Given the time available at the meeting, I did not provide a response then, but I will now.

First, to explain fully what “skip navigation” is I will refer you to the Web AIM website where you can read an extensive explanation.

But the short answer is…When the Section 508 web accessibility guidelines were developed 12 years ago as an addition to the Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973 the issue of navigation links, or the navigation menu commonly found on web pages created headaches for people who used screen reader assistive technology.  At the time, people who used screen readers had rather limited options when it came to reading web pages as the technology of the time could just basically read the content of the page without differentiating various parts. The standard web design custom then – as now – was to build a web page with a title at the top, a menu of internal links (navigation links) either across the top of the page or down the left side of the page, and the content below or to the right of the menu. This meant that a screen reader user had to listen to all of the content of the menu before they got to the main content of the page. It may be okay to read all of these navigation links on first page visited, but it quickly gets tedious when one reads through multiple page on a website and is forced to listen to all of the menu items repeated over and over again. So, the “skip navigation” link was a method designed to help screen reader users by creating a by-pass link around a long list of menu items.

As the years have gone by screen reader technology has changed dramatically and there are now methods built into all of the major screen readers that allow the user to move about the web page more readily ostensibly allowing the user to “browse” the content without having to read every word. However , the Section 508 guideline on “skip navigation” (specifically standard “o”) continues despite these advancements.

I should point out that another method web designers can now use to solve this issue is to put the content toward the top of the page and the navigation after the content. The designer then uses CSS to relocate the navigation menu content back at the top or side of the page for non-screen reader users to see in the usual location. But the screen reader “sees” the page in the order is it written with the content first and the navigation menu later. This is the method I prefer to use and I always seek to choose CMS themes/templates that are designed to render the content in this manner.

Regarding the “hiding” of the “Skip Navigation” link – that’s purely optional as the Section 508 requirement is still met as long as the screen reader can see it. There really is no obvious reason to make it visible and it has the potential to create some confusion to the casual web user.

Why this is particularly interesting is that today WebAIM released a report on their third survey of screen reader users. In December 2010, WebAIM conducted a survey of preferences of screen reader users and received over 1,200 responses. One question pertained specifically to the “skip navigation” issue and I think it supports my position.

When survey respondents were asked, “When a ‘skip to main content’ or ‘skip navigation’ link is available on a page, how often do you use it?” 29% said they used it “sometimes,” 22% said “seldom,” and nearly 14% said they “never” use this feature. On the other end, 15% of respondents said they used the skip navigation links “Whenever they’re available” and just over 16% said they used them “often.” This suggests that the “skip navigation” is used by a minority of screen reader users. The report also observes that, “…there has been a slight decrease in the usage of ‘skip’ links…likely due to increased usage of headings and landmarks for navigation…” In addition, the survey also reports that just over 57% of respondents use the “Navigate through the headings on the page” as the most popular method for “finding information on a lengthy page.”

I suspect that when Section 508 is revise in the coming years the “skip navigation” requirement itself will be…skipped!

What do you think?

Photo credit: Image licensed by Creative Commons by MonkeySimon

The applications range from the familiar like OpenOffice suite and Thunderbird e-mail client, to some interesting ones like WebbIE – a highly configurable and accessible browser which could be used by many folks with disabilities. There are even games and utilities available.

The beauty of the Eduapps system is that their website is set up to allow you to download a bundle of the apps and upload them to a stickdrive. Then you can take the stickdrive wherever you go, plug it into any Windows-based PC and voila! you have your apps right there to use.

Eduapps has already bundled a bunch of the applications into eight packages (see list below), but you can customize your bundle and Eduapps will package them up for you to download and upload to your stickdrive.

There is even a collection of help pages, tutorials and videos to assist you in how to download and how to use the applications.

It all looks pretty neat and the price is unbelievable. It’s all FREE!

EduApps were developed by the JISC Regional Support Centre Scotland North & East which is supported by government funding in the UK.

Here are the Eduapps bundles (from the Eduapps website):

• AccessApps, provides a range of solutions to support writing, reading and planning, as well as sensory, cognitive and physical difficulties.
• TeachApps, is a collection of software specifically designed for teachers or lecturers.
• LearnApps, as its name implies, is specifically designed for learners. All learners or students can benefit from LearnApps.
• MyStudyBar, is our most popular program, providing a suite of apps to support literacy.
• MyVisBar, a high contrast floating toolbar, designed to support learners with visual difficulties.
• MyAccess, a portal to all your favourite and accessible applications providing inclusive e-learning options for all.
• Create&Convert, is our new kid on the block, designed to help publish accessible information for all.
• Accessible Formatting WordBar, create accessible Word documents with ease using our innovative WordBar.

Go to Eduapps

———-
Photo licensed through Creative Commons – by adactio

The cleaning involved the removal (to the recycling center) of several months’ worth of accumulated newspapers which I store on an old cardboard box sitting in the living room. It’s one of those boxes that contained items I had transported here on the last move (almost 15 years ago) and put down at that location never to be moved again. Since it soon disappeared under the endless pile of used newspapers, I had long ago forgotten what the box contained.

From the markings on the outside I suspected that box housed some of my prized LP record albums. For those below a certain age, LP’s are “long playing” recordings made on vinyl and played on a “record player.”  And indeed, upon opening the box I quickly discovered a bounty of popular 70s vintage LPs including a copy of the first King Crimson album and some early Cream. But what caught my eye was not the two dozen or so dog-eared recording, but a slightly-curled magazine jammed in the back. It was easily recognizable as being a copy of Wired Magazine, not a surprise since I have had a subscription to Wired for years. I initially presumed that it was a recent issue that I had added to the stack of “to be recycled” newspapers and had somehow mysteriously fallen into the box of LP records. But since the box had a closed top, I thought about the possibilities with more care.

Now anyone who has read Wired Magazine knows that it is a pretty funky publication with wild colors and design features. It is one of a few magazines where the differences between the articles and the advertisements are almost indistinguishable. Another feature is the fact that they rarely cite the date of the volume except through the use of some cryptic code. So I was very surprised, and actually kinda excited, when I noticed a date on the top of the magazine of November 1994.

Apart from the date, there was no discernible evidence that the magazine was that old. The cover story, “Rocket Science: Videogames get Hollywired; The first digital supergroup,” is sufficiently vague so as to be ageless to the common man. The photo on the posterized yellow and red cover of four geeky-looking middle-aged guys is unremarkable. Even the ad for Absolute Vodka on the back cover was not unusual.  I am not sure if this is necessarily complimentary of Wired Magazine tendency to be ahead of its time or a statement on how so little has changed in the last 14 years, but it is pretty amazing. Once I was inside the magazine the fun began.

My first discovery was a neatly preserved Xerox copy of some directions on how to use something called “Mosaic.” The copy was placed in a section of the magazine called “Netsurf” edited by Kristin Spence (I wonder where she is today). The article is entitled “Authoring HTML for Fun and Profit.”

It all came flooding back to me. It was the fall of 1994 and I was at Indiana University of Pennsylvania where I was filling in for a colleague who was out on sabbatical. That semester, I was invited to a faculty symposium in the basement of the library where the IT department was hidden. In their lab were the only two PCs on campus powerful enough to run Mosaic, a newly developed application called a “web browser.” The two PCs were running Windows 3.x on a Pentium chip with 2MB of RAM. Awesome. The presentation made by the IT guys was impressive and in the days that followed, I told everyone who would listen about how “I had seen the future.”

The downside of the evening came when I asked one of the techs what I had to do to be able to “make a web page.” In return I received a look of disgust and scorn and was quickly told that it was not possible because I was just a lowly faculty member in the educational psychology department. Little did that snotty geek know that I was writing Fortran IV and COBAL code probably before he was even born. To spite him, I did learn HTML – perhaps with the help of Spence’s article – and within two years I was the webmaster for small Maine college; within five, had started my business, jebswebs.com.

The Netsurf article is rather humorous. The content focuses on the importance of the <HEAD> and <BODY> tags of the document. It also refers to the use of the common tags <H> and <A> and alludes to “two dozen more uncommonly used” tags.  Ah, the days of HTML v1; life was so simple then.

The Wired issue also features ads for The X Files, Apple’s introduction of Macintosh System 7.5 and an AST subnotebook; all are charming in their simplicity. BTW, the AST Ascentia 500S runs a Intel 486SX processor, sports a 340 MB hard drive (3.5” floppy drive included) and has a NiMN battery that will last 2-3 hours. The Mac OS “lets you swap files with PCs and allows you to open Macintosh, DOS, and Windows documents – even when you don’t have the applications used to create them.” Oh, and the price for a one year subscription to Wired in 1994 was $39.95. Ouch.

The November 1994 issue of Wired is actually rather amazing in some of its vision. Yes, there is a Wired Top 10 list of favorite LISTSERV mailing lists, favorite “ASCII art,” and an article by Nicholas Negroponte discussing “Digital Etiquette” and chiding those who allow their secretary to print out e-mail messages and then have them type up a dictated reply. Hilarious. But there are also stories about hacking, the use of the internet by gay teenagers, and the urgency of stopping the government from taking control of the internet that could easily have been written today.

The trip down memory lane was a delight and fortunately, Wired has this and all of their collection in their online archives (try searching on Kristin Spence’s name to begin). It speaks volumes about where we have been in this short digital history and about how some things still remain the same.

I will continue to read my Wired relic and perhaps will report more in the days ahead. In the meantime, I’m going to boot up that King Crimson album if I can remember how.

I just finished writing a Privacy Policy for the jebswebs site and will be adding a link on the blog to point to it.

Personally, I am not overly concerned about privacy on the web, but many people are, and I can certainly understand this. I am concerned about some of the “biggest offenders” who have made the press lately. It’s one thing to have an online service that gather’s information, it is something else when you don’t let people/visitors know about it – or if you constantly change the requirements to keep your information private. The “biggest offenders” are also guilty of creating a false sense of security by creating the illusion of a “gated community” when all the while, their patrons’ personal information is available to those beyond the “gate.”

So, I am a bit ashamed that I didn’t catch this a few weeks ago when I stated adding GA to several of my sites. Rest assured I’ll be remedying that in the next few days.

For those who don’t know about GA and wonder, why all the fuss, let me explain.

Google Analytics is a neat and free service provided by Google to website owners and developers. The developer inserts a small amount of JavaScript code on the pages of their website, and every time someone visits that page, the script grabs some information about the visitor and adds it to the owner’s GA account database. The website owner and/or developer can access this database information by logging into their GA account and seeing charts and graphs which aggregate the data collected. The information collected ranges from what pages are being visit, what browser is being used, and how long they stayed on the site. It should be noted that no personally identifiable information (i.e., names and addresses) are gathered through this interaction. There may be some debate about the use of IP addresses. GA’s policies say they are not harvested, but GA does give you location data – at least in terms of country of origin – and that would have to come from IP data.

It is important to note – and this is where the Privacy Policy comes in – that nearly all of this information is rather innocuous and completely anonymous. But, because the information is also sent to Google, and in the theme of complete disclosure, it is important that visitors know this. I guess you could make the case that by virtue of visiting your site, the visitor’s data is already collected, but let’s not go there…

BTW, just to play it safe, Google offers a free browser plug-in called the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on which, when installed in a browser [at this point available for Internet Explorer (versions 7 and 8), Google Chrome (4.x and higher), and Mozilla Firefox (3.5 and higher)], the information gathered by GA will be shared with the site owner, but not Google. So, if you are concerned about your privacy, you may want to install this.

Note: In researching for this blog entry, I came across an Australian news article on just this topic. Reading it next.

Apple safari for Mac + PC

Judging from all the twittering on Twitter regarding the latest version of the Safari browser, most people seem pretty happy with the release.

This past Tuesday, February 24th, Apple released Safari 4.0 in public beta to the approving roar of Apple enthusiasts and technology wonks alike. Some in the industry have indicated that Safari 4.0 was long overdue, but as the latest round of browser wars seems to be reigniting, the timing of this release was pretty effective and perhaps well planned.

What is of concern to me is how well the new browser will behave in terms of accessibility and particularly how well it will interface with the Mac OS X screen reader – VoiceOver. Reports from my various colleagues who have been putting Safari 4.0 through its paces have been rather impressive. I suggest you head over to the Mac-accessibility blog for  the play-by-play and to get specifics, but the general consensus is that the new browser is a winner and seems to work well with assistive technology. For mere mortals, ZDNet has several reviews with all of the details.

~j