starwatcher: Western windmill, clouds in background, trees around base. (Default)
StarWatcher ([personal profile] starwatcher) wrote in [community profile] accessibility_fail2010-04-01 09:53 am
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Accessibility question

I will soon be moving my fanfic to Archive of Our Own, and to a Dreamwidth fic-site. When moving the fics, I'd like to ensure that my code is accessible for screen-readers. I know some things, but have questions about others. I asked the questions in a post at my Studio, but have had no responses; apparently no one in my reading circle uses a screen-reader.

If you do, I'd appreciate it if you could drop by and educate me. Or perhaps point me toward a site that has the answers. Feel free to pass the link on to anyone who might know the answers. After I've learned what I need to know, I'll make a new post to share with my friends, and anyone else who needs or wants the information.

Thank you.
jadelennox: Oracle with a headset: Heroes Use Headsets (gimp: heroes use headsets)

[personal profile] jadelennox 2010-04-09 02:56 am (UTC)(link)
On AO3, that's true; their interface strips all CSS before you post. Which is a little bit aggravating, actually. I've filed a bug about it, although I can see why they do it.

but on dreamwidth, you can use your own CSS. Even if you don't use your own CSS to write an entire style, you can embed CSS in something else you say. For example, I'm styling the following paragraph:

This is an overly styled paragraph!


Code looks like:

<div style="margin-left:2em;margin-right:2em;font-family:cursive;font-style:italic;color:blue;">This is an overly styled paragraph!</div>

You can do that around anything you post in dreamwidth,so if something is a blockquote but you don't like the blockquote style by default, you can use your own style. If you reuse the style frequently, you can write a little style sheet of your own to embed. I'm not sure if you can embed it in your journal style without a paid account,but you can certainly embed it manually at the top of each post.Getting into the technical details of how to do that is a little bit complicated unless you are sure it's something you want to try, but you absolutely can do it.
jadelennox: Oracle with a headset: Heroes Use Headsets (gimp: heroes use headsets)

[personal profile] jadelennox 2010-04-09 03:22 am (UTC)(link)
I just checked, and by default, JAWS reads <hr /> as "dash dash dash dash". Presumably some JAWS users customize that, but my configuration is out-of-the-box, so by default the horizontal rule is accessible to screen readers.

And this, actually, is an extension of what people have been saying about semantic markup. Using the horizontal rule tag means that you can trust the screen reader to do what is necessary (configurable by the screen reader user). That means that if you've been using it, you are already being much more helpful to people who use screen readers than people who customize their own section break with something like "~~~~".

By the way, it's awesome that you are thinking about this so much!