CYBERSPACE REPORT - 7
February 5th 1998
Bill Weber

HANDICAPPED AND DISABLED RECEIVE
CYBERSPACE HELP

Recently I had an interview with Gary Graham from AlphaNet Technologies on designing web pages for the VISUALLY DISABLED. Gary started using computers in 1979 (on a Radio Shack TRS-80) That's when computers had the brains of a digital watch. Then worked on creating programs for the Apple 2c Computer but was converted back to IBM
compatibles around 1983. Through the years he has worked on various Computer Operating Systems including DOS, Windows 3.x, Windows 95/NT, XENIX and Unix multi-user and mainframe computers.

Gary was born in Fond du Lac Wisconsin and has lived in the Monroe county area for the past 16 years and now lives at Oil City between Ontario and Wilton. He has been employed by the Federal Government at Camp Douglas for the past 12 years and is currently working in the Data Processing Center. He is also the Supply Sergeant for the 732d Maint. Bn
out of Tomah, Owner of AlphaNet Technologies, and a Veteran of Desert Storm (107th Maintenance CO, Sparta) and a Member of various Web Design organizations

What brought about your interest in WEB sites for those with sight And hearing disabilities? "I realized that out of the millions of web pages on the Internet only a small portion of them are viewable by the 30 million disabled ... that its time to include features that enable everyone to enjoy all the web pages we design for our clients. I believe everyone should have equal access to the Internet".

"You need a basic idea of how these people view WebPages and a good understanding of HTML. The Blind generally use either Screen Readers (a device or special browser that reads them the contents of the Web Page or Braille Reader (a device that attaches to the computer that reads the Web Page and converts it to Braille) Once you understand how these devices read the content of a web page, you can layout your page design to limit any conflict. This is done by using special HTML 4.0 tags (HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language and is used to tell the browser how to display a web page). Other methods are NOT using image maps on web pages. "Its hard to navigate something you can not
see" besides, it makes a WebPages download slower Keep in mind, the blind can not see
your pictures but if you use an ALT tag (which stands for alternate) you can place text that describes the picture to people that have graphics turned off as well as the Blind. Another method uses the new Title tag. This tag is similar to the ALT but can be used for sounds, tables, frames, forms, buttons and links. There are also
advanced methods that allow the physically disabled who have a hard time using a mouse to use to keyboard
or even voice commands."

ABLEDATA is a database of more than 18,000 products for people with disabilities. The collection also includes text of disability legislation, accessibility guidelines, a directory of disability publications, and other useful materials. For more info go to: http://trace.wisc.edu/tcel/index.html.

Gary's WEB site is at: http://www.alpha-tek.com/ Phone: (608)
337-4204.
Space does not permit listing all Disability WEB sites Gary gave me but here are a couple:
American Council of the Blind
http://www.acb.org/
American Association of People with Disabilities
http://www.aapd.com/

Others WEB sites on disability assistance from Gary are at my WEB site:
http://www.geocites.com/~billweber

Winter Olympics start tomorrow night Feb 6th go to:
Official Olympic Web Page: http://www.nagano.olympic.org/