Thanks Craig,
Please thank Helen and thanks to others who have responded off list. I found the links led to interesting reading. Helen suggests "anyone in the group who works in an institution like a university might be able to find a friendly disability officer who could advise" This seems reasonable but I feel compelled to problematise the suggestion that Universities are haven of good practice re accessibility.
There is a massive gulf between rhetoric and practices and a massive gap between expectations and experience in Universities. For example, my University:
has many people employed in disability related paid employment (in relation to IT and counselling / information / support)
convenes high level working groups on disability policy supposedly committed to promoting accessibility
claims compatibility of institutional policy with the social model
has a student union person lobbying on disability issues
has many staff given the task of advising on disability issues as part of their job (I was until a few days ago a Dept disability officer myself)
has a large number of computing and IT academics and IT technicians
has academics doing and supervising research in disability areas
is subject to strong legislative incentives to tackle inaccessibility and discriminatory practices
Despite all of the above, many people here have concerns about inter and intra net accessibility at the University. For example, legislation requires Universities to ensure participation of disabled people in developing institutional Disability Equity Statements. My University solicited participation via inaccessible web pages! . I am not suggesting that my University is particularly bad in this respect by the way.
My enquiry was prompted by being a member of a group of people committed to community psychology who want to set up a website, are concerned about accessibility but need practical / technical help to set it up and manage it and have so far found estimates from web site designers to be prohibitively expensive. Accessibility still seems to be regarded as an optional add on rather than a requirement. I think that those most expert in web accessibility are likely to be those who have themselves been disabled by web sites and I am sure there must be a collective of highly skilled and experienced accessible web designers within that group who might be interested in paid work. Anyone on the list know of such a collective?
best wishes,
David
PS You might be wondering how accessible jiscmail lists like this are? In the interests of reflexivity the following comes from: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/help/policy/accessibility.htm
"The JISCmail web (this does not include the LISTSERV® web interface) has been designed to provide a very high degree of accessibility, balanced with the desire to provide a functional and pleasant browsing experience. The design process has seen the use of such tools as the W3C HTML Validator and Bobby in order to make the pages as accessible as possible. JISCmail uses basic Javascript to provide extra features to users of modern browsers. None of these features, however, contain essential information which isn't available via normal methods. There is a wide range of software applications of varying age and quality which makes designing a 100% accessible website extremely difficult. To minimise viewing difficulties the new JISCmail web has been designed for the latest browser versions which do not contain as many bugs as their older counterparts.
________________________________________
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Newnes [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 20 September 2008 23:02
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Fw: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] non-disabling website designers?
ere u go
C
----- Original Message -----
From: "JONES Helen E" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "Craig Newnes" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, September 20, 2008 2:20 PM
Subject: RE: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] non-disabling website designers?
Don't know any professional website designers to recommend, sorry - but who
ever is doing yours might like to have a look at sites like the ones below
as a start. (If you've a budget, then there is software that will help).
http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCONTENT-19990505/
http://gnosis.cx/publish/programming/web_accessibility_1.html
There are plenty more sites if someone Googles 'website accessibility'.
Equally, anyone in the group who works in an institution like a university
might be able to find a friendly disability officer who could advise.
Some things are really obvious small things (or even just good taste!) once
you just think about it - e.g not making links on the words 'click here'
(because screen readers put all links in a separate area of the screen so
the person won't know what the link is referring to)- so links need to be on
the word 'maps' itself (for example). Equally, not having too much flashy
colour or trying to look jazzy by having blue text on a blue background are
things that new website folk often get wrong in their excitement at the
beginning.
Hope that helps.
Helen
Helen Jones
Clinical Tutor
Shrops/Staffs Clinical Psychology Doctoral Programme
(Keele/Staffs Universities)
Univ: 01782 294021
Mobile: 07818 045253
www.staffs.ac.uk/study_here/courses/clinical-psychology-tcm429681.jsp
-----Original Message-----
From: Craig Newnes [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Mon 15/09/2008 16:27
To: JONES Helen E
Subject: Fw: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] non-disabling website designers?
can u help
x
----- Original Message -----
From: David Fryer
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2008 8:54 AM
Subject: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] non-disabling website designers?
Can anyone on the list recommend website designers competent in
non-disabling website design i.e in designing websites fully accessible to a
very diverse range of people (for example via screen readers like JAWS and
other software etc.) please?
David
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