(Untitled)

[jai_dit]

Way back when 259 was added three years ago, it began its life as an image placeholders FAQ, but then morphed into an Unusual Connections FAQ that includes three disparate issues: mobile connections (small screen size and maybe low bandwidth), dial-up connections (low bandwidth only), and accessibility (a whole bunch of different things that may or

Comments

[hammond]

I hadn't really thought about it before you brought it up, but it makes sense. I think that especially since with new technology, mobile browsing is definitely different from using a dial-up connection and yeah... screen readers, not the same at all.

So that's me voting for a split up.

[healingmirth]

I've only ever referenced this FAQ for styles (and sometimes slow-connection) requests for people viewing their journal from a computer. I'd be more inclined to split it into "what features can help me view LJ on a mobile device" which would link to one FAQ with the second two sections (bandwidth/accessibility) because those seem too intertwined for me.

I haven't spent a enough time browsing LJ with a screenreader to have any good suggestions for what works, but unless someone is planning on putting work into testing or documenting what is actually more accessible for a screenreader (perhaps spelled-out links in the FAQ to specific URLs to manage friends, update journal, etc. ? I wouldn't want to speculate without poking around more) I'd rather have a combined FAQ that includes accessibility than a nearly-empty one

[jai_dit]

Re accessibility, we do have http://www.livejournal.com/support/see_request.bml?id=536026 (although it's old) and some bits in http://community.livejournal.com/lj_style/327262.html. Also, we could probably solicit feedback from Dreamwidth's accessibility team; I'm sure they'd be happy to say what helps and what doesn't.

m.livejournal.com should definitely be documented somewhere, even if it is under construction. Good point!

[aveleh]

I'd take advantage to make sure that we don't present it that screenreaders users are the only ones who have accessibility needs, even if that's the focus that the instructions end up taking.

[rickybuchanan]

Thank you, you beat me to the point by 7 minutes :)

I certainly think accessibility is a separate issue to the other two - and having been a low-bandwidth-connection user in the past that's a very separate issue to mobile browsers.

I think you need three separate FAQs here. If that means that one or more of them are initially fairly sparse, that's better than FAQ users having to wade through a mound of irrelevant information - as a FAQ user nothing is more annoying than "they told me to read X but it's not even relevant".

I would suggest on the screen reading issue if you want to know what people have found for themselves then ask for comments from the users of blind_people (or without the underscore?) and for non-screenreader accessibility check the users of no_pity.

I'd be happy to help (I'm nominal cat wrangler for Dreamwidth's accessibilty team, BTW) but I have been finding that often users with LOTS of LJ/DW knowledge/experience don't actually have the same problems that beginner users have, so I might be less useful than you think.

r

[teshiron]

If that means that one or more of them are initially fairly sparse, that's better than FAQ users having to wade through a mound of irrelevant information - as a FAQ user nothing is more annoying than "they told me to read X but it's not even relevant".

This. This is one of my primary goals for LJ's documentation - to simplify it so that users can actually find what they need, with no wading involved.

We'd welcome any advice you can provide when we get to drafting the accessibility FAQ, or if you've written a set of guidelines for the DW stuff, we can use those as a starting point. Thanks!

[rickybuchanan]

You're very welcome to use any (relevant bits of) DW accessibility docs but unfortunately they're not written yet. We have a bunch at the concept stage and we're very slowly liasing with the Docs team about getting them written. Unfortunately all the accessibility team are pretty stuck with eith RL or our own disability issues so things are going snail pacey. .. but I like to think we're at least snailing in the right direction :)

r