great points including:

  • Creating a separate text-only equivalent can lead to a number of problems.
  • To develop an accessible website from scratch will cost virtually the same as to develop a website that isn’t accessible.
  • Web accessibility actually places very few restrictions on website design.
  • Blind and disabled people benefit from the Internet perhaps more than anyone else.
Categories
law

Mexico Signs Manifesto on Web Accessibility

Twenty-three Mexican states and three Mexican municipalities have created and signed a manifesto on web accessibility and usability. The manifesto states:

As administrators, our objective is to create and maintain websites that are both useful and easy to use for the widest possible audience: usable and accessible websites. We believe that government, academia and the private sector should work together to achieve this objective.

The manifesto sprang from the Usability and Accessibility for the Web International Seminar which was held in Monterrey, Mexico this past July (2007).