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How accessible is Gopher?

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Accessibility Test

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Apr 28, 2019, 6:41:28 AM4/28/19
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Can anyone provide feedback on how accessible is Gopher using a screen reader?
Any quirks worth knowing about?

Thanks.

Grant Hedson

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Apr 29, 2019, 12:13:32 AM4/29/19
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I'm not sure how accessible gopher is by design, but gopher sites
mostly deal in text, which should be easy on a screen reader. I can't
comment too much beyond, that, however, because I don't know how
much a screen reader depends on the underlying protocol (for example
if it is geared towards HTTP for browsers, or if it really does just
read text on a screen. If the latter, I think things should mostly
be fine unless a file download is involved.)

Persona Persona

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Apr 29, 2019, 2:06:08 PM4/29/19
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If I am not mistaken, there is only one Gopher-specific thing - the
Gopher menus. The other type of content (text files, binaries) you can
get through HTTP as well. (eg. using Lynx.) So I guess if a Gopher
menu ("gophermap") is easy to understand if you read it aloud, it
should be okay... I believe that huge ASCII multi-line banners can be
very annoying if read it characer by character.

FlipChip(tm)

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Apr 30, 2019, 6:01:55 PM4/30/19
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I see no reason why screen readers wouldn't work. Don't have experience
with them though. I think gopherholes are even more accessible than
webpages since there isn't anything but the content, which is always good.

lkosov

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Apr 30, 2019, 8:56:37 PM4/30/19
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On Mon, 29 Apr 2019, Grant Hedson wrote:

> I'm not sure how accessible gopher is by design, but gopher sites
> mostly deal in text, which should be easy on a screen reader. I can't
> comment too much beyond, that, however, because I don't know how
> much a screen reader depends on the underlying protocol (for example
> if it is geared towards HTTP for browsers, or if it really does just
> read text on a screen. If the latter, I think things should mostly
> be fine unless a file download is involved.)

When I did some web-design work, more than ten years ago now, the standard
for determining if a page/site would work well in a screen reader was to
view it in Lynx.

As another poster said, ASCII art is bad, and anything involving columns
is probably bad, but otherwise Gopher ought to be quite accessible for the
visually-impaired.

lkosov

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May 2, 2019, 4:27:31 PM5/2/19
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Saw this today, and was reminded of this thread:

gopher://gopher.black:70/1/phlog/20190502-asmr

Pinku Basudei

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May 5, 2019, 12:17:04 AM5/5/19
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I think a "LOL!" is required here :)
(How does screen readers deal with ASCII smileys btw?)

--

/ Pinku
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