I know there are voice programs and such for people who are blind and disabled, but still want to use a computer.
How in the world, would one browse a message board such as SD with such type of means? Wouldn’t the computer have to “read aloud” every thread title on a page and so on? It sounds terribly time consuming.
Do we have any blind Dopers? Maybe one can tell us how such a thing works.
I first met a very dear high school friend, who was blind, through a local BBS. Her computer read every line of text aloud to her. When I tried to use her computer once I found it extremely annoying and had to disable the voice option. It was slow and tedious, and my friend occasionally had problems such as distinguishing between / and \ when coding, but she got by. She actually did better in chat rooms than on message boards, as there was less text at a time.
Very interesting, Lamia 
Welcome to the world of ADA-compliant web design. 
It’s a major issue for colleges to make sure their web pages can be read by people with screen readers. This means no javascripts, limited use of frames, no links that say “click here,” alt tags for any graphics, and much more.
It’s actually not all that hard, but you need to concentrate on content instead of flash bells and whistles.
The issue you mention is a big one. For a BBS, people using screen readers do need to go through all the topics, and it’s an inconvenience. But it doesn’t make it impossible, so it could be considered OK.
Now screen readers tend to let you skip from link to link, so that would help. On other pages, you can do various tricks (like a one-pixel-by-one-pixel graphic with the alt tag “Skip menu”) to make it easier.
You can find information and guidelines at http://www.cast.org.
Thanks, RealityChuck. Insightful
Voice-compliant websites are also likely to become more popular as telephony portals become more prevalent, using technologies like VoiceXML.
– CH
You don’t need voice software to browse the web if you are blind. You can use any text-oriented browser, i.e., Lynx. Blind people make up a significant fraction of the Lynx user community and are always suggesting improvements. Yes, you can do text-to-voice addons to Lynx but there are also devices such as Braille output devices.
Making a web site accessible is a standard requirement of all Good Web Site Developers. GWSD make up less than 0.001%[1] of all web site developers. I have heard unbelievable crude things said when I have pointed out to a web designer how his/her pages are not accessible. :mad:
[1] Take a look at the “improvements” the SDMB has recently undergone. Case study in how not to do User Interfaces right. Giving people a lot of choices for colors on web pages is never good.
Also depends on how blind you are. I have worked with several people who are legally blind and use a white cane etc but can still make out some things.
These people used a special computer with a very large screen. The text on the screen is expanded until every letter is several inches high and they read with their faces almost pressed to the glass.
It’s still a slow process and obviously not useful to anyone who is completely blind.
[http://dusers.drexel.edu/~stjohn/mac-lowvision.html](An old, but handy link from an almost blind person.)