"The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." Tim Berners-Lee director of the World Wide Web Consortium
Demonstrating the use of audio enhancement in designing an engaging web site for people with visual impairment.
" To redesign an existing web site so that it is accessible for users with varying degrees of visual disability. This will be achieved by making the web site comply with World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) accessibility standards. It will require altering the site structure, applying naming protocols and redesigning page layout. Modification of the site will enable pages to be spoken by a screen reader. Audio enhancement using aural protocols in a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) to control pitch, volume and stereo positioning will be demonstrated. Sections of the site will be professionally narrated and pre-recorded. The audio files will be "streamed" over the Internet using Flash files. This part of the project will demonstrate a more advanced level of user engagement, narration by a real human voice and site navigation via keystrokes on audio cues. "
Interest in accessibility issues of the Internet in Australia was sparked
in 1999 when Bruce Maguire lodged a complaint under the Disability Discrimination
Act. Bruce, who is blind, was unable to access pages on the Sydney Olympics
official web site. His case highlighted the trend in recent years towards
designing web sites that were inaccessible to users with visual impairments.
Blind users can access the Internet by employing adaptive technologies such as Screen Readers. Screen Readers read aloud the text of a page but as more information is conveyed on via images adaptive technologies are marginalised and sites become inaccessible. There are well development guidelines aiding designers in building accessible sites. However strict observance of the guidelines mean not using eye catching web authoring tools such as Shockwave and Flash or developing alternative text descriptions. In a competitive marketplace developers of commercial web sites, and their imitators, are unlikely to make this sacrifice.
It is the aim of the project to show how a site can be redesigned and use
adaptive technologies in an engaging way. The possibility exists to dynamically
control the pitch, volume, type of voice etc of screen readers. As stated
above development tools such as Flash can render sites inaccessible. A revolutionary
approach would turn the problem into a solution. Flash and Shockwave are flavour
of the month due to their eye-catching animation features and interactive
potential. The programs have powerful audio capabilities as well and could
be used to narrate the contents of a whole web site, real human voices instead
of a computer synthesis. Another potential feature is more intuitive navigation
via simple key commands aided by audio cues.
Although the priority users would be people with visual disabilities the site will be visually appealing. If the web is to become truly accessible then good design practice has to be seamlessly integrated into every web site. It is the aim of the project to create a professional looking site where the users can have limited control over aesthetics. Users with poor vision could increase the size of fonts. Regular users could choose small fonts and a more appealing colour theme.
To achieve this project the following programming skills will be employed; Hyper Text Mark-up Language (4 and 4.1) coding and validation; Javascripting; development of advanced CSS style sheets and validation, Action scripting in Flash. The project will require considerable developing and testing.
Due to the nature of the project many cutting edge and novel techniques may be employed. It is the purpose of the project to demonstrate the potential in using advanced techniques to aid accessibility. Therefore it is anticipated that the final project may use techniques and scripting not foreshadowed in the design document.
Daryl Allan Croke : darylallan@netspace.net.au
Electronic Design and Interactive Media
Victoria University 2002.