Darren is a blind user from Australia, gave an excellent presentation showing the audience what is it like to navigate and use websites with a screenreader. An example website, one that he needed to use for his work had 70 down arrow keys just to get to the content of the website.
“No such thing as skim listening…”
“So what I normally do is leave”
“The day that the Sydney Morning Herald went online it enabled me to read the newspaper independently for the first time ever.”
One of the interesting points that was brought up was that we shouldn’t really need text-only versions of websites if the main site has been designed/developed well. It is just a duplicate.
There are also unseen benefits of making things accessible. Sydney Buses, we’re forced to be made accessible. Side benefit is that now all people are able to get on and off the buses even quicker – and that benefits everyone. I guess it’s emergence.
