Web browsers (in common with most multimedia programs) use positional mouse clicks to access the active hyperlinks or hotspots. This interface is a barrier to access if you cannot accurately control a mouse, mouse pointer and mouse switches through physical,sensory or cognitive difficulties. There are several ways to help to enable access for people who have difficulty using a mouse:
You can use software modification within windows to enlarge the pointer, and alter the mouse responsiveness.
You can use modified mice/roller balls/joysticks with larger buttons or with additional extra mouse buttons.
You can use a touchscreen or an overlay board in addition to a mouse for access.
You can use Keyboard short cuts to provide access.
You can use switch access utilties to provide direct activation of the hyperlinks by exterior switches
1. Using the keyboard controls to move forwards and backwards between pages.
Using Internet Explorer (3 and above) you can go forward and backwards through pages using the ALT arrows keys (you need to have visited the pages to have downloaded already so they're already in the computers local cache).
With any overlay board (concept, intellikeys, Discover) you can program the board to send Alt-left and Alt-right arrow
You can program two cells one; to be Alt right arrow, the other Alt left arrow.
With the Intellikeys board you can then you connect switches to the board and use those to navigate forwards and backwards and if you have play background sound on page opening set within the HTML script (an internet Explorer "improvement") you can get single switch access to a simple multimedia show (this works on the Catterpillar story on the Meldreth Web).
Opera (the browser) also allows keyboard access to the page forwards and backwards with similar Alt arrow keys.
2. Using Overlay boards to access whole pages
You can program individual cells with a full web address of a page (a url) which will take you to that page. You can have writing, symbols or a graphic on the paper overlay.
This will work with any overlay board.
These methods are limited to whole page accesses, you cannot access individual links within the pages using these methods.
3. Keyboard access to hyperlinks
You can access the individual hypertext links in a web page by using the tab and return keys in Internet Explorer to move through the links, or by using the CTRL up and CTRL down in opera to move between the links, enter or space will then access then access the link.
The main difficulty in this is that the highlighting of the links when they are being accessed is very poor in I.E.
It also shares with the access difficulties of two switch scanning (physical and cognitive).
Opera has full keyboard control of all functions and can allow the links to be emphasised either graphically or with additional sound feedback.
You could use the switches connected to the Intellikeys board to switch through the links and access the links with switches or use a concept keyboard or a Discovery board to get overlay board access (by sending the keyboard
strokes from the board).
The DJ switch interface can send Space,and Enter but not the other correct keyboard navigations to allow full independent switch access to Opera.
Direct switch activation is often a more successfulaccess method for people with severe physical and cognitive impairments.
You can use Clickit to get keyboard/switch access directly to the active hotspots on the screen and then you don't have to previously downloaded the pages since they are fetched as normal not from the cache.
The latest HTML 4.0 guidelines talk about a facility in the HTML script to provide direct keyboard activation using
the markup:
<A ACCESSKEY="key" HREF="url">name of link</A>
for example:
<A ACCESSKEY="a" HREF="index.html">Back to the index page</A>
:the a key on the keyboard would activate the link to the index page.
To make this switch accessible you will need software that will map a keystroke to a switch.