Mount Anthony
primarycare

FAST TOOLS TO ACCESS THE WEB
FOR PEOPLE AND COMPUTERS
OF ALL ABILITIES

Contents of This Page

|Tools_for_Web_SURFERS|  |Tools_for_Web_AUTHORS|

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SoVerNet Web Services

Many of the current popular web browsers (viz, Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer) are slow due to their size and memory requirements (often called "bloat-ware"). Many of these popular browsers will use some of their own proprietary hypertext markup language (or HTML, the language of the World Wide Web) that will work on their own brand of browser, but not others. This destroys the original ideal of the World Wide Web as being universally accessible through one standard HTML. And most of these popular brands of browsers will not work with adaptive software and devices that assist people with disabilities (eg, enhanced fonts for people with low vision, text-to-speech tools for the blind, and the ability to use simple keyboard commands for people lackihg the dexterity to use a mouse).

We have tried to buck this trend by making our web site accessible to all browsers by following standard, non-proprietary HTML, and making this site easily readable by any browser, whether text-based or graphical. In addition to making our office physically accessible to handicapped persons, we desire to make our web site similarly accessible. If you ARE having trouble accessing and reading our site through your browser, please let us know by sending a message to our WebMaster at WebMaster@MtAnthony-PrimaryCare.com

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TOOLS FOR SURFERS (USERS)

1. access.adobe.com  This web site provides tools and information to help make Adobe PDF files accessible to users with visual disabilities.
2. BLINUX  Improves the usability of the Linux operating system for the user who is blind. Information also provided in Japanese.
3. BLYNX  Lynx support files tailored for the blind and visually handicapped.
4. Galaxy.  Gopher space is the text-based menu-driven precursor to the graphical and hypertext-based World Wide Web, and telnet was the standard way of making a text-only connection with another server on the internet. Because they are text-based, both gopher and telnet are more compatible with text-to-speech interfaces than Lynx. But because gopher space is fast being replaced by the World Wide Web, beware that many gopher sites are no longer being maintained and may be out of date. Galaxy is an internet search site that still maintains many links to gopher menus and gopher search engines. Besides their home page, also check out:
   • Galaxy - Medicine
   • Gopher (Information Retrieval and Categorization)
   • Gopher and Hytelnet (Internet Navigation Aids)
   • Gopher Jewels
5. Interfree FrameFree Service  A web service for users of non-frames capable browsers to view framed sites.
6. Lynx Information  Lynx is a text-based browser for the World Wide Web that is fast and is useful for people of ALL abilities and disabilities. Interfaces well with text-to-speech tools (see BLYNX above).
7. Lynx Links  "ExtremelyLynx", this site provides links to just about anything that has to do with Lynx.
8. Opera Software  Opera is a graphical frames-capable web browser that "brings speed and fun back into Internet browsing: Small, fast, customizable, powerful but user-friendly, it takes the wait out of the Internet, reduces your online charges and does what the others tried in vain: it puts a big smile on your face." It runs well on older, smaller and slower computers, as well as newer, bigger, faster ones. Opera adheres to the HTML standards, and does not use special proprietary extensions (as MIE and Netscape do). Support and/or versions also available in Afrikaans, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish (both Latin American as well as European versions) and Swedish.
9. Opera Software - Special Needs  Sources of information for users with disabilities. Opera has many features that make it the preferred choice for people with different types of physical and visual handicaps. Features include optional keyboard navigation, customizable interface, zoom function for both text and graphics, sound feedback, link presentation control, and others.
10. Viewable With Any Browser Campaign for a NON-Browser Specific WWW. Alternate language translations available. They also produce an Accessible Site Design Guide.

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TOOLS FOR WEB AUTHORS

If you design web pages and are interested in making your pages viewable by any browser, and friendly to people with disabilities, as well as to non-disabled people with older slower computers, these resources will also help you: For beginning authors who want to do a minimal amount of reading to get started, yet want to "do it right the first time", I highly recommend these resources described below as a basic starter kit:

1. A Beginner's Guide to HTML
2. HTML-Kit
3. Accessible Site Design Guide
4. Mech's HTML TipSheet
5. Jakob Nielsen's "Top Ten Mistakes" series

1. A Beginner's Guide to HTML  From the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the original developers of Mosaic. Intended to be an introduction to using HTML and creating files for the Web. This basic guide for the newbie is sufficient to get you in business composing web pages that work!
2. W3C - The World Wide Consortium  Founded in 1994 to lead the the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability. W3C is an international industry consortium jointly hosted by the M.I.T. Laboratory of Computer Science in the U.S. and similar organizations in Europe and Japan. A list of current W3C Recommendations and other technical documents can be found at http://www.w3.org/TR/.
   • HyperText Markup Language Home Page  The definitive document on all versions of HTML. HTML is the method of composing content and structure for your web pages. The current HTML Specification version is 4.0 revised on 24-Apr-1998, which you are strongly encouraged to use. "In addition to the text, multimedia, and hyperlink features of the previous versions of HTML, HTML 4.0 supports more multimedia options, scripting languages, style sheets, better printing facilities, and documents that are more accessible to users with disabilities. HTML 4.0 also takes great strides towards the internationalization of documents, with the goal of making the Web truly World Wide."
   • HTML TIDY  Dave Raggett's free utility to fix HTML editing mistakes and tidy up sloppy editing into nicely layed out markup. It will also help you identify where you need to pay further attention on making your pages more accessible to people with disabilities.
   • HTML-Kit is a free graphical HTML text editor for users of Windows 95/98/NT. It will "help HTML authors to edit, format, lookup help, validate, preview and publish web pages. Beginners can benefit from letting it point out errors and suggest improvements to the code. Experts can save time spent on common tasks using the customizable and extensible editor while maintaining full control over the code."
     
   • Cascading Style Sheets  Links to a lot of resources on CSS. CSS is the method of composing the presentation of your web pages, including colors, fonts, graphics, backgrounds, borders and other "decorations" separate from content and structure. CSS is a highly superior and preferred method over using frames for presentation: Frames will confuse and crash many text-based and older browsers, and slows down the loading of web pages whereas CSS will not.
     • Cascading Style Sheets, Level 1  W3C Recommendation 17 Dec 1996, revised 11 Jan 1999. Gives the CSS-1 specifications.
     • Cascading Style Sheets, Level 2  W3C Recommendation 12 May 1998. Gives the CSS-2 specifications.
   • Amaya  If you prefer to not use a plain text editor to compose your web pages, Amaya is W3C's own graphical web page editor/browser tool with a WYSIWYG interface so you don't need to know HTML 4.0 or CSS. With Amaya you can download, edit and publish CSS style sheets as well as HTML pages. It also provides an efficient mechanism to test and associate external style sheets with HTML documents. The current version can be downloaded at no charge from their web site.
   • Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0  These guidelines explain how to make Web content accessible to people with disabilities. The guidelines are intended for all Web content developers (page authors and site designers) and for developrs of authoring tools. The primary goal of these guidelines is to promote accessibility. However, following them will also make Web content more available to all users, whatever user agent they are using (eg, desktop browser, voice browser, mobile phone, automobile-based personal computer, etc.) or constraints they may be operating under (eg, noisy surroundings, under- or over-illuminated rooms, in a hands-free environment, etc.). Following these guidelines will also help people find information on the Web more quickly. These guidelines do not discourage content developers from using images, video, etc., but rather explain how to make multimedia content more accessible to a wide audience. (Version 1.0 dated 5-May-1999.) As an appendix, W3C also provides a checklist of the guidelines organized by concept and priority.
3. Accessible Site Design Guide  Discusses issues in web page accessibility and how to make your page as accessible as possible. Provided by the Viewable with Any Browser Campaign.
4. Stanton McCandlish, webmaster of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has produced two useful documents:
   • Mech's HTML TipSheet  "How to Make Your Web Offerings Useful to the Most Visitors" and
   • Mech's HTML Table Design  "Designing HTML Tables to Work with HTML 2.0 Browsers".
5. Any Browser Table Format  Guidelines to produce a table that will be readable in any browser, whether or not it supports tables, by Charles Stelding.
6. Jakob Nielsen  has been called "The guru of web page usability" by the New York Times. He publishes The Alertbox,  a biweekley column on current issues in web usability. Read his classic May 1996 article Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design  which details common mistakes made in web design that diminish the usability of a web site.   And then read the following updates:
   • "Top Ten Mistakes" Revisited Three Years Later and also
   • The Top Ten New Mistakes of Web Design which describes new technology and new applications for the Web that have introduced an entirely new class of mistakes.
   • Effective Use of Style Sheets promotes cascading style sheets (CSS) as an elegantly designed extension to the Web and one of the greatest hopes for recapturing the Web's ideal of separation of presentation and content. This article also has a side-bar on Style Sheets vs. Frames as Web Extensions.
   • Ten Good Deeds in Web Design  After learing about what NOT to do, this will help you learn what TO do.
   He also published in January 2000 one of the nation's bestsellers on web page design: Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity. Check out Mr Nielsen's own web site for more details about the book and links to sites where you can purchase the book at a discount.

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The URL for this page is http://www.mtanthony-primarycare.com/access.htm.
It was written by Gregory King, MD and last updated on
Friday 18 May 2001.
Our WebMaster at webmaster@mtanthony-primarycare.com welcomes your comments.
© 2001 Mount Anthony Primary Care