How to Increase Your Audience Through Accessibility

Allison Sheridan NosillaCast Mac Podcast http://podfeet.com Twitter @podfeet

Write This Down slideshare.net/nosillacast Pencils Down.

Why Does Allison Do This? Follow My Leader by James Garﬁed Mom Because it’s fun

What Problem are We Trying to Solve?

What Problem are We Trying to Solve? I want more listeners

What Problem are We Trying to Solve? I want more listeners I want more readers

What Problem are We Trying to Solve? I want more listeners I want more readers I want a bigger audience

How Have You Tried to Increase Your Audience?

How Have You Tried to Increase Your Audience? Redesigning Your Website

How Have You Tried to Increase Your Audience? Redesigning Giveaways Your Website

How Have You Tried to Increase Your Audience? Redesigning Giveaways Your Website Link Swapping

How Have You Tried to Increase Your Audience? Redesigning Giveaways Your Website Link Spamming Swapping Message

How Have You Tried to Increase Your Audience? Redesigning Giveaways Your Website Link Spamming Swapping Message Search Engine Optimization

How Have You Tried to Increase Your Audience? Redesigning Giveaways Your Website Link Spamming Swapping Message Search Engine Optimization ... Even Creating Better Content

314 million people worldwide are Visually Impaired

314 million people worldwide are Visually Impaired 278 million people have moderate to profound Hearing Impairment

314 million people worldwide are Visually Impaired 278 million people have moderate to profound Hearing Impairment More people than are on

How do I get a piece of that action?

Podcasting Tips

Podcasting Think about what Audio (and Video) Podcasting has done for the blind! The world opened up for them - all subjects are accessible to them now If you only blog, maybe consider an audio version of your thoughts A lot more work but HUGE reward Format matters MP3 instead of, or including AAC Header size in XML even matters

Podcasting Think about what Audio (and Video) Podcasting has done for the blind! The world opened up for them - all subjects are accessible to them now If you only blog, maybe consider an audio version of your thoughts A lot more work but HUGE reward Format matters MP3 instead of, or including AAC Header size in XML even matters Not 6000x600 dpi

Podcast Script Audio Podcasts are great for the blind, but what about the deaf? If you use a script - PUBLISH it! But then people won’t listen?

Consider a Transcription Service Might only be practical for businesses $36-45/hour of audio (more if you want it quickly) speakertext.com will transcribe videos ($2/min)

Do It Yourself Transcription Free Express Scribe Transcription Playback Software http://www.nch.com.au/scribe/index.html Helps you slow down/speed up audio so you can type it yourself Link with ($180) Dragon Naturally Speaking or Dragon Dictate http://nuance.com to transcribe automatically Buy $149 MacSpeech Scribe from http://nuance.com “MacSpeech Scribe is versatile; it easily allows transcription from spoken-word audio recordings made on Mac, iPhone and digital recorders, and supports a variety of audio file formats, including .wav, .aif, .aiff, .m4v, .mp4, and .m4a.” Note: I haven’t tried these!

Talk About Accessibility This sounds funny - just talk about it? Is the product or service you’re talking about accessible? (credit Dan Eckmeier) Are you telling your story in a way the blind can hear and the deaf can read? Be genuine - only do this if you believe it’s important

Blogging/Website Tips

Visual-Only CAPTCHAs (or how NOT to get a piece of that action) Visual-only CAPTCHA courtesy of reddit.com

Without a CAPTCHA, How do I Keep Spammers Off My Site? As a Web Designer, try reCAPTCHA Instead! Free from http://www.captcha.net/ Audio Option! Click to Play If you ﬁnd a visual-only CAPTCHA, write to the webmaster and tell them about reCAPTCHA

Alt-Tags Allow Screen Readers Describe Your Images Image Insertion window from Feeder (reinventedsoftware.com) When you insert an image, it should ALWAYS have an Alt-Tag This tells the blind reader what they’re “looking” at - because your image name is probably DCIM4076 <img src="http://podfeet.com/ <img alt="..."> NosillaCast/NC_2010_09_19/bab.png" alt="greyscale picture of baker bruce, beard, glasses, thoughtful expression" style="ﬂoat: left; margin: 5px;"/>

Heading Tags Allow Blind to Skip to Interesting Sections HTML heading tags look like <h3>This is Cool</h3> I used to do it wrong - used bold to show sections <em>This isn’t Cool</em> Screen readers can easily jump to these heading tags

Video Embed Problem Video can be interesting even for the blind Video embeds like from YouTube are problematic Screenreaders can’t ﬁnd the controls on embedded YouTube Videos Screenreaders CAN ﬁnd the controls on YouTube proper

Video Embed Solution Solution Courtesy of: Slau of Sessions With Slau Big Al Wagner of Home Studio Guru Insert tiny text that says something like “using a screenreader? click here” and link to the source video (e.g. YouTube)

What’s the Effect of All This?

A Few of My New Friends Scott Howell calls us “sightlings” Dan Eckmeier suggests making accessibility part of all reviews Slau of Sessions with Slau Darrell Shandrow of the Blind Access journal Susan Gerhart took me to Disability Expo Dr. Robert Carter & Jenny Axler of Tech Doctor Podcast Down a Blind Alley With Shane Jackson (who is an Apple Specialist) My Mom on the show

James from the UK Hello. it was good to read about Michael Gorman on your site. I am a new Mac user been a PC user for a great number of years. I come to such sites like this now and again I can’t hear Mp3 files but it’s great that you put a text version of the info on your site. As above Blind people are starting to really enjoy Mac’s because they are very accessible to us, But Not to just Blind people. I am a Deafblind iMac and Mac mini user and I am very Pleased with apples OS Because with Leopard and its Braille display support us Deafblind people can USE a Mac for the first Time. I have always wished to buy a mac but because there was no real Braille support I could not buy one. But with buying my first Mac an iMac within three weeks I bought a Mac mini for beside my bed so I could read e-mail and go on the net. and I hope to buy one of the new version of the mac mini when or if it comes out next year, That how much I like them. So I am a very very happy Mac user there are not that many Deafblind mac users out there and even fewer here in the UK. All the best to you. http://www.podfeet.com/wordpress/2008/10/26/175-california-council-for-the-blind-humanware-keytweak/

Link Bait ReCAPTCHA http://www.captcha.net/ Sessions With Slau http://sessionswithslau.com Big Al Wagner of Home Studio Guru http://homestudioguru.com Darrell Shandrow’s Blind Access Journal http://blindaccessjournal.com The Tech Doctor Podcast with Dr. Robert Carter & Jenny Axler http://www.dr-carter.com/

How to Increase Your Audience Through Accessibility

by Allison Sheridan on Oct 13, 2010

Accessibility

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How to Increase Your Audience Through Accessibility — Presentation Transcript