Librarian in Black Blog – Sarah Houghton

WebAIM conducted a survey over the past year or so to determine the usability preferences of people who use screen readers to view the web.  In other words, how do they like pages to be laid out?  What works and what doesn't?  What functionality works best?  What sites are really horrible and which ones work great?  The basic conclusion is that there is no general trend among users with screen readers, and a good response from screen-reader-users can only be achieved by following good usability practices and giving people options. 

I found it interesting that some very popular sites received poor marks from our screen-reader-users, including Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace.  The other trend that I noticed was a consistent bashing of the use of Flash on websites.  I agree wholeheartedly, though for different reasons.  So many people don't realize how hard it is to use Flash effectively on a website and still make it accessible.  Most people don't even try, which results in frustration and irritation on the part of anyone using an alternative device (including mobile devices) to access the website in question.  Sarah's conclusion?  Same as theirs.  Use good usability practices…always.