Accessibility Question: WordPress.com using braille readers
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Hi,
‘m a WordPress developer, but recently a prospective client on a budget asked me if I could help her get started with WordPress.com.
She’s an anthropologist who works with the deaf/blind community and would like create a site that can be accessed through braille readers. My question is, how well does WordPress.com support braille readers?
I see that there are a few projects available for self-hosted installations that add braille support through plugins and server-side software (http://wordpress.org/plugins/braille).
And I also see that JAWS supports braille readers, but my question is does JAWS automatically parse HTML pages in braille, much in the same way as it does for audio screen reading, or is there additional integration work that needs to take place?
As someone unfamiliar with braille readers and accessibility for deaf/blind users, I appreciate any insight that you may be able to give.
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I’ll tag this thread for a Staff response. Please subscribe to the thread so you are notified when they respond and please be patient while waiting.
P.S. I do know that everything on the screen can be read aloud by a program called JAWS but that’s all I know. http://www.freedomscientific.com/products/fs/jaws-product-page.asp
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Thank you for the follow-up.
Based on Staff’s response to this question, I’ll let my client know. She’ll likely opt for an upgraded account to take advantage of the customization features.
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Will you please post the response from Staff here so we can all know how to reply to this question when asked in the future? Another blogger is also waiting for the answer here https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/a-wordpresscom-desktop-app?replies=2
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You pose a really great question that I can’t answer immediately.
As I just replied to another user about accessibility issues ( https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/a-wordpresscom-desktop-app?replies=3#post-1556502 ), we do want WordPress.com to be accessible to all users, but it’s a constant iterative process as we are always rolling out new features. We also welcome members of the community who want to help us improve accessibility for WordPress, for both the self-hosted version at WordPress.org and the version we host here on WordPress.com, and document the project at http://make.wordpress.org/accessibility/
If your client would like to try WordPress.com, a basic site here is free, with upgrades for certain additional features. If you are both willing to give it a shot, I’d love to work with you more and find out just how accessible WordPress.com is on a Braille reader.
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@jackiedana
Thanks so much for responding to this thread and the other accessibility thread too. -
@timethief, you’re welcome. Accessibility is an important issue for all websites, and I’m always happy to have conversations about it, even if sometimes the issue isn’t easily resolved.
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@jackiedana
Thank you for your response. Since my client is basing her research around the deaf/blind community, it’s imperative for her that her site supports braille reader compatibility. I’m also very interested in this issue since it seems like an interesting challenge from a design/development standpoint.I see some initiatives from MITH: http://mith.umd.edu/future-accessibility-braillesc-org-braillerise/
but it’s not completely a standalone plugin solution, it looks like it requires an additional self, or cloud hosted serverside script that does the braille translation.http://wordpress.org/plugins/braille/
http://mith.umd.edu/wp-content/uploads/DH2013Poster_BrailleSC.pdfUnfortunately, for my client I think that the cost may be too prohibitive for hosting on a VPS or contracting Amazon EC2 service.
@jackiedana we could also continue this conversation via email. I can talk to my client to see if she would like to trial something on WP.com.
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