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Accessibility and DMusic. Screenreader issues.

JennyK	Date: June 10, 2009 @ 7:52 AM Facts to start with. I am a blind user. I use the Freedom Scientific Screenreader JAWS to access my computer. DMusic for the most part is accessible to me and others like me when sites like MySpace and YouTube as well as Facebook are not. That is the reason I am still here. I love DM and I would like to make it even better for those like me. Web accessibility is a huge can of worms that I can\'t even start to dig through all by myself but I will try to do what I can for the things that matter to me personally. With this I\'m hoping the coders will read and perhaps hear me out with these things. See following replies for specific problems.
JennyK	Date: June 10, 2009 @ 7:53 AM I'll start with something very simple but extremely annoying: Problem No 1: The TAB order on the user page is wrong. When typing a shout one should be able to tab to the shout button. This do not happen. When tabbing you end up at the top of the page and you have to navigate back to the shout button. This is of course not a big problem when using a m ouse but it is something of a problem for me.
JennyK	Date: June 10, 2009 @ 8:27 AM Problem No 2 Inconsistancies in navigation tags. Facts: When using a screenreader I listen to the text through synthesised speech. That means that when the proper tags are missing I need to scroll down through all text on the page thus I have to listen to each link, each button, each piece of text to eventually find what I'm after. I can also push Ctrl F to search for what I know is there by visiting the page earlier. Annoying you think? DMusic do not use headers in the code so each new page I have to scroll or search. This can be very frustrating and it often causes me to leave the site without listening to what I wanted to hear in the first place. I need headers to navigate between different areas of the page. Lets start with the user page. Each main area on the user page i.e The menu consisting of: home \| help \| and subscribe \| should start with a header. Next header should be at the list that starts with: Music News and Forum Next header should be at the list starting with: overview profile and images Next should be at the start of: User Profile. Next one should be at the Blog Then the Shoutbox, the Buddy list, and whatever may appear between theBuddy list and the copyright notice. If those headers were present I would have a much nicer time roaming DMusic and shout people left right and centre. I know this bores you but that's okay. And really, why do apostrophes not work?
JennyK	Date: June 10, 2009 @ 8:40 AM Oh, I almost forgot why I decided to start this witch hunt. Problem No 3: The Voting booth is totally messed up for me. Sometimes I dont even know which radio button goes with which statement. Today it seems like there is one radio button missing for the last option. When voting it has always been hard for me to figure out where to click and I never know if I actually got the selection right. Now that is some coding I cannot translate into a specific problem. I can only suggest changing the radiobutton form into one with checkboxes instead.
JennyK	Date: June 10, 2009 @ 9:27 AM Problem No 4: This is what I hear in the file manager: "Graphic Flashplayer Graphic Flashplayer " After testing I realize that the second one is for the podCasting but it would be great if they could be relabeled.
JennyK	Date: June 10, 2009 @ 10:07 AM On to the Music Page Navigation. This is the major frustration when wanting to just go and listen to a tune or two. Needed Headers beyond the menu headers mentioned above: On the Overview Page: Headings needed (Below the Spacer.gif)at: The list starting with overview and bio. Next should be at the Artist Snapshot. After the image there is a header level 2 which is just right but one of few on DM. Next should be at Members. Then we have the flash player(s) which should have a headline header I suppose. Next should be at the Notes. and You might also like. Then comes the important part in my opinion: Recent Music. First of all each Song should have a header at the title. (If we're talking about the music folders, each Album should be a level 1 or 2 header while the tracks should be a level lower At the moment folders have anchor tags as does shoutbox and buddy list in some places. Not consistently though and that is a problem.) What is after the music... hmmm... Ok, the search and Artist Admin. I rarely roam the part below that because there is no quick way to just check out this part and then go back to the music. What is there that I am missing then? Featured song, The artists favorite sites, DMusic Radio, events and Upcoming. It is bothersome and it is that simple. If the headers were there I would as that is the way I usually explore sites. If a coder tells me that this portion is important enough to have a headline then I will give it a little bit more of my time.......
ChillinBuzz	Date: June 10, 2009 @ 4:25 PM yikes... didn't realise the issue was this bad for you Jen.
miraclemaker	Date: June 10, 2009 @ 5:08 PM perhaps LT could do something about this... maybe would be cool.
JennyK	Date: June 11, 2009 @ 12:21 PM I'm hoping some people might get a little bit more understanding when I spell it out like this. I can be areal biach if it serves a purpose. I'll add problems here as I come across them. I believe I've made my point about the navigation.... All pages have the same problem so I won't go into detail about the headers unless someone asks my opinion. I would really like to be able to strongly recommend DM to music friends in the blind community. As it is now I dont feel that ai can do that.
JennyK	Date: July 12, 2009 @ 6:27 PM Just adding here that the damn search in the forums is quite useless. Got little to do with accessibility but I just wanted to complain some more here.
victorsskull	Date: July 12, 2009 @ 11:33 PM we need more coders
JennyK	Date: July 14, 2009 @ 6:59 AM Hm... yeah. But adding games and chat and flashy stuff like that dont take coders time? Or is it just that those things are more interesting and rewarding to work on. cynical skewed smile emot here.
zedsalt	Date: July 14, 2009 @ 9:48 AM I would think that accessability would be considered one of those "core functionality" issues. That's why it's a bit of a shock to hear that the big social networking sites don't do well in that arena. To quote the Southpark kids, "That's pretty fked up right there". Hmm, I wonder what the screenreader does with things like "fked up"...
Distilled1	Date: July 14, 2009 @ 11:46 AM Jenny When you say header, are you saying in the page code it self you need a header for each box so lets say in artist over view you need one for the top navigation one for the tabs navigation then as well one in each box that is on the page like Artist snapshot has the band /artist name in a header tag? so each them would have a header tag like recent music (are the songs listed as a header? ) so that you can TAB to each header ? am I on he right track? the flash player would need a header tag saying flash media player? and since it is a screen reader these would need to be on screen not just in the code correct? If yo could maybe point me to a bulky site that you can navigate well that I can go take a look at to get an idea of what works well. or even if one page here works well for you. I will certainly start adding some mark up for you in the development site. please feel free to keep posting anything here or if you like you can send more detail to me in a note or to distilled1@dmusic.com on a aside note the forum search is pretty useless for me as well and I hope to sooner rather than later talk the powers that be into exploring completely re building them/ changing to a better format or something.
JennyK	Date: July 14, 2009 @ 8:07 PM Zed; the screen reader has no moral values or censorship built in! That is a good thing... I think. ahaha. Wow.. Actually, it is hard to explain just like that but you are on the right track although the screen reader doesn't really read the screen. I can build a website in pure black on black and I won't have a problem. I'll just tell sighted people; Oh, L aDi Daaa, it sucks to be you! Seriously though, headers.. i.e text doesn't necessarily affect the screen at all unless the style sheet is poorly written. To explain just quickly in here; The headers can be found by simply hitting the letter h on the keyboard, thus I can go from song title to song title for example without having to listen to what is in between, like the description, lofi, hifi, download, info, comments etc etc. The tab order is something totally different though as I can tab between all elements on the screen and is to little use in places other than form fields and attached buttons. It's only a bit of logic if you think about it. In a newspaper, the eyes catch the huge text first, decides if it seems interesting. If so, read the slightly smaller text. Or go directly to the next huge text on the page. When I'm on a site I hear the first big piece of text but after that I'm pretty much lost and have no idea what I should be looking for unless the coder has attached tags by some sort of priority that is not so different from a news paper layout. . I will hunt down some good, or really bad, example sites and note you for sure. My own site is really simple but has all the navigation tags I need. http://jennyk.net Bulky sites are the worst so I will find one for you. Any help I can be in this would be my pleasure as I don't think it's really that much that would need to be done. I shouldn't say that as I really don't know. I've seen some of DMs code and...
JennyK	Date: July 14, 2009 @ 8:11 PM ok, the level 1 header as I added above with little luck is of course less than h1 greater than text less than / h1 greater than.
Distilled1	Date: July 14, 2009 @ 8:29 PM Please do let me know and I will start trying to make sure all the style sheets have header tags. so basically each area of the page where we have it set out in tables for the most part (like a newspaper). With a header tag at each would allow you to hear each description of the table contents easier than trying to find something. what about things like alt text for images? (I know these are sporadic at the most here) For sure I would love your help making the site as close to 100% accessible as we can with out breaking things
JennyK	Date: July 14, 2009 @ 10:11 PM Absolutely right. That would make it a hundred times faster to navigate if those headers are at logical places. To make sure it's consistent is probably the big job. Once you get used to the fact that headers will guide you through a site you stop scanning the rest of the page for interesting stuff but you start to trust that you are taken to the start of each interesting section. Alt text.. There is very little problem with that on DM actually. There's rarely a link or image on DM that says for example: graphic promo42-misc/pics/halfface3_qsfr.bmp There are a few exceptions where the links are just weird.. Hmm.. The services page is one. If you want I can specify exactly where those are. I come across that far too often on so called professional web sites. The only graphics that annoy me are the links for the hifi lofi streams etc. There's a blue something image on each one. Would be nicer if they were alt labeled simply as LoFi and HiFi etc. I have labeled those graphics in my screen reader so I don't get annoyed so much anymore.
JennyK	Date: July 14, 2009 @ 10:30 PM Ok, these here are just small annoyances and not a big deal On the services page, this is what I hear: "link graphic blues/service_hosting link graphic blues/service_legal link graphic blues/service_design link graphic blues/service_production It can get a bit tedious after hearing that a few times.:tired:
JennyK	Date: April 6, 2011 @ 8:26 AM This thread has been dorment for a while and I just wanted to update a tiny bit. Some things seem to be better and some are worse. The worst problem now is one I thought couldn't happen but alas; I have no download or info links on music pages, no delete/remove buttons or links in the watchlist, The user-created user-icons will not show me more than blank space. Sounds something like this for me: "Here's a song by the amazing and her band mate . Listen here to the vox of ." Huh? Who? there are still no headers anywhere. Hmm. The blind bitch has awakened.
JennyK	Date: April 8, 2011 @ 7:44 AM A small demo of one of the problems. I realize it's hard to understand when I say there's a problem... "But the button is right there!!!!???? Listen to this and you might understand what I'm saying sometimes . DMusic accessibility demonstration
JennyK	Date: April 13, 2011 @ 6:48 AM

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