[vicsireland] Fw: Accessible Google FAQ
- From: "tonysweeney" <tonysweeney1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "vics" <vicsireland@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 4 Nov 2006 18:14:56 -0000
Accessible Search FAQ
What is Google Accessible Search?
Accessible Search is an early Google Labs product designed to identify and
prioritize search results that are more easily usable by blind and visually
impaired
users. Regular Google search helps you find a set of documents that is most
relevant to your tasks. Accessible Search goes one step further by helping
you find the most accessible pages in that result set.
How does Accessible Search work?
In its current version, Google Accessible Search looks at a number of
signals by examining the HTML markup found on a web page. It tends to favor
pages
that degrade gracefully --- pages with few visual distractions and pages
that are likely to render well with images turned off. Google Accessible
Search
is built on Google Co-op's technology, which improves search results based
on specialized interests.
Why is Google offering this?
Accessible Search is a natural and important extension of Google's overall
mission to better organize the world's information and make it universally
accessible.
Google Accessible Search is designed to help the visually challenged find
the most relevant, useful and comprehensive information, as quickly as
possible.
In the past, visually impaired Google users have often waded through a lot
of inaccessible websites and pages to find the required information. Our
goal
is to provide a more useful and accessible web search experience for the
blind and visually impaired.
How do you decide which sites are "accessible" and which are not?
Broadly, Google defines accessible websites and pages as content that the
blind and visually challenged can use and consume using standard online
technology,
and we've worked with a number of organizations to determine which websites
and pages meet those criteria. Our methods for identifying accessible pages
and content are always evolving; Currently we take into account several
factors, including a given page's simplicity, how much visual imagery it
carries
and whether or not its primary purpose is immediately viable with keyboard
navigation.
How can sites make their content more accessible to the blind?
Some of the basic recommendations on how to make a website more usable and
accessible include keeping Web pages easy to read, avoiding visual
clutter --
especially extraneous content -- and ensuring that the primary purpose of
the Web page is immediately accessible with full keyboard navigation. There
are
many organizations and online resources that offer Website owners and
authors guidance on how to make websites and pages more accessible for the
blind
and visually impaired. The W3C publishes numerous guidelines including
Web Content Access Guidelines
that are helpful for Website owners and authors. Broad adherence to these
guidelines is one way of ensuring that sites are universally accessible.
Google Home -
Accessible Search -
Feedback -
Terms of Use
http://labs.google.com/accessible
Other related posts: