The document discusses access and accessibility for disabled persons, particularly those who are blind or have low vision. It provides examples of accessibility issues and solutions when working with documents, software, and websites. Key points emphasized are the importance of focusing on providing access to information rather than just accessible file formats, and involving disabled users when testing accessibility.

1. Access and Accessibility
Jonathan Fine
Retired from Open University, UK
Sunday 24 July 2022
jfine2358@gmail.com
https://jfine2358.github.io

2. The Chafee Amendment
This 1996 amendment to US copyright law
allows authorized entities to render existing
works “in accessible formats exclusively for
use by print-disabled persons”.
This gives print-disabled persons additional
rights, to promote the social good of equality
of access.
In particular it promotes access to
information for persons with disabilities.

3. Producer experience
Here’s a hierarchy of producer statements.
I Accessibility is very important to us.
I We have an accessibility policy.
I We have an accessibility team.
I Our products are tested for accessibility.
I Our products are accessible.
But think:
I Do disabled persons use our products?
I How many? Equality of access?

4. User experience
As a verb access means enter a place. It also
means use or get a tool or thing.
I Is there wheelchair access?
I Can I use this product? Or am I denied?
I The computer says NO !?
I Does it work with screen-reader?
I Help! I can’t use a mouse.
Computer users want access to information
and services.

5. Access to information
Jonathan Godfrey is a blind Senior Lecturer
in Statistics in New Zealand. He writes
I’ve laboured the point that we need
access to information much more
than we need access to a specific file
format, and I’ll keep doing so.
Producing PDF (a file format) is our
strength. Providing access to information is
our Achilles heel. Be aware. Beware.

6. Meet the users
Here are two good places to meet users.
The Blind Math list is largely visually
impaired (VI) students and others in
education. This includes parents, teachers
and student support professionals.
The VI Programmers list is largely for VI
people learning to program or working in
coding. It’s also for sharing progress with
tools. It supports its members.

7. Case study: Tables and screen-readers
2022: 1 April to 28 June (paraphrased)
Jason White (JW): Use lwarp for conversion. L
A
TEX
markup for header cells in a table?
Ulrike Fischer (UF): Good question, hard to solve.
JF: Simple row header now OK? JW: Yes, not ideal.
JF: Start proof-of-concept for row header.
Alex Watson (AW) to Brian Dunn (BD)?
Is this lwarp patch OK?
AW, BD, JW: Testing and refinements.
BD: Lwarp v0.906 has been uploaded to CTAN.

8. Case study: TUG Conference Abstracts
2022: 21 July (paraphrased)
[Contributions from experienced TEX users.]
Why TeX source in TUG abstracts web page?
Several have reported this. It is being fixed.
As TEX users we’re used to reading TEX code.
And this is the best for blind TEX users.
I thought for blind HTML better than TEX source.
The TEX source would confuse [sighted] novices.
Improve the HTML or convert TEX source to PDF.

9. Case study: This slide in this presentation
Bare minimum is:
I Braille or screen-read access to current slide.
I Audio feed from person presenting.
Screen-read and audio feed compete for attention:
I User will switch focus from one to other.
I Each switch to one interrupts the other.
I Cost: Eye-ear < touch-ear < ear-ear.
For rough equality of access:
I Two accessible streams, of course.
I And what else is required?

10. Pretend you’re blind

11. A solution to slide access
Provide two streams
(the information).
And a focus switch navigator
(access to the information).
On a familiar platform
(such as web browser).

12. Case study: arXiv abstracts
Problem:
I Preprints on arxiv.org have an abstract.
I Most have TWO abstracts.
I One on the HTML page, one in the PDF.
I Often they don’t agree (eg user macros).
I Sometimes raw TEX source shows in HTML.
Solution (it’s 20-22, can’t we do this now):
I A triple view editor!
I Source, HTML, PDF views.
I Available as a web page.
I Ideally, part of arXiv submission process.

13. Compare access and accessible
Our documents, web site and
software are accessible.
People with disabilities read our
documents, access our service, use
our software.
One statement is thing-focussed, the
other is person-focussed.

14. Repeat: Access to information
Jonathan Godfrey is a blind Senior Lecturer
in Statistics in New Zealand. He writes
I’ve laboured the point that we need
access to information much more
than we need access to a specific file
format, and I’ll keep doing so.
Producing PDF (a file format) is our
strength. Providing access to information is
our Achilles heel. Be aware. Beware.

15. Jonathan Godfrey says
tools that aren’t right under people’s
noses or automatically applied in the
background just don’t get as much
traction [as tools that are]
Something has to change in the very
way people use LaTeX if we are ever
to get truly accessible pdf documents

16. THANK YOU