User:Graham87/Signpost piece on accessibility

Compared to many websites, Wikipedia generally works very well with screen readers. It was the third-most popular site in a 2008–09 survey involving over 1,100 screen reader users. It has a consistent "look and feel", and guidelines encouraging the judicious use of headings and links make it more accessible . However, there are a few important things that editors can do to make Wikipedia articles easier to read for users of screen readers:

• Avoid separating list items by blank lines, especially in bulleted lists, as it makes lists harder to read with screen readers. For example, this list of tips to make articles accessible contains three items, and would be read by a screen reader like this: "list of 3 items, <text of the list> ... list end". If there were a blank line between each list item (i.e. if I had pressed the enter key twice between each point), it would be read out like this: "list of 1 items, <text>, list end; list of 1 items ..." and so on.
• Keep everything in its expected location in terms of wiki markup (i.e. the text in the edit window). Most modern screen readers will read text in Wikipedia in the order that it's presented in the wiki markup rather than its physical position on the screen; therefore a screen reader user's experience is disrupted if items are not in their usual place. For example, if a template that changes the position of the table of contents like {{TOC right}} is placed above the lead section of an article (in terms of the wiki markup), a screen reader user who is used to going straight from the table of contents to the first heading with a single keystroke will miss the text of the lead section.
• Use alt text to complement image captions. Alt text, which is produced using the "alt=" parameter in the image markup, is read out by screen readers but is not usually visible to sighted users. It is especially handy for images that contain useful features that are readily apparent to those who can see the image (e.g. a cartoon caption, a sign, a graph with an easily identifiable pattern). There is no need to note these features in the image caption because most people will be able to see the image, but screen reader users should also have access to them where possible.

For more information on accessibility in Wikipedia, both for screen reader users and people with other usability issues, see the accessibility guideline. Signpost readers may also be interested in WikiProject Accessibility, which always welcomes new members. Questions or concerns about accessibility may be raised at the project's talk page.