Piet,
I have a potential client that I'm meeting with tomorrow who needs a website that is JAWS compatible for viewers who are visually impaired.

Is Joomla compatible from a core install or does it need some type of extension(s)?

Thanks!

Hi Rob,

Basically it can be used for visually impaired users. In the past I have created a website for one of my clients as well. He is officially blind, yet he has a bit of vision left. He used magnifying tools etc, but the site is created for and by (visually) impaired people.

http://www.linkable.org/

Of-course Joomla and style sheets can help you out here. Use big fonts, proper contrasting colors (no pastels) etc.

But in short, yes.

Piet has some good comments with CSS fonts, etc. That in itself makes Joomla a nice platform for those who need larger fonts sizes, especially the sites with font size tool bar, but that does not mean that Joomla is necessarily compatible with JAWS. I don't know if Joomla is or is not compatible. MY recommendation would be to have your potential client visit a demo site you have created with Joomla or one of from your portfolio and see if JAWS functions with JOOMLA. Also not, it may function differently with different templates based on the the template was coded.

JAWS for Windows (JFW) is a program that reads information from a computer display and speaks it to you through a speech synthesizer. I believe costs between $800-1200 depending on version. Here is a link with a good overview of JFW... http://www.nanopac.com/jaws.htm (... if you already are aware of this information, please disregard... just trying to be helpful )

Here is another option for visually impaired readers on your website, although should not be considered even close to being compatible with JFW... just a resource... VozMe!

http://vozme.com
Joomla site using VozMe I found with Google
http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/4119/details

Hope this helps and good luck.


Cheers,
Steve Z