How to
The WebVisum service aims to make it easier on blind, visusally impaired and screen reader users surf the web.
At its core, Web Visum is first and foremost a community effort, it is the tool that empowers all of its users to tag and modify various aspects on web pages and make them better readable, navigable and understandable. The key to the success of this service is a large user community all working towards the common goal of making the Internet more accessible to the blind and visually impaired.
Read a well written review on how to use the WebVisum extension and what it can do for you already, on Marco Zehe's accessibility blog Here .
Examples of problems and the solutions that we provide:
Badly named or unnamed page links: We allow you to give your own descriptive name to any link on the web, on any web site. You give the correct meaning to a link which was previously either badly named or not named at all, as is often the case with image based web site navigation. The next time you visit the same page, your screen reader will read the correct meaning that you assigned to the link. You no longer need to remember, for example, that link "unknown" number 4, is the Login page. Your screen reader now reads Login instead of unknown!
Badly named or unnamed page titles: You can now set a new and more descriptive page title to any page on the web, on any web site. You give the correct title to the page, immediately, your new meaning is saved for your next visits and your screen reader reads the descriptive title, rather than a meaningless one!
Got unknown fields on a form you wish to use? You can now give any form fields its correct meaning.
Is a CAPTCHA image stopping you from signing up with a service or posting a comment in a forum or blog? Press the right hotkey sequence and the CAPTCHA is solved for you, in under 30 seconds!
Want to extract text from a navigation menu image? Hit the hotkey sequence for the image OCR function, if we can extract meaningful text for you, we will.
All of the labeling features are community driven, meaning, if you, or anyone else, has already assigned a good and descriptive name to a page title, link or any other form or page element, you automaticaly get this new information upon your visit to the same page or site and your screen reader now reads something useful to you!
Furthermore, our entire community of Web Visum users will see the new link meaning that you have assigned and will benefit from it. You also benefit when others do this, sites
We cannot emphasise this enough, the success of this service highly depends upon each and every one of you, in making the web more accessible both for yourselves and your peers!
A nice example of how our extension enhances lacking sites, check out Cakewalk makers of great music creation and recording software. Unfortunately, their web designers do not know how to make accessible navigation menus. Check the site with and without the extension to see (or rather, hear) the difference of what your screen reader is able to read for you.
We are aware that this section is currently thin on details, we will be expanding it on a regular basis.