Tweet Maybe I’ve been living under a rock for a year, or maybe this subject had been buried under other ‘more important’ rocks on my list, but I’ve just recently learnt about a style sheet that allows blind or visually impaired people to browse your website in a similar way to sighted visitors! How amazing is that!

Aural: Of hearing or sound; relating to the ear or hearing, or to receptiveness and response to speech or other sounds

From what I’ve read there are a lot of very exciting possibilities that could be possible with ACSS. For example, you would be able to access a website while driving (or while using any media device while being focused on something else), and of course the benefits to people with visual disabilities are simply huge. ACSS was introduced as part of CSS2 by W3C recommendations, and after further reading it appears that Aural Style Sheets are only effective in ‘audio browsers’. So it looks like ACSS has its framework covered, now we’re just waiting on the browsers to support it. As a designer I love being able to customize style sheets for print, screen, mobile devices etc. but the thought of controlling how a website will sound adds another cherry to the cake. I’ll definitely keep an eye on this subject and hope to post some examples of ACSS soon.

Tags: acss, aural style sheets