I’m working with a new client who is blind. One of his goals is to have a website/blog that he can manage primarily on his own. He uses a screen reader to get around online, but it’s not compatible with all websites. I’d like to set him up with Wordpress/Thesis, and will do a test run on a dummy blog before going to the time/expense of setting his blog up. But, I’m curious though if anyone else has any experience with this or any other blogging platform.

Any suggestions or pointers would be appreciated.

Thanks!

A dummy blog is a good way to start, as then you can have him test if he can get around the site on his own. 

W3C(http://www.w3.org/) has created new standards to make websites accessible and most of it is just setting your alt descriptions to be more then just “click  here”.  I think all programers should become familiar with this as it makes all web sites more accessible and less of an issue for people with different sorts of screen readers.

For those of you creating blogs that you want to have accessible, the most important thing is that there are no cues for screen readers to go from one post to the other if you just have them all in a row.  The solution that seems to work is to have the title of the blog post and a two line descriptor and then to read the entire post, the person would have to click on it.  This ensures that a person using a screen reader is not forced to listen to several complete blog posts before finding the one they are interested in. 

Wordpress is supposed to have an “accessible” template, but unfortunately, I do not have any direct experience with that.  This site http://georgiatechcatea.wordpress.com/category/blogging/ has a list of sites that produce accessible blogs (if you scroll down past the post about accessible calenders – which shows my point in the previous paragraph)

The American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) has a great tips site on accessible blogs http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=4&TopicID=167&DocumentID=2757 

I hope all this information helps.

@theresekopiwoda

Therese,

What a wonderful project!

I wish I had some advice for you, but since I don’t, please keep us posted on your progress!

@warrenveach I sure will. In fact, I’ll probably do some blog posts about it as time goes on.