AbilityNet – Making IT Accessible for All. Web accessibility Web accessibility and Disability A...

AbilityNet – Making IT Accessible for All.

Web accessibility

Web accessibility and Disability A Practical introduction

Jon Gooday & Robin Christopherson AbilityNet


What is web accessibility?

Web accessibility is about designing sites so as many peopleas possible can access them effectively and easily, independent of who they are or how they access the net

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Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 Guidelines 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 Priority Level 2 - 'Should', or level ‘Double-A’Best practice

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

Standards

Web standards


Key accessibility issues

Images not labelled properly

Inaccessible Flash

Language - use of complex text, jargon, poor headings and layout

Multimedia - lack of captioning and transcripts

Frames – poor frame titles makes pages hard to navigate for

blind web users

Tables - information in tables not coded so they are

readable by blind web users

Scripts – JavaScript and applets which are not compatible with

adaptive technology with no alternative content provided


Who does it affect?

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~

9.8 million people in the UK have a disability under the DDA. The groups that have specific Issues with web and intranet accessibility are:


Vision

As 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


Mild vision impairments – Adjust the Browser


Magnification software


Do not use colour alone to convey information (level 1)

Ensure a consistent and uncluttered page layout (level 2)

Avoid using graphics for text (level 2)

Choose colours that ensure sufficient background and foreground contrast and avoid combinations of red/greenand blue/yellow (level 2/3) Ensure all font size definitions are relative -re-sizeable (level 2)

Offer a hi-viz skin and/or link to a page explaining how to change colours and font sizes (level 3)

Use a clear non-seriffed font such as Arial, Tahoma or Verdana (recommended) Avoid using Flash for text – there are resizing issues(recommended)

Key guidelines for mild/moderate visual impairments


Screen-Reader Users


Ensure all images have alt tags - especially links, logos and important pictures. Use empty alt tags (alt=“”) for decorative images (level 1)

If you use Flash make sure it works with modern screen readers and provide an accessible alternative for older readers (level 1)

If you use frames make sure they have titles and names that make sense - screen readers navigate in and out of individual frames on a page (level 1)

Make sure tabular data is coded accessibility – use the correct table header tags for column titles (level 1)

Key guidelines blind web users


Provide transcripts for Multimedia if you use it(level 1)

Ensure both JavaScript and Applets work with screen readers – provide alternative content if they don’t. (level 1)

Choose text for hyperlinks with care – make sure it makes sense out of context and avoid repetition (level 2)

Position labels in forms to the left or above input fields and the right of checkboxes and radio buttons (level 2)

Offer a “Skip to content” link to jump over navigation links (level 3)

Key guidelines blind web users


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 English that 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


Hand/Arm Mobility problems

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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Alternative Pointing Devices

Hand/Arm Adaptive technology


Alternative Keyboards

Hand/Arm Adaptive technology


Key guidelines for Hand/Arm problems Mobility

For Keyboard users:

If you use flash or scripts make sure pages are useable with the keyboard (level 2)

Ensure a logical tabbing order through all page elements (level 3)

Use shortcut links – ‘AccessKeys’ for top navigation links (level 3)

Limit the number of links on the page (recommended)

For Mouse users:

Graphical or text links should be a decent size(recommended)

Avoid graphical or text links in close proximity not 1/2/3 (recommended)


Cognitive impairments include dyslexia, memory impairments and attention deficit disorders.

Recommendations:

keep the language clear and avoid jargon (level 1) use consistent navigation, sitemaps and breadcrumb trails (level 2) keep movement to a minimum or allow user to it turn off (level 2) use graphical icons as navigation aids (level 3) content should be organised logically and clearly (level 3) there should be sufficient spacing between lines, paragraphs or sections, use bulleted lists (recommended)Use a clear non-seriffed font and don’t fully justify text (recommended) Dyslexic web users prefer a beige background (recommended)

Cognitive Difficulties and DyslexiaCognitive Difficulties and Dyslexia


Software tools providing more accessibility features to help designers build accessible sites for example Dreamweaver 2004

More designers creating websites to W3C web standards which includes accessibility – compatible with handheld devices such as mobiles,Palms and Pocket PCs

More accessible Flash

More examples of main stream accessible websites

Clarification of relevant legislation – UK, Europe and World

Future trends


Sources of help

Organisations such as AbilityNet and RNIB offer a wide range of services to help you make your websites and intranets accessible, Including:

• Audits, • Training• Site design• Disabled user testing

Key resources on the web include:

W3C Web accessibility initiative -http://www.w3.org/WAI/ Irish National Disability Association (NDA) - http://www.accessit.nda.ie/ BBC Research -http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/newmedia/websites.shtml A list Apart –developer resources - http://www.alistapart.com/


Conclusion State of the eNation Report September 2004 – Premiership Clubs

The eNation Report is a quarterly review of key websites in a particular industry sector.

The latest report looks at the 20 football clubs in the Premiership. 21 sites were reviewed in total as Manchester United also has an alternative accessible site.

A 5 star scale was used:* = Very inaccessible*** = Satisfies a base level of accessibility***** = Very accessible.

1 site had a ** ranking 20 sites had a * ranking


Contact AbilityNet

To find out more about AbilityNet’s web services

Call: 0800 269545

Visit: http://www.abilitynet.org.uk

Email: [email protected]

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