8.1. Hacks 67-76: Introduction

8.1. Hacks 67 76: Introduction

I have cared about accessibility for almost 13 years, ever since I worked at AT&T as a relay operator for the deaf and hearing impaired. My manager was deaf, and I learned enough American Sign Language to communicate with him in his native language. (He also read lips and spoke perfect English.) One of my co-workers, with whom I became close friends, had been blind since birth. He did the same job I did, using a device that converted the words on the screen to Braille characters. We often worked different shifts, but I learned enough Braille to write him letters, which he looked forward to reading when he came in to work the next day.

Accessibility isn't just wheelchair ramps and bigger bathroom stalls. It crosses all disciplines, it affects all workplaces, and it makes no exception for gender, race, ethnicity, or income. With more and more information being published online, with more and more vital online services being developed, web accessibility is more important than ever.

In the year 2004, an estimated 7.9% (plus or minus 0.2 percentage points) of civilian, noninstitutionalized men and women, aged 18 to 64 in the United States reported a work limitation. In other words, that's 14,152,000 out of 179,133,000 (or about 1 in 13) people. ^[1]

^[1] Houtenville, Andrew J. "Disability Statistics in the United States." Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Disability Demographics and Statistics (StatsRRTC), http://www.disabilitystatistics.org, April 4, 2005.

The hacks in this chapter are a compilation of accessibility-related scripts I've written and found online. Some of them are tools for web developers, to help them make their own pages more accessible. Some of them leverage the accessibility features already present on the Web. The last one [Hack #76] is a proof-of-concept I developed to showcase the power of Greasemonkey as an accessibility enablement technology.

Customizing the Web isn't just fun and games. For some people, it provides the only way to use the Web at all.