Thursday, July 28, 2011

Updates to PhillyCollector: Accessibility for Blind Readers

One important update long overdue is to make PhillyCollector blog accessible for blind readers. Yes, Virginia, there are blind doll collectors. Big smile. Hey collectors! At this time, blind readers cannot subscribe here due to the "Subscribe" image NOT having a text alternative. Text alternatives appear instead of photographs or graphics on a web site. They are GOOD because they allow a blind or sight-impaired (sorry, I cannot and will not type "sight challenged") viewer or someone who has turned off graphics (for faster web page loading) to "read" or to "hear" what is on the web page. I have been trying to insert text alternatives here. I have not had luck. So I have to investigate - probably best among the blogging set, rather than the collecting set - oh, thinking in terms of dolls and action figures again - I mean bloggers as opposed to collectors/enthusiasts as to how to make PhillyCollector more accessible.

So far, I have found these articles helpful:

http://www.unleashwebaccess.com/2011/02/help-blind-users-read-your-blog-help-everyone/

http://www.mainecite.org/awd/accdocs/article7.html

http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=57&TopicID=167&DocumentID=2757


However, if anyone uses the "alt image" HTML tag for his or her Blogger subscription link, please share your tips on how I could add it to a Blogger subscription link. My thanks in advance for any advice.