Anyone Designed a "Jaws" Compatible Web Site?

[mike breck]

My wife works for a Blind People Association. I have been asked to design a simple website.

It will be a simple series of text pages with links using Frontpage Express. Graphics to a minimum.

It has got to be very JAWS compatible.

"JAWS (Job Access With Speech) provides speech technology that works with your Windows 95/98/Me or Windows NT/2000 operating system to provide access to today's popular software applications and the Internet. JAWS uses an integrated voice synthesizer and your computer's sound card to output the content of your computer screen to speakers. JAWS also outputs to refreshable Braille displays. This technology provides access to a wide variety of information, education, and job related applications to over 60,000 users worldwide."

http://www.hj.com/JAWS/JAWS.html

Has anyone designed a website for the blind or partially-sighted before?

Has anyone know of any factors I should keep in mind to ensure maximum compatibilty with JAWS?

Any advice, experiences, tips, or links would be welcome.

Mike.

[Charliey]

Um, im not really sure how jaws works, but id say stay away from java text and anything with flash in it, just stick with plain text.

[glc]

The best thing to do is use a pure text-based browser such as Lynx to proof your work. I would personally do flat HTML pages, no frames, no tables, no java, no javascript, etc. and use descriptive ALT tags for all images. I actually had a blind person using JAWS proof my site for me - and he had some really good suggestions - use that avenue if you can on a test site.

[mike breck]

Thanks guys.

I have taken your advice on board.

glc - excellent suggestion about having someone proof it.

Mike.

[mike breck]

Another question.

My wife suggested it would be a good idea for partially-sighted vistors to be able to change the background colour of each page to suit their needs.

As it's going to be done in simple HTML, I thought a series of coloured words (e.g. Yellow, Blue, White etc) linked to each background jpeg or Gif would do the job.

Is there another or better way to do it?

[glc]

The easiest way would be to use NO background color at all - that way the background will be whatever color the user has set for default in their browser.

[mike breck]

Thanks again glc,

I'll discuss this with some of the potential users when I meet them.