Categories
articles

Lessons from Eye-Tracking Studies

Many excellent web design and coding tips are presented in this article summing up eye-tracking studies: Scientific Web Design: 23 Actionable Lessons from Eye-Tracking Studies. It’s good to see that many of this points are directly related to web accessibility guidelines and web standards.

7. Type size influences viewing behavior.
10. Shorter paragraphs perform better than long ones.
15. Bigger images get more attention.
19. Lists hold reader attention longer.

Categories
articles business expert

Business Reasons for Web Accessibility

In my article Business Reasons for Web Accessibility (posted under Web Axe’s sponsor company, CheckEngine USA) I provide several reasons why an accessible web site is good for business (namely, the bottom line—finances). Points for web accessibility benefiting business include:

  • Increases Potential Market Share
  • Lighter Code Saves Bandwidth
  • No Alternative Formats Needed
  • Increases Positive Image
  • Avoid Lawsuits
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).

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