Do you have any recommendations for applications that can be easily used by a blind user for maintaining a website? Is WordPress an option? Is Dreamweaver an option? Do you know of any resources you can point me to for more information?
I have a client who has contacted me about redesigning her website. She's blind and wants to be able to maintain the site after I've redesigned it.
Typically I set up a client with a content management system, and give a quick tutorial on maintenance to the client. However, the CMS I use has a lot of AJAX, which is problematic for blind users.
I don't know of any off the shelf packages. Many CMS claim to produce Accessible output unfortunately I see very little evidence that CMS interface is accessible or easy to use. I hope I am wrong. If the site however is simple the ideal would be to code you own CMS without WYSIWG editor and simple edit/delete/add links. Very easy to do with a little SQL and I am sure there are tutorial available online.
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Johan De Silva / Web Designer | Read my movie reviews punk!
Thanks Johan. So far it's been difficult to find definitive information on accessible content management systems.
This morning, I heard from a colleague who told me of a blind web developer who successfully uses WordPress with JAWS for managing websites. I'll keep you posted on what I learn.
Found a podcast by a blind user who describes setting up a WordPress blog. The podcast is ~ 25 minutes long, you can hear the JAWS screen reader as she describes the steps. Check out http://cli.gs/...
I've heard of Defacto, here's the results of a search for it that turned up old threads:
Defacto is a CMS from Nomensa in Bristol - some of their staff are members on this forum and they certainly know their stuff. Alastair would be a good person to ask about it.
With WordPress, its a lot about the theme you decide to use / modify for use. In fact, that's pretty much true for any CMS you look at. The tricky part is finding a system with an accessible admin side. If you don't want to do too much work, WordPress is a fairly good option I think.
WordPress is fairly customisable, but the theme it comes with by default still has tabindex attributes set on comment forms, making it less keyboard accessible.
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.j, a.k.a. Jon Gibbins :// dotjay.co.uk, Grow Collective
Just noticed this thread 
Yep, Defacto is used to run the British Computer Association of the Blind site, by people using screen readers. Combined with a web standards approach and our testing we are quite confident about it's accessibility front and back.
However, Defacto 1 is quite 'heavy', being Java/XSL based, and it is something we generally use for quite big projects, and we tend to have to host it as well.
We're currently developing the lighter more flexible Defacto 2, ping / email me if it's something you're interesting in. (Eta Feb 2009).
Regarding Wordpress, the game just changed with 2.7 coming out, they've overhauled the admin area again. I haven't had any time to test it out, but they've removed the a:focus outline, and the tab order seems a bit strange.
I've submitted bugs before about image handling with little to no response, so I don't feel particularly enthusiastic about doing the same again.