Making accessible blog posts

[sasha_feather]

Nerdy PSA at hope's journal is a great post on how to make your website or blog more accessible using basic HTML.

One of my big pet peeves that I see people do quite frequently, is hyperlink to things without describing what they are linking to.

For example,
BAD:

I am reading this right now!

GOOD:

I am reading The Ear, The Eye, and The Arm by Nancy Farmer right now.

I don't want to have to click on your link just to find out what the heck you are talking about. It's irritating. And I'm not trying to pick on any one person here, because I have seen at least two dozen people do variations of this problem. Sometimes for creative reasons, like using "ZOMG" as their hyperlink label when they are excited. But that is just as bad. As hope points out, for someone using a screen reader, when they hear "ZOMG" or "here" that is not very helpful for knowing where the link goes. I TOO FIND IT ANNOYING. (And I'm not holding this against you personally! It's just a part of blogging culture that I want to shift.)

[eta: I lay this out some more in comments at LJ.]

----

Also Access related, bibliofile, goblingirl and I were talking about con-related access things the other day, and bibliofile had this idea of making a Con Access Wiki. Something that everyone could read, with centralized information for how to do access at a con. Probably it would have to have restricted editing privileges. But the centralization would be nice, so that each con did not have to re-invent the wheel. And it would reduce barriers because you wouldn't have to know who to talk to to find things out, or get over your social anxiety to do so.

What do you guys think? Just an idea I'm pondering. Cons in this case means both conventions and conferences.

Comments

[wrdnrd]

Ooh! A Con Access Wiki is a *brilliant* idea!!

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

Regarding the first point - I definitely understand why it's annoying/a pet peeve, but I don't really see what's more accessible about it. You still have to click the link to find out WTF is going on. Like, you can describe it as "The Ear, The Eye, and The Arm by Nancy Farmer," but I still don't know what that means until I click on the link anyway.

***
I think that a Con Access Wiki would be good. After my first WisCon, I tried to ask a Geek.Kon co-chair to put blue tape on the floors in various rooms so there would always be space/a way to get in for people in wheelchairs/whatever. The person said, "Well, if they need to get in, they can just ask someone to move the chairs for them."
FAILSAUCE.

[j00j.livejournal.com]

OMG, a Con Access Wiki would be amazing. We avoided some wheel-reinventing by adapting Wiscon's procedures, but some of those didn't work so well for our space and less static room setups, so ideas suited to smaller cons or unconferences where rooms may get rearranged would be incredibly helpful, as would tips for maybe evaluating venues/surrounding neighborhoods for accessibility problems and maybe tips on making accessible electronic program books and probably a bunch of other stuff I'm not thinking about because I am able-bodied, but yes, this would be really good. I probably can't contribute a ton content-wise (see previous sentence), but I would be happy to contribute what I could in terms of organizational skills/editing/general wiki maintenance. I would totally want such a resource if I'm involved in con/conference organizing again.

[sophy.livejournal.com]

That's a pet peeve of mine as well. I'm just not going to click on a link unless I have a reasonable idea what's on the other side. Same with watching embedded youtube videos and such. I've opened the link in another tab to read later, as I know I need to be more access friendly in my postings and that'll probably be a good starting point for me.

The wiki sounds like a great idea. Reading about other con access fails makes me think it would be beneficial to have that info out that for everyone to read and use for sure.

[dersteinkauz.livejournal.com]

I actually just turned in a report for my Information Architecture class on how we're going to make our website redesign accessible to people with disabilities. The DoIT site that I'm linking to is a helpful starting point for folks and talks a lot about coding, using alt-text, and other descriptors when creating a site.

http://www.doit.wisc.edu/accessibility/online-course/start.htm