AccessibilityGeekUp 25th October 2007

• Accessibility is a subset of Usability.

• It is usability for disabled users

Accessibility & Usability

The Nature of the Web – It’s a User Interface!

Accessibility – The official Why

2. Uh – it’s the law• The position in the UK, unlike many countries, is relatively clear. Private and public

sector Websites face accessibility obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).

Part III of the DDA (which came into force on 1st October 1999 ) refers to the provision of goods, facilities and services. The Code of Practice, which specifically mentions websites, can be downloaded in its entirety from the DRC website.

• The most relevant quotes from the Code of Practice are:

* 2.2 (p7): “The Disability Discrimination Act makes it unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against a disabled person by refusing to provide any service which it provides to members of the public.”

• To make 'reasonable adjustments' in circumstances in which the effect of that failure is to make it impossible or unreasonably difficult for the disabled person to make use of any such services. (19(1)(b))

Accessibility – US legislation

2. Corporate responsibility (US)

• The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Sections 504 and 508) -Two sections within the Rehabilitation Act, as amended (93 & 98), have impact on accessible web design. These are Sections 504 and 508. – 504: programs receiving federal funds may not discriminate against

those with disabilities – 508: a set of accessibility standards for Federal Electronics and

Information Technology • Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) - two major sections in the ADA

that may apply to Web accessibility:– communications with persons with disabilities must be "as effective as

communications with others" (Title II)– public accommodation of people with disabilities (Title III)

Accessibility – the real why

1. Greater penetration and effectiveness

• The Legal and General Case - The following ‘indirect’ benefits were noted post re-design:

– A 30% increase in natural search-engine traffic– A significant improvement in Google rankings for all target keywords– 75% reduction in time for pages to load– Cross browser-compatibility increased (not a single complaint since the

redesign)– Site now accessible to mobile devices– Time to manage content reduced from average of five days to 0.5 days per job– 95% increase in visitors getting a life insurance quote– 90% increase in Life insurance sales online– Savings of £200K annually on site maintenance– 100% return on investment in less than 12 months.

Selling Accessibility

• seo

• avoiding litigation and bad publicity

• maintenance

• market share

• better interoperability

• improved usability for everyone

• improved performance - shorter download time

The Seven Deadly Sins, approximately..

• Text resizing breaks layout

• Small clickable areas - especially on a-z menus

• Unforgiving search

• No site map

• No handheld style sheet

• No custom error page

• Client side form validation

• No skip links

• No labels on form elements, or legends & fieldset

• Crappy (or no) heading structure

• Nav bars not marked up as lists

• incorrect alt text

Accessibility – Resources

If you go nowhere else then go to ACCESSIFY.COM

It has:

• A forum where expert and free advice can be found relating to all matters of accessibility

• Accessibility related News

• Accessibility tools

Accessibility – Resources – Sites and books

• WebAIM, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving accessibility to online learning materials.

• Joe Clarke – ‘Building Accessible Websites’ - http://joeclark.org/book/ (online)

• Mark Pilgrim – ‘Dive into Accessibility’ - http://diveintoaccessibility.org/ (online)

• Jim Thatcher et al – ‘Constructing Accessible Websites’ (book)

Accessibility – Tools & Resources

• IE6 Web Accessibility Toolbar

• Developer toolbar

• Grease monkey scripts e.g. table inspector

• Jaws (Demo version)

• TAW, Cynthia says, ShiteMorse

• W3C Validator

• WDG Validator for batch validation

• Tools on Accessify

• Gez Lemon

• Video of blind guy using a screenreader

• Firefox screen reader emulator extension (fangs)

• Firefox screen reader (fire vox)

Cubist Society Homepage

Testing for Accessibility Compliance

1. Turn off JavaScript

2. Turn off CSS

3. Turn off Images

4. Check ALT text

5. Change font size

6. Linearise page

7. Check for headings

8. Check for lists (in HTML)

9. Listen in Jaws

10.Navigate using keyboard

10.Check form fields have labels

11.Check data tables are marked up correctly

12.Check dynamic content e.g. Video & Audio

13.Check link text

14.Resize window

15.Validate HTML

16.Turn off Flash

17.Check acronyms, abbreviations

Ajax – the technology (not the detergent)

• Doesn’t require the traditional "submit data — retrieve web page" methodology

• so…

• more streamlined applications that require less processing and data transmission because entire web pages do not need to be generated for each change that occurs

Ajax – (“because something is happening here / But you don’t know what it is / Do you, Mister Jones?” )

• Bottom Line:

• There doesn't appear to be any reliable way to notify screen readers of an update in the DOM.

• Gez Lemon has posted a hack for Jaws 7.1 that improves upon the way it updates its virtual buffer

Progressive enschmancement and Disgraceful degredation

• Graceful Degredation – creates pages for the latest browsers that would also work well in older versions of browser software

• Progressive enhancement uses web technologies in a layered fashion that allows everyone to access the basic content and functionality of a web page, using any browser or Internet connection, while also providing those with better bandwidth or more advanced browser software an enhanced version of the page.

• So basically

Another Dilbert Cartoon

site 1:

litmusapp.com

Litmusapp.com

• Find way of removing horizontal scrolling at 800 x 600

• Use keyboard/mouseover focus styles e.g.

a:hover, a:active, a:focus {text-decoration:underline; background-color:#6B933D }

• Add contact form

• Custom error page which shows site map or way to find page

• Front load page titles

• No styles on a couple of pages?

site 2:

hmv.com

hmv.com

• Validate code ahem 1550 errors on home page ..mostly due to unencoded ampersands

• Use server side validation on forms

• Skip links for keyboard users!!

• Tab order should be made more logical

site 3:

Adaptavist

Adaptavist.com – few Possible Pointers

• Clean up code – make it valid, well formed and get presentational stuff into CSS

• Introduce skip links that only appear for sighted keyboard users• Allow keyboard navigation of drop down menu• Fallback to main menu without JS• Style up link text in main content area so it’s obvious• Extend heading structure beyond h1, h2• Contact form• Label on search box• Advanced search• Clean up confusion over which is home page• Put in alt attribute and make it appropriate– it’s required, put null

attribute if its eye candy

site 4:

Webbie

webbie.org.uk

• Put in focus styles for mouseover

• Add contact form

• Make code valid and well formed on all pages

• Remove inline styles e.g. style="border:none;" – instead put img {border:0} in external style sheet

site 5:

vagueware.com

vagueware.com

• Keyboard focus styles

• Make code valid and well formed

• Contact form

• Better heading/list structure e.g. http://vagueware.com/ideas

• Better page titling e.g. not just ‘vagueware.com’

How do you insult a front end developer?

• Call him a div.

Step 5:

The End