Web accessibility A practical introduction

Presentation title and date1 Web accessibility is about designing sites so as many people as possible can access and interact with them effectively and easily “ “ A working definition…

Presentation title and date2  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?

Presentation title and date3 Reach a wider audience – up to 10 percent Makes your site more useable for everyone (35% better) Reduces site maintenance – lower bandwidth and hosting cost Device/platform independence (estimated 1 in 3 devices handheld by 2010) Improves search engine rankings Provide Social responsibility and achieve better reputation Future-proofing your online presence. Key Benefits

Presentation title and date4 Disability Discrimination Act (DDA)  The DDA covers employment and the provision of goods 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;

Presentation title and date5  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

Presentation title and date6 Access technology - 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

Presentation title and date7 Mild vision impairments – Adjust the Browser

Presentation title and date8 Enabling Technology

Presentation title and date9 Assistive technology - Vision  Screen readers are used for non-visual access to Window applications and the Web. A screen reader allows users who are blind to hear what is happening on their computer by converting the screen display to digitised speech.  Window-Eyes and JAWS are examples of screen readers.

Presentation title and date10 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.

Presentation title and date11 Assistive Technology

Presentation title and date12 Alternative Pointing Devices

Presentation title and date13 Alternative keyboards

Presentation title and date14 Hearing Hearing impaired people have particular problems with 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 found terms such as ‘marinade’ in their recipe section were not understood by BSL users, highlighting the need to provide a glossary for key words.

Presentation title and date15 Guidance for Managers Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 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 - 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

Presentation title and date16 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

Presentation title and date17 Web accessibility audits Step 2: Automated testing Using tools such as WebXact & “Cynthia Says” Requires interpretation

Presentation title and date18 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;Web Content Accessibility Guidelines –RNIB “See it Right” Accessible Website Guidelines;See it Right –ISO/AWI “Ergonomics of human-system interaction -- Guidance on software accessibility”

Presentation title and date19 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

Presentation title and date20 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…

Presentation title and date21 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

Presentation title and date22 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.