Sub sections:
Web
Writing style for web pages
Concise writing style
As the screen reader reads through the text starting at the top, it is good to rethink web material and write introductory sentences at the top of pages and sections. A more concise writing style is always recommended for Web.
Punctuation
Screen readers will read punctuation. Although this can be turned off, a more formal writing style will work better, for example "it's awkward" will read as "it-apostrophe-s awkward" which is not as clear as "it is excellent".
Navigating
All navigation must be clear, even for the well sighted.Graphic next and previous buttons look good but without clear ALT attributes in the IMG tags or text alternatives they are little help to those with a screen reader.
A screen reader does just that, reads only the text on the screen so if the head of your page has a lot of graphics and menu items it can take a while to read through them.When producing a series of pages, a consistent link at the top to an ANCHOR tag at the start of the content can save frustration.
Linking from the text is done frequently on many pages where further information is available on a specific topic. It is one of the best features of the Web but can also interrupt the flow of the text, especially for a screen reader. Try to minimise the number of links directly from your text, or rewrite the text so that the links are at the end of the paragraph or topic and check that the wording of each link is clear.
HTML tags
Image tag
Images get special attention - we take them for granted on the Web; they convey a large amount of information very quickly but for a low vision user much of this information is not available. Use the ALT attribute in all IMG tags. Be descriptive, so if the image is a link the attribute value should indicate "link to home page" rather than just "home", "button" or "logo". If the image conveys no information at all, like a spacer or decoration, its ALT tag can be equally brief, for example, ALT="" is better than trying to describe nothing. Also include a short description of the image and a link to a fuller description where needed, for example, a logo might have the ALT attribute value of "UNE logo" and a LONGDESC attribute which links to the web page "logo_desc.htm" where the logo is described in detail in a plain text page.
Tables
Tables are used as part of the visual design of the page, for presenting data and for separating blocks of text or sections of the page. Screen readers can be configured to read tables in different ways, such as reading down each column rather than reading across each line but the user needs to know what the table contains so they can make the adjustments. Use the SUMMARY attribute in every TABLE tag to inform the user how to handle the information, for example, SUMMARY="data comparison in 3 columns". Browsers will ignore the SUMMARY attribute when drawing the screen so it is invisible. Use the table heading tag TH for the column headers in data tables - the screen reader can then differentiate these cells; most browsers will render this text in bold and centred within the table cell. If this is not desired it should be changed in the stylesheet or with a local STYLE tag. Tables that separate text from menu items and other content should indicate this to avoid the screen reader mixing up the text, for example, SUMMARY="layout table of 2 columns for menu links and content".
Forms
Online forms are a specific area where the connection between a text element (the field label) and another HTML item (the form field) is very important. Make sure that the field label appears immediately before and on the same line as the form field. Using tables to space the elements is recommended.
Sample HTML reader
The following link will read the text of a web page in a similar way to a screen reader and will show some potential problems. Paste a url into the form to read any page within the UNE network. You will quickly be able to see how the page looks without graphics, colour or formatted text while still retaining text spacing from tables.
Note that this link will not show the same result as a screen reader, it is included simply to alert web page writers to possible problems.
Further information can be found in many of the web links included in the Resources section.