Screen reader browser types

[MorganGreylock]

Does anyone know if when a vision-impaired user browses to a website, does the system log show that the browser type was a screen reader? In other words, when a screen reader is used, does it give a standard IE/Netscape/Mozilla browser type, or does it show something that could identify it as a screen reader?

Our administration is interested in making our site accessible, but not at the expense of functionality on our site... Instead they want to implement an on-the-fly accessibility aspect that will help people when they are identified as that type of user.

(The above opinions constitute a political view of an administration and is not my own person one, so please do not flame me!)

Thanks in advance,
MG

 

[Vragabond]

According to w3.org, you can specify different media type for your css. Try looking at the braille, embossed or speech media types.

<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="screen.css" media="all" />
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="braille.css" media="braille" />

This is how you would implement something like that.

 

[MichiganRon]

Ugh. What a job. Rather than creating separate pages for text browsers, it would probably be far easier to just make the minor modifications to your current pages. The majority of the changes simply involve adding "alt" tags to your images, which they should already have anyway. Go to

http://diveintoaccessibility.org/

for more information on creating a "bobby approved" web site.

Back to your question. I created a short php script which prints browser information and visited that page with two different text viewers, links & lynxs. This is the script:

<?php
echo $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] . "<hr />\n";

$browser = get_browser();

foreach ($browser as $name => $value) {
   echo "<b>$name</b> $value <br />\n";
}

?>

Here are the results:

lynx:
[green]Lynx/2.8.3rel.1 lib

http://www-FM/2.14FM

browser_name_pattern Lynx/2\.8.*
parent Text Browsers
browser Lynx
version 2.8
[/green]

links:
[green]Links (0.98; Win32; 80x25)

browser_name_pattern .*
browser Default Browser[/green]

My code gathered more information, but most of it is irrelevant to this discussion. There ARE other text browsers out there. This also doesn't take into account when someone uses a regular browser with an accessibility plugin.

I HIGHLY recommend that you and your "administrator" visit the above site. You'll probably see that it will be easier to modify your current site than to create a separate "accessibility" site.

Anyway, good luck.
Ron

We all play from the same deck of cards, it's how we play the hand we are dealt which makes us who we are. -Me

murof siht edisni kcuts m'I - PLEH

 

[MorganGreylock]

Thanks for the responses. I'll bring them up in our next web meeting and make some new suggestions. Hopefully they'll have some effect.

Thanks again,
MG