D'Arcy Norman dot net » accessability http://www.darcynorman.net just a lowly edtech geek, mumble mumble university of calgary Sun, 21 Mar 2010 04:57:45 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Browsing with Lynx http://www.darcynorman.net/2006/03/21/browsing-with-lynx/ http://www.darcynorman.net/2006/03/21/browsing-with-lynx/#comments Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000 dnorman 223979074
  • Take over my desktop on campus via VNC. This works, but is dog slow.
  • Log into one of our servers via SSH and fire up Lynx. Works like a charm. Browsing is refreshingly fast without images, javascript, and ads...
    • I've been pleasantly surprised at just how usable many websites are. Blogs seem to be faring even better - kudos to the various blog theme developers. It's important to remember that 2 critical sets of users see the web through the eyes of a text-only browser.
    1. Visually impaired readers
    2. Search engines.
    Yes. Google is essentially a visually impaired reader. I personally think everyone should periodically try their sites in a text-only browser to see how these two very important groups of users see things.]]>

    I’m trying to quickly check in from home, but the browser on my home machine is acting up and refusing to access websites. I guess that’s forgivable – I’m still running my (otherwise) trusty old PowerMacintosh 8600/300 running MacOS 9.1. Before you laugh, this bad boy was literally the fastest personal computer in Calgary for a few weeks when I got it, and I paid more for this system than many people pay for cars.

    Regardless, my browser (the latest Mozilla 1.3.1 build for antique Macs) is acting up. How to access the web? I have 2 options.

    1. Take over my desktop on campus via VNC. This works, but is dog slow.
    2. Log into one of our servers via SSH and fire up Lynx. Works like a charm. Browsing is refreshingly fast without images, javascript, and ads…

    I’ve been pleasantly surprised at just how usable many websites are. Blogs seem to be faring even better – kudos to the various blog theme developers. It’s important to remember that 2 critical sets of users see the web through the eyes of a text-only browser.

    1. Visually impaired readers
    2. Search engines.

    Yes. Google is essentially a visually impaired reader. I personally think everyone should periodically try their sites in a text-only browser to see how these two very important groups of users see things.

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