Alex Harries's diary

I know I should be doing coursework, but while doing some research on the BBC's Access 2.0 accessibility blog for my final year embarrassment project, I realised that the alternative high-contrast stylesheets I put together to provide a text-only version of the UPSU.net homepage could be very easily rolled out to all the other pages on UPSU.net with a couple of simple code changes.

So, now, if you're a Firefox (or similar browser) user, you can change the stylesheets on-the-fly by going to the "View" menu, and choosing a different page style - 2 or 3. Layout 2 - light text on black - is designed to be easier for partially-sighted and dyslexic visitors to use, while style 3 - dark on white - should make also make viewing easier for visitors with certain requirements.

Naturally, this isn't a complete solution to our commitments to providing greater accessibility on UPSU.net, but it's a short step from here to enabling every page to respect the settings of the homepage's high-contrast choices, and also to allow visitors to choose a different level of accessibility as they browse around the site.

One day, maybe, I'd love to see UPSU.net making use of the accessibility features the BBC are trialling on their homepage layout customisation tool.

As always, I'm keen to hear feedback from everyone who visits the site, although I'd much prefer to read the reasoned and well thought-out criticisms over the ranty, angry comments (but anything's better than the tumbleweed of a quiet blog... ;o), so please let me know your thoughts on accessibility, or UPSU.net in general.

/al - I need to get out just a teeeeeny bit more.... 

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The dark text on white high contrast layout, just makes everything really hard to read!

Dogsbody - Thu, 26 Apr 2007

 

 

Oh! Bugger...

Alex Harries - Fri, 27 Apr 2007

 

 

Actually dogsbody, I agree with your comment about colours (at least yellow links on white text). I've dropped them back to the more standard blue/purple (visited) with a yellow/black high contrast hover style. 
 
Let me know how you get on now :o) 
 
/al

Alex Harries - Fri, 27 Apr 2007

 

 

dogsbody - I've spotted that the blogs aren't displaying the dark text/white background styles properly. This will need a bit more investigation, I think. Maybe a Firefox problem? Ok, more than likely my mistake ;o)

Alex Harries - Fri, 27 Apr 2007