Let us play a little game. Just for a moment there close your eyes, get up from your seat and start walking. Just go anywhere but remember no peeking. Bump! What is that? A table? Feel with your hands .. wait .. there is a book lying on top of it Try reading it ... yes .. with your eyes closed. Not much fun, is it? This is the world of a blind person. You can open your eyes and see but theirs is just a world of sounds, a world where words mean everything.

It is very hard to live in a world where you have to be dependent on another person to read you a book or to tell you the latest news. Yes it was hard but now the Internet has opened a whole new world for the blind community. They can browse the web using their screen readers. All that is out on the web is read out to them and they do not need to be dependent on anyone but themselves. They can go to any web page, read its contents just like everybody else .. but wait .. at times they are faced with blank pages saying [image] [image] all over and they have no idea what those images are. At times they are stuck in frames and cannot navigate through them. Then they are faced with image maps which they cannot see, which their speech browser can only read as an [image]. These are some of the problems that they face everyday while browsing the web.

You might be thinking what does this all mean? Does this mean I cannot use frames, I cannot use image maps? No, not at all! You can use all these things and yet make your page accessible to the blind. It does not take a lot of effort to do that, only a little bit of caring. Here are a few tips on how you can do that.

1. ALT TAGS - These are amongst the most important tags to use if you wish to make a speech friendly site. Adding this tag does not only make your page accessible to the blind but all those people out there who are using text browsers and it is good programming, too. When you put an image in your page make sure you add the alt tag. That way a speech reader instead of saying [Image] every time it comes across one, will read out the alt tag. Try to make your alt tags as descriptive as possible. For example rather than having your title be alt tagged as "logo.gif" or "John's logo" have it say what the logo might actually say i.e. "Welcome to John's Page." This is how you add the alt tag, to work on the same example.

< img src="logo.gif" alt="Welcome to John's page" height=(height in pixels) width=(width in pixels)>

And remember for purely decorative graphics which add no content to the page or those gazillion lines that you may have scattered on your page put alt="" . This way the blind won't get to hear unnecessary alt tags like "This is a line" after every 3 or 4 lines.

2. ONE LINK PER LINE - Try not to put your links in paragraphs. Have one link on each line. Screen readers read an entire line of text at a time. So multiple links in one line can confuse the blind. Screen readers also do not say that there is a link. Blind people have to search for them. So make sure that the links are easily identifiable by the context of the paragraph. Rather than saying something like "Go to Joe's Page" and letting "Go to" be the link, it will make more sense to the blind if you let "Joe's Page" be the link. If you do not like the look of your page with a link per line, then you can always add an option of a text only index. A text index consists of a separate page on which you place the links which occur in your index on individual lines

3. FRAMES - Frames are very hard for the blind to navigate. Always provide a no frames option. It does not take a lot of work since you already have your pages done. All you need to do is link to them as separate pages from an index page. And make sure that you provide an entry point from where the user can choose whether to go to your frames pages or your no frames pages. This way the blind can choose from the beginning which way they want to go.

4. FORMS - Forms can be difficult to navigate if they are in the following format.

Name
_____________________
e-mail
_____________________
Submit Reset

They are easier to navigate if they are in the format
Name _____________________
e-mail _____________________
Submit
Reset

But it is always best to provide an e-mail option. Tell the user that if they have any problems with the form, they can send you the response through mail. You can also offer to send the form through mail.

5. TABLES - Make sure that your tables degenerate properly. You can use a program called lynxit! to see if your tables are degenerating properly in lynx. A clever use of tables would be code them in such a way that although they would appear on the same line in windows but appear on different lines in Lynx. Using unformatted tables ensures that the links will appear on separate lines in lynx. One example of unformatted tables is given below.

<table> <tr>
<td> Your text here <br> </td>
<td> Your text here <br> </td>
</tr> </table>

6. IMAGE MAPS - Alt tag the image map as alt="" . Either provide a separate text index which has all the links that are given on the image map or add text links on the same page as the image map. This once again will not only be useful for speech friendly browsers but also those using text browsers and those who have images turned off in their browsers.

7. OFFERING IMAGES FOR DOWNLOAD - Blind people cannot click on the right mouse button and download a file. But you can make the graphic files accessible to them by making them actual hypertext links that would. This would allow them to access the files even in a text only browser like Lynx. Again be sure to alt tag the graphic files and in this case be a little more descriptive as to what a graphic looks like. An alt tag saying "A picture of a beautiful castle at the edge of a cliff" makes a lot more sense than 056235.gif as an alt tag.

8. REAL AUDIO AND SOUND FILES - Blind users have separate speakers for their synthesizers so the screen readers and sound card are totally separate entities! They actually enjoy the music! But the main problem here lies in the fact that Real Audio links are usually graphical in nature. These graphics are much like any other graphic so if they are alt tagged, the blind can access them!

9. JAVA SCRIPT, ACTIVE X, ETC. - If you plan on using features like Java Script or Active X, make a text only version of your site. This way speech friendly browsers as well as those which do not support these features will have another option.

10. REFRESH - It takes screen readers a longer period of time to read a page and it can be very frustrating for those using one, to have the page disappear and another site load while they are only halfway through the page. They might have found a link they wanted to visit and it would be really tiresome to use the back button and search for that link again only to be redirected to the other site/page again.

11. FORCING A NEW BROWSER WINDOW - This can be really confusing to the blind and visually impaired. When a new window is opened they are left with no history list which means that they cannot use the back function to navigate to the previous page. A lot of blind users navigate with the use of the history list and it can be really frustrating to lose it and not know what is happening. So please reconsider before implementing this feature .. it has been known to confuse those who are not blind so can you imagine the confusion it can cause to the blind users?

Think of all those people who might come to your site and leave because they are faced by one of the problems that I have mentioned above. There are a lot of blind users out there who may wish to browse your site but are unable to do so. Just a little effort is all it takes .. Do try!

If you are still thinking why you should bother and waste your time on doing all of the above, please read the following letter written by Cathy Ann Murtha and reproduced here by her permission. It was sent to a mailing list where the discussion on, why one should take the time to make a site speech friendly, was going on. This was Cathy's answer.

I don't understand. Whenever someone defends the need for accessibility to those who do not have the capability of accessing graphics, javascript, frames or the other bells and whistles on these lists, they are put down and shunned; they are basically told that they don't know what reality is and they have no understanding of what the "beauty of the web" is.

May I share with you my idea of the "beauty of the web?

The beauty of the web is that after of life time of depending on others to read me the daily newspaper or help me with research for a term paper, I can log in and do my own research, I can read papers from all over the world. I do not have to wait for someone to read them to me, i do not have to construct my time around a sighted person and wait for them to be available. I am free to work on my own, at my leisure and enjoy a newly discovered past time. Reading!

The beauty of the web is having the ability to comparison shop for a needed software program, comparing the prices and capabilities of each without having to depend on a sales clerk to tell me what is best for me and what I need. Christmas gifts, birthday gifts, special surprises for those I care about can now be carefully selected from a wide variety of sources. I don't have to arrange a ride and trust someone else's opinion, for the first time in my life I can trust my own opinion and select exactly what I want! That is such a glorious feeling that could never be described to someone who has always had that freedom!

I can access a search engine and learn about the theory of relativity or the History of the comic strip Charlie Brown, my options are only limited by my imagination, well not exaclty I suppose. My options are also limited by the new developments in web page design and those who choose to place frames, java script, untagged graphics and other such innovations on their site.

Megazone was right. it takes so little to make a site accessible to the blind. So why do you deny us that access? Many insist that it is their right and priviledge to create sites laden with graphics and frames and javascript. That if someone cannot access it then it is their problem and they will just have to cope.

so tell me. If someone opened a shop in the mall and you were allowed to shop in it, but the door was shut in my face because they did not cater to blind people, would you tolerate it? I dare say everyone on this list would be outraged at such an occurrance! Well, my friends, that is how I. and the rest of the blind people on the web, feel when we reach a site we are eager to explore and are met by a blank page, an image map, javascript, frames and all those other wonderful innovations that many on this list cling to so ferociously. It isn't that hard to create a text index, it isn't that hard to provide access. It isn't difficult to open the door to everyone. It is a matter of choice and the cruel fact is that many of you choose to lock me out! You choose to deny me access to information and you actively encourage others to do the same. I pray that none of you ever suffer a disability, for if you did you would know how cruel people can be in the name of freedom of expression!

Thank you Cathy for providing the information and for allowing the above letter to be copied here. The information provided here is taken from Cathy's article Making your Site Speech Friendly.

HYPERTEXT LINKS USED IN THIS ARTICLE

I have not removed the following links from this site - I know Cathy's site is no longer on the following URL but I am leaving these here just in case someone can tell me what happened to Cathy's site and if it is elsewhere, then what is the new URL.

I have been forced to place the following banner on this page since the other option was to have a geo pop-up window which in other words means that another window would have opened up in your browser showing some banners by geo sponsors. In my opinion, that would be more confusing to blind surfers than a banner saying "image" since there is no possible way of adding an alt tag to it. That's my explanation for having an image on this page without an alt tag.