[Nfb-web] NFB-WEB Sandbox

Sat Mar 7 16:39:59 UTC 2009

Mike, what you say is wonderful. If this is the way you talk with one foot 
in your mouth, then pity the orator who wants to compete with you when 
you're standing on both feet. I think all of these comments point up the 
fact we see a problem, or don't actually see but recognize it, and are 
willing to accept there are times when we need make our good work in the 
background look as good as it is on the screen.

Gary

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Hansen" <mhansen4 at gmail.com>
To: "NFB Webmaster's List" <nfb-web at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 07, 2009 1:07 AM
Subject: Re: [Nfb-web] NFB-WEB Sandbox

Gary,

Your comments were very nicely thought out and stated. I personally
have a tendency to be more blunt and there fore shove my foot half way
down my throat sometimes. I think I have made this comment on this
list before and I know I did to several people at the webmasters
meeting at the National Center in Feb 08 and that is "building our
websites needs to be a team effort". We want our pages to be visually
appealing to the sighted individuals that visit them but we of course
need them to be accessible for our own use. We need to need to be an
example to Target's and Wal-Mart's of the world that you can have a
visually attractive website and still have it be accessible to the
blind.

It is my belief that often one of these 2 goals win out over the other
and we either end up with websites that look the way you say they
sound in a screen reader (one long word document) and are very
accessible or they look great visually but we have a hard time
navigating them.

As we work to create the image of our organization we need to keep
both of these goals in mind and if you are a blind developer have a
sighted person look over your work. When they suggest things or make
corrections don't take offense. If you are a sighted developer make
sure you have a blind person evaluate the sight and work with them to
make the necessary corrections so that it is fully accessible.

If we are going to have the nerve to go out and file a law suit
demanding web accessibility we better be setting the example.

Mike
---
Mike Hansen
NFB of Nebraska

On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 4:14 PM, Wunder, Gary
<WunderG at health.missouri.edu> wrote:
> Hi Susie. I suspect that what you say is very difficult for us to hear,
> but I think the truth of the matter is that the way screen readers
> present Web content to us doesn't really give us much in the way of
> usable information to do our own web design. The way we see things on
> the screen reader makes us believe that we are looking at one long
> wordprocessing document, and very often we have no idea what is located
> on the upper left or the lower right. Even when we know these things, it
> is very difficult, short of doing meticulous calculation, to position
> things so that they proportionately look correct to other people. Add to
> this the issue of graphics, their size, and again, their placement
> relative to other graphics and text, and it is an uphill challenge. I
> know that on the blind programmers list there are people who do quite a
> lot of graphical design, and although they have some rather complicated
> formulas for figuring out what goes where, they admit that, in the end,
> they submit their screens to other people for their opinions and
> manipulation. They concentrate more on the logic behind the screen than
> they do the actual screen layout.
>
> As if all of this weren't enough, I think sometimes we have been content
> to say to ourselves that all the sighted really want is eye candy, and
> that this is a sign of a decaying world. Be that as it may, I live in
> the world, and for as long as I live in the world I'm going to have to
> play by its rules. If people decide that they want pictures, and if I am
> to write material for them, I've got to figure out a way to incorporate
> those pictures into what I write. I note, with some discomfort, but my
> experience in the classroom today is quite different from what it was 35
> years ago. When I went to college, the blackboard was certainly a
> welcome asset by the professor, but only in very difficult situations
> wasn't used to convey much information. Even this was primarily limited
> to the sciences. The professors I listened to then would probably today
> be called talking heads, for they did not make extensive use of slides,
> and they did not hand out class notes so that one could be more
> comfortable in paying attention to the lecture. Ah, but I see that I am
> drifting
>
> If someone really wants to take exception to the observations you've
> made, I think this would be a wonderful place for it, but I think the
> proof has to be in the pudding, and the truth is that, more often than
> not, I hear people say that we have wonderful informational content, but
> that often they are put off by the way our site looks and have to have
> an extra special reason to go beyond their negative feelings about how
> differently our sites appear.
>
> Warmest regards my friend,
>
> Gary
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfb-web-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-web-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Stanzel, Susan - Kansas City, MO
> Sent: Friday, March 06, 2009 1:26 PM
> To: NFB Webmaster's List
> Subject: Re: [Nfb-web] NFB-WEB Sandbox
>
> I totally agree. I am trying to help my career along, but I don't
> exactly know what to do. I am reading a Java book. I evaluate web pages
> for work, but I don't know what I really believe about blind people
> making pages that sighted folks like. By this, I am especially meaning
> totally blind folks. Now, please don't any of you get offended because
> that is not what I want to do. I think we are getting into the area
> where sighted assistance is needed. That being said, I think we should
> understand how pages are made and what makes a good page. I know at my
> work we have templates because they need a uniform look and feel.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfb-web-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-web-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Gary Wunder
> Sent: Friday, March 06, 2009 7:51 AM
> To: NFB Webmaster's List
> Subject: Re: [Nfb-web] NFB-WEB Sandbox
>
> I am a programmer but I know for a fact that programming concepts are
> sometimes hard to get offered from a sighted perspective - how does a
> blind person really do Object Oriented Programming and layout a good
> Graphical
>
> User Interface. I think we have a good idea here. I don't think it is a
> national Youth Slam offering but I think there are many of us who could
> benefit here. Not only is the instruction helpful, but some of us would
> benefit from the structure of promising to read pages X through Y by
> date Z.
>
> Gary
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Arnold Bailey" <arnoldbail at gmail.com>
> To: "NFB Webmaster's List" <nfb-web at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2009 6:19 AM
> Subject: Re: [Nfb-web] NFB-WEB Sandbox
>
>
>> Mike.
>>
>> Thanks to Everett and yourself for the comments.
>>
>> My interest in Drupal is twofold.
>>
>> 1. Curiosity and to expand my knowledge.
>> 2. I have this vision of creating a platform to draw blind and
> visually
>> impaired students into investigating programming as a career. It
> would
>> be
>> great if it was at a national level; but, a chapter level is ok.
> With
>> 70%
>> unemployment in our community, there is obviously a great need. I
> must
>> admit, though, that, other than Peter D,, I've found zero support.
> But,
>> I
>> can't give up the vision without feeling I've let down a lot of
> kids.
>> The
>> Drupal development platform and learning support activities that it
>> requires, I think, is a great learning mechanism.
>>
>> Arnold
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 11:28 AM, Michael Hansen <mhansen4 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Arnold,
>>>
>>> Everett is correct. My thought on the matter would be how much do you
>>> want the ISP to take care of versus how much are you the Admin
> willing
>>> to take care of?
>>>
>>> Mike
>>> ---
>>> Mike Hansen
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 9:20 AM, E.J. Zufelt <everett at zufelt.ca>
> wrote:
>>> > Good morning,
>>> >
>>> > If the ISP supports mysQL and PHP it takes about 20 minutes to
> install
>>> > Drupal for a hosting account.
>>> >
>>> > HTH,
>>> > Everett
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > On 4-Mar-09, at 8:37 AM, Arnold Bailey wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> Mike,
>>> >>
>>> >> Very nice work. I did notice that in firefox the navigation side
> bar
>>> >> is
>>> >> located into the center of the webmasters sandbox page. In IE it's
>
>>> >> fine.
>>> >>
>>> >> One question I have. Is there any thoughts given to affiliate and
>>> chapters
>>> >> usage of drupal? It seems like it would make sense for the
> affiliate
>>> >> and
>>> >> chapters to pull a drupal theme and NFB applications and use them
> on
>>> their
>>> >> site, The problem is that drupal is not usually found on most
> ISPs. I
>>> >> would
>>> >> think that a single ISP that has drupal support would be cost
>>> effectively
>>> >> justified.
>>> >>
>>> >> Arnold
>>> >>
>>> >> On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 11:38 PM, Michael Hansen
> <mhansen4 at gmail.com>
>>> >> wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >>> The Sandbox is now up and running on our website. If you want to
> play
>>> >>> around with a drupal install and not have to worry about breaking
>>> >>> something there is one there for you. If you want to experiment
> with
>>> >>> other things just create a sub directory off of the root and dorp
> in
>>> >>> your code. Complete login information is posted on our website.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Let me know if you have questions.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Mike
>>> >>> ---
>>> >>> Mike Hansen
>>> >>>
>>> >>> _______________________________________________
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>>> >>>
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>>> >
>>> >
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