The InterNet Aural Accessibility Patch
(IAAP)
On September 10, 1997, the following proposal was delivered to Angela
Reagan of Microsoft, by Gregory J. Rosmaita and Janina Sajka, on behalf of
VICUG NYC, at the New York City
stop of the 1997 Microsoft Developers' Tour.
If, as Bill Gates stated in his August 13th Op-Ed piece in the New York Times,
Microsoft is dedicated to enhancing access to its products, then there is no
reason why Microsoft cannot further enhance the accessibility of Microsoft
Internet Explorer. While MSIE is one of Microsoft's most accessible products,
it could very easily be transformed into a showcase of accessibility through
the addition of an InterNet Aural Accessibility Patch (IAAP), specifically
tailored to the needs of the blind and visually impaired. The IAAP would:
- 1) Allow the user to activate a
numbered links option, which would cause MSIE to associate a bracketed number
with every hyperlink. Hyperlinks could then be selected simply by typing the
number associated with the desired link and pressing <enter>
- 2) Communicate the
ALT text correctly and uniformly, as outlined in
the W3C's HTML
specifications. This includes the use of
ALT-text in the <AREA>
portion of <MAP ...> definitions.
- 3) Facilitate the feeding of the
ALT-text to a screen-reader, refreshable braille
display, or screen-magnification program when image loading is turned on--a
feature which would greatly benefit low vision users who want/need aural
feedback, but have enough visual acuity to perceive the images). While this
is a commendable feature of Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA), MSAA is
not a viable option for anyone not operating in a 32 bit environment without
a MSAA-capable screen access solution.
- 4) A de-tablization option,
which would force MSIE to degrade tablized content by forcing a
<BR> whenever a
</TD> is encountered.
- 5) Generation of
pseudo-ALT tags for graphically defined links that
lack ALT-text in a manner similar to that employed
by Lynx, which
generates the pseudo-ALT
[LINK] whenever it encounters an
un-ALT-texted graphically defined hyperlink. This
would make it possible for the speech-user to not only ascertain the
existence of a graphically defined link, but would facilitate the navigation
of a page (such as http://www.sony.com)
which consists solely of un-ALT-texted graphically
defined hyperlinks.
- 6) The generation of text-based
output whenever a <MAP> ... </MAP>
container is encountered. Whenever a <MAP ...>
element is encountered, the IAAP would automatically generate an ordered list,
using the HREF of each AREA
as the hyperlink text. If the AREA definition
contains an ALT argument, the
ALT-text will comprise the hyperlink text; if it
does not, the hyperlink text will contain the resolved URLs to which the
AREA HREFs point.
- The IAAP should use the TITLE attribute of the
IMG element, or the TITLE
attribute of the MAP, if either is present in the
markup, as the title and main header of the menu. Otherwise, it will use the
ALT attribute of the IMG
element as the title of the menu. If neither TITLE
nor ALT attributes are present in the markup, the
IAAP will create and use a [USEMAP]
pseudo-ALT. if the MAPs
are not in the same document as the IMG elements,
the IAAP will fetch the document which contains the referenced
MAP, and locate it based on its
NAME or ID attribute.
All MAPs should also be cached, so that they need
not be retrieved repeatedly when referenced in different documents.
- 7) The use of frames
(simultaneously displayed, independently scrolling windows) in HTML documents
presents the blind/VI user with a multitude of access problems. Given the
ever-increasing popularity of framed sites, therefore, it is essential that
the following options be included in the IAAP:
- 7A) A no-frames option, which allows the user to
disable the rendering of frames. With MSIE set to "No Frames" (or
"Framed Pages Off"), the user would be presented with the content of
the <NOFRAMES></NOFRAMES> section of
the document being rendered. If the document source does not contain a
NOFRAMES section, the IAAP will present the user
with a vertically aligned (one hyperlink per line) list of labeled links.
The text of each link should be predicated on the NAME
argument used in the FRAME definition, as in the
following example, where underlined text represents the hyperlink text:
FRAME 1: nav
FRAME 2: main
FRAME 3: fb
- (Optimally, the NAME arguments utilized by the
author of the document source should be more substantive than those used
above for the purpose of example. Unfortunately, the vast majority of
NAME arguments utilized by HTML authors are
cryptically incomprehensible.)
- 7B) With "Display Frames" activated, the IAAP
must generate an on-screen announcement/status-line warning which informs
the user:
a] that he or she is in a framed document
b] in which frame the cursor is currently located (i.e.: Frame X of Y)
- Frame identification should be predicated on the
NAME argument used in the
FRAME definition.
All of the above suggestions should apply equally to Front Page generated
pages. Front Page output should be filtered through an HTML
validator/parser, in order to ensure that its output contains valid HTML that
any browser, regardless of platform, is capable of rendering.
drafted by Gregory J. Rosmaita,
gregory@afb.net
WebMaster & Executive Committee Member, VICUG NYC
this page was created on September 7, 1997
hyperlinks last updated December 7, 1998