Welcome to the new, clearer, Horse's Mouth. You should spot that the text size is slightly larger, and contrasts better against the background. And if you're not keen on the new look, you are now empowered to change it to suit your own preference - simply click on the "customise" link on the right of the main page, and you'll be able to choose the colour combination and font size you want in another window, then choose "reload" that's just to the right of customise. If you're viewing this page on the archive, then the "Accessibility" menu will let you make a new selection ... and whichever way your selection is made, it'll be remembered for subsequent pages via a cookie.

The MovableType software that I use for this daily update is an excellent piece of software - but it's written and updated outside Europe, and doesn't necessarily conform to UK and European requirements. If this update provides a service, and I guess it does, then I'm required under DDA to make all practical efforts to make it equally accessible to everyone if asked, be they colour blind, or if they find a tiny text hard to read. Plenty more information from folks like the RNIB.

I could, probably, have claimed that I'm not providing a service when asked - that this is just a personal daily note. But I don't feel that's morally the correct position to take. Nor is it the correct long term business position to take - I want readers, and happy, non-struggling readers too.

Our main site and business is already DDA compliant - we've taken all reasonable steps to provide a level playing field, or one that's biased in favour of people with a disability ... but how to do it with a standard piece of software? It turns out that PHP and style sheets come to the rescue; the HTML pages are unchanged, but the style sheet is dynamically generated to meet the individual's request.

Here's part of the top of the style sheet code :

<?php
header("content-type: text/css");
if ($_COOKIE["whcmy"]) {
  @mysql_pconnect((database login info));
  @mysql_select_db($sqlaccount);
  $q = @mysql_query(
    "select * from whcmy where userkey = '$_COOKIE[whcmy]'");
  if ($row = @mysql_fetch_assoc($q)) {
    $fontsize = $row[fontsize];
  }
}
$bfsize = 12;
if ($fontsize == 4) $bfsize = 10;
?>


And within the CSS code, you'll find things like:

#banner h1 {
font-size: <?= $bfsize+12 ?>px;


If you want to learn more about using style sheets in this way, the RNIB offer abasic course at the HTML and CSS level - see here, and we at Well House Consultants can provide you with PHP training, MySQL database training, and so on so that you can automate and integrate DDA compliance. Not only does it makes legal sense ... it also makes moral and business sense.
(written 2006-09-23 09:32:56)

Commentator	says ...
Cait:	Why not use relative units instead of fixed such as pixels? (comment added 2006-09-23 15:07:21)
Graham Ellis:	Good question! I guess I'm personally more comfortable having more detailed control, and I wanted to leave the way open to provide a single very large font size for all the text should that be required by anyone in the future. (comment added 2006-09-23 15:19:56)
Cait:	Mozilla and Opera products already support a user set minimum font size option. IE 7 (from what I've read) will allow users to override font sizes specified in pixels with View -> Text Size -> Small, Medium, Large. It seems to me that font sizes in pixels will eventually become a thing of the past as users gain more control of their browser settings. My favourite method of setting sizes has been with a %/em combination (http://www.thenoodleincident.com/tutorials/typography/index.html). Been using it for quite some time and it's showed consistent results cross-platform/cross-browser (with the exception of Netscape/IE 4, for which I use the @import trick to serve them pixels). So if I use a stylesheet switcher to offer a change in font size, it can be done with one change to the body's font-size, from 76% to a larger percentage. (comment added 2006-09-24 06:18:19)

A213 - Web Application Deployment - Commercial and Legal Aspects
  [2592] Re-using our pictures - (2010-01-21)
  [2252] Leaping dog, Leaping horse, copyright of old masters - (2009-06-20)
  [2140] Beware - giving copyright away when you upload a picture - Dogs Trust - (2009-04-25)
  [1937] Getting hold of the wrong end of the stick - (2008-12-12)
  [1840] Validating Credit Card Numbers - (2008-10-14)
  [1747] Who is watching you? - (2008-08-10)
  [1506] Ongoing Image Copyright Issues, PHP and MySQL solutions - (2008-01-14)
  [1486] Does anyone understand Lithuanian? - (2007-12-27)
  [1485] Copyright and theft of images, bandwidth and members. - (2007-12-26)
  [1431] Getting the community on line - some basics - (2007-11-13)
  [1054] UK legal requirements for your commercial web site - (2007-01-27)
  [994] Training on Cascading Style Sheets - (2006-12-17)
  [795] Remember a site's non-technical issues too - (2006-07-07)
  [759] Watch your Google profile - (2006-06-13)
  [746] Domain Listing Center and Domain Registry of America - (2006-06-06)
  [532] Copyright - how much can I legally copy? - (2005-12-17)
  [322] More maps - (2005-05-23)
  [320] Ordnance Survey - using a 'Get a map' - (2005-05-22)
  [288] Colour blindness for web developers - (2005-04-22)
  [259] Responding to spam - (2005-03-27)
  [142] Colour for access - (2004-12-06)

G905 - Well House Consultants - Blogging and Blog Administration
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  [2517] Blogging accuracy - open invitation for any corrections - (2009-11-29)
  [2449] Four aspects - Chamber, Transport, Courses and Hotel - (2009-10-11)
  [2192] Copy writing - allowing for the cut - (2009-05-21)
  [2000] 2000th article - Remember the background and basics - (2009-01-18)
  [1978] From spam to mod_alias - finding resources - (2009-01-05)
  [1203] A Fresh horse - (2007-05-24)
  [1077] In answer to 'am I glad I started a blog' ... - (2007-02-12)
  [1000] One Thousand Posts and still going strong - (2006-12-18)
  [671] Both ends of the animal - (2006-04-05)
  [508] Comment, please! - (2005-11-28)
  [425] Caching an XML feed - (2005-08-26)
  [410] Reading a news or blog feed (RSS) in your PHP page - (2005-08-12)
  [405] Horse's Mouth is a year old - (2005-08-07)
  [390] Moderating wiki, blog, and forum contributions - (2005-07-26)
  [359] Chicken soup without the religion - (2005-06-26)
  [245] I'm not blogging it - (2005-03-14)
  [231] Feedback as lifeblood - (2005-02-28)
  [204] The confidence to allow public comments - (2005-02-06)
  [185] Who am I - (2005-01-21)
  [177] Blogs come of age - (2005-01-14)
  [145] a comment on comments - (2004-12-09)
  [141] Too technical? - (2004-12-05)
  [18] Wanted - more hours in the day - (2004-08-18)
  [6] Blog v Forum - (2004-08-07)
  [1] First Jottings - (2004-08-05)

M162 - Well House Manor - Disabled Facilities
  [654] Making use of disabled facilities - (2006-03-22)
  [252] A West End show - (2005-03-20)

W511 - Web and Intranet - Further Aspects
  [1970] Plagarism - who is copying my pages? - (2009-01-02)
  [1187] Updating a page strictly every minute (PHP, Perl) - (2007-05-14)
  [1001] .pdf files - upload via PHP, store in MySQL, retrieve - (2006-12-19)
  [528] Getting favicon to work - avoiding common pitfalls - (2005-12-14)

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Celebration circles
Tuesday night is party night
Easy criteria to meet
Yes, but what do we do now??
Making pages clearer - easy Disability Discrimination Act Compliance
Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones
Who can use which access door?
Hotel Exchange Rates
Email metrics
Java oversold?