Web accessibility

A practical introduction

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Web accessibility is about designing sites so as many people as possible can access and interact with them effectively and easily

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A working definition…

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Lack of standards in the early days of the web

Ignorance of the needs of disabled web users

Development tools were very poor at creating accessible websites

Limited advice and support available

… Fortunately this has started to change

Why is it an issue?

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Reach a wider audience – up to 10 percent Makes your site more useable for everyone (35% better)Reduces site maintenance – lower bandwidth and hosting costDevice/platform independence (estimated 1 in 3 devices handheld by 2010)Improves search engine rankingsProvide Social responsibility and achieve better reputationFuture-proofing your online presence.

Key Benefits

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Disability Discrimination Act (DDA)

The DDA covers employment and the provision ofgoods and services to disabled people

The DDA has been rolled out in stages to give organisations time to adjust – grey areas clarified by case law

An accessible Website is given as an example of a‘reasonable adjustment’ in the goods and services DDA code of practice – law since 1999

A service that is only available over the web is arguably most at risk from this legislation;

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Vision – including blindness, colour blindness and tunnel vision Hearing – both total deafness and hard of hearing

Mobility problems with hands and arms

Cognitive, Mental and learning disabilities

Many have more than one disability~

The groups that have specific Issues with web and intranet accessibility are:

Issues with disabilities

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Access technology - VisionAs a very visual medium, the Web presents unique problems to the millions who have low, restricted or no vision.

There are 4 broad categories of vision impairment:

Colour blindness – red/green impairment most common, affects

5% of male population and 1% female – test at vischeck.com

Mild vision impairment – larger font size, different background

Moderate vision impairment – screen magnification software

Blind/severe vision impairment – screen readers

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Mild vision impairments – Adjust the Browser

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Enabling Technology

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Assistive technology - Vision

Screen readers are used for non-visual access to Windowapplications and the Web. A screen reader allows users who are blind to hear what is happening on their computer by convertingthe screen display to digitised speech.

Window-Eyes and JAWS are examples of screen readers.

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Hand/arm Adaptive technology

People with mobility impairments face challenges when navigating and interacting with web pages.

They may experience difficulty moving the cursor with the required precision or may lack the manual dexterity or hand-eye co-ordination required to use a standard keyboard or mouse.

Some people will use voice recognition to navigate and interact with web pages.

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Assistive Technology

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Alternative Pointing Devices

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Alternative keyboards

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Hearing

Hearing impaired people have particular problemswith inaccessible multimedia, including video and audio clips on the web, which lack captioning and transcripts.

Additionally for those whose first language is BSL (British Sign Language) there are words in Englishthat do not exist in their vocabulary.

For example recent research by the BBC foundterms such as ‘marinade’ in their recipe section were not understood by BSL users, highlighting the need to provide a glossary for key words.

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Guidance for Managers

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0Guidelines created in 1999 to explain how to make websites and intranets accessible to people with disabilities.

They are prioritised into three levels:

Priority Level 1 - 'Must' or level ‘A’Minimum - key issues: images, language, Multimedia

Priority Level 2 - 'Should', or level ‘Double-A’

Good practice - key issues: layout, hypertext, forms

Priority Level 3 - 'Ought' or level ‘Triple-A’Beyond best practice

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Web accessibility audits

Accessibility audits have three steps:

Step 1: Compatibility testing with various browsers.

• Toggle images• Toggle sound• Test Font size• Observe Color Contrast• Use Tab Control

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Web accessibility audits

Step 2: Automated testing

• Using tools such as WebXact & “Cynthia Says”

• Requires interpretation

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Web accessibility audits

Step 3: Manual accessibility evaluation• Most time consuming• Most critical• Manually test accessibility based on

guidelines:– W3C WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines,

WCAG 1.0; – RNIB “See it Right” Accessible Website

Guidelines; – ISO/AWI 16071 “Ergonomics of human-system

interaction -- Guidance on software accessibility”

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Planning for an accessible Website

Obtain top management and trustee commitment make them aware there is a legal requirement to make your site accessible under the DDA

Find out how accessible your site is now

Decide on what level of accessibility you want to achieve – W3C WCAG level 2 is increasingly becoming a goal of many organisations

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Planning for an accessible Website

Create an internal team to identify accessibility objectives - this might just be you!

Make sure the relevant people in your organisation understand about accessibility

Create an accessibility policy…

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Web accessibility policy

If any part of your website has specific accessibility issues that will impact on the ability of disabled people to use your site. You must document the problem and explain how you are working towards fixing it, and if possible give a time frame for this solution.

For those services that are inaccessible you need to explain how disabled people can access this information or these services via alternative means

Encourage feedback from disabled people

Put a summary of your policy on your Website

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Accessibility issues for editors

Below are some key areas to consider when writing content for the web:

Use the simplest and clearest language appropriate for a site’s content. Use short line lengths and paragraphs. Use pictures and symbols in addition to text. Provide a text equivalent for each non-text element / ensure pictures have descriptive text (alt attributes). Avoid putting ‘too much’ information on a page - as a guide don’t have more than three pages worth of content as you scroll down.