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Sandra Earl

Better Website Development: Disability Discrimination Act Dda Amp Web Accessibility - 0 views

  • There's been widespread speculation about the new legislation being introduced under the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act), which will ensure that websites are accessible to blind and disabled users. Try to find specific information about it on the Internet and chances are you'll come up empty handed.The RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind) and the DRC (Disability Rights Commission), two of the most renowned advocates for the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) and accessible websites, have no specific information about the laws and what websites specifically need to do in order to meet the legal requirements.
  • 2.2 (p7): "The 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."
  • 4.7 (p39): "From 1st October 1999 a service provider has to take reasonable steps to change a practice which makes it unreasonably difficult for disabled people to make use of its services."
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  • The law about accessible websites came into force on 1st October 1999 (http://www.drc-gb.org/open4all/law/code.asp) and the Code of Practice for this section of the Act was published on 27th May 2002 (http://www.hmso.gov.uk/si/si2002/20020720.htm). This means that the majority of websites are already in breach of the law.Can you be sued?Well, probably. The RNIB claim that they've considered taking up a number of legal cases against organisations with regard to their websites. When they raised the accessibility issues of the website under the DDA, companies have typically made the necessary changes, rather than facing the prospect of legal action.The DRC has now published their findings from their formal investigation into 1000 websites. (http://www.drc-gb.org/publicationsandreports/2.pdf). If your website was included then you will have to start thinking about making it accessible to all web users in the very near future.
  • What do you need to do to comply?It's widely believed that if, or perhaps more appropriately when, a case makes it to court that the W3C accessibility guidelines will be used to assess a website's accessibility and ultimately decide the outcome of the case. The W3C is the Internet governing body and its web accessibility guidelines can be found at http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/full-checklist.html.
Sandra Earl

Digital Web Magazine - Understanding Disabilities when Designing a Website - 0 views

  • In the UK In the US 2m people have a vision impairment3 10m people have a vision impairment4 8.2m people have mild to moderate deafness5, 688,000 people have severe to profound deafness6 28m people have a hearing impairment7 3.4m people have a physical disability8 8m people have a physical disability9 1.5m people have a learning disability10 6.8m people have a learning disability11 6m people have dyslexia12 25m people have dyslexia13
  • Most people who are blind will rely on screen reading software such as
  • JAWS or Windows-Eyes
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  • refreshable Braille device which converts the text on the website into Braille.
  • Place form instructions before the form field
  • To improve accessibility and usability for screen reader users, form field requirements must be placed before the form field itself.
  • Provide a ‘skip to main content’ link Screen reader users benefit from a ‘skip to main content’ link as it enables them to jump over lengthy navigation to the main content of the web page, reducing the amount of content they have to listen to.
  • Ensure link text is descriptive Screen reader users using software such as JAWS can listen to the links on a web page through functionality known as a links list. If link text is not descriptive—solely using phrases such as “click here” or “more information”, for example—there is no way for screen reader users to determine where the link will take them.
  • Provide descriptive web page titles The first piece of information a screen reader user will listen to when they open a web page is the <title> assigned to the page. It is important, therefore, to use a title which reflects the content of the web page.
  • Provide descriptive headings It is important to provide descriptive headings
  • Screen reader users often listen to headings out of context from the main content
  • Provide audio descriptions and transcripts of video content Screen reader users depend on audio descriptions to provide additional information about important visual content displayed within a video.
  • Transcripts are written accounts of the video or audio content and can include additional information such as comments and descriptions
  • screen reader users cannot use a mouse
  • People with low vision will tend to use magnification software to make reading a website easier. Depending on the severity of their vision impairment, these users may combine magnification and screen reading software by using software products such as Supernova or ZoomText. For milder vision impairments, users may just increase the default size of text within their browser settings or change the colors to make the content more comfortable to read.
  • Avoid using images of text
  • Ensure text can be resized
  • Place key information in specific locations of the screen
  • ebsite search functionality is often located in the top-right corner of the web page
  • Juicy Studio color contrast analyzer.
  • it is possible to determine whether the colors chosen meet the minimum requirements specified in the WCAG Guidelines.
  • People with a hearing impairment tend not to use assistive software to improve their web browsing experience. Instead, they rely on the website being accessible by providing any audio content in alternative formats, such as captioning or transcripts.
  • By making audio content accessible for users with a hearing impairment, it also makes the content accessible for other users who find themselves in an environment where audio cannot be heard.
  • library with the sound turned down; they may be in a noisy environment where it is difficult to hear the audio; or they may be using a computer without speakers.
  • Provide captions for any video content
  • Provide transcripts of the spoken audio Where content is spoken without video, such as in a podcast, it is important to provide a transcript. It is recommended that the transcript be provided in plain accessible HTML to allow access by the widest possible audience, as opposed to a Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF document.
  • Physical disabilities range in severity from those who are temporarily disabled, for example having a broken arm, to those who are quadriplegic and have no use of any limbs. Depending on the severity of the physical disability, these users may access websites through voice recognition software such as Dragon Naturally Speaking.
  • However, what all users with a physical disability have in common is limited or no ability to use a mouse. This means that content within the website that requires a mouse click or fine motor control cannot be accessed by these users.
  • Ensure all content can be accessed via the keyboard
  • Users with a physical disability will have limited or no ability to use a mouse and as such will navigate websites using the keyboard.
  • Provide a focus state for links
  • Provide visible skip links Skip links are links that become visible when they receive focus, and are helpful for users with a physical disability. Keyboard users must tab through the web page to reach the particular link they are interested in—skip links allow lengthy navigation to be bypassed and reduce the number of key presses required to activate links in the main content.
  • Avoid moving targets Avoid using moving targets such as tickers, as users with a physical disability can find them very difficult to use.
  • Provide large clickable areas
  • provide sufficient whitespace between links
  • People with a cognitive or learning disability may have difficulties with memory, problem solving, perception, and conceptualization. In addition, people with a learning disability may have issues with reading and comprehension such as dyslexia.
  • To enhance the usability of the website for these users it is important that content is written in plain English, page layouts are simple in design, navigation is clear and consistent and there is no moving content to impede comprehension.
  • Provide the same look and feel throughout all pages of the website. Ensure that the navigation and main content are located in the same area of every page. Additionally, consider color coding different sections within the website. Users with cognitive or learning disabilities tend to find it easier to navigate around sections which are color coded.
  • Provide a site map A site map will enable users with a cognitive or learning disability to have a clear idea of the breadth of content contained within the website. The site map also enables users to directly access any page on the website, and helps if the user becomes lost.
  • Use a resizable sans-serif font which is left-aligned To increase readability for users with a cognitive or learning disability, use a sans-serif font which can be resized. Additionally, left-align content—justified text is more difficult to read due to the uneven spacing between words. Italicized and capitalized text should also be kept to a minimum to aid readability.
  • Provide helpful error messages
  • Offer speech output Organizations such as Browse Aloud and Textic enable content from a website to be spoken when highlighting the words on a web page. Offering this functionality is especially helpful for users who find it difficult to read large amounts of text.
  • Provide an Easy Read Version Consider providing an ‘easy read’ version of complex content. This combines plain text with images to aid understanding of the information. For an example of an easy read document see the Department of Health’s Making Lives Better for People with a Learning Disability.
  • Provide different color schemes People with cognitive or learning disabilities may benefit from different color scheme options. It is helpful if an easy read scheme such as a lemon background with dark text, and a hi-viz scheme such as a black background with yellow text, are provided.
Sandra Earl

My Role and Context in Education « H810: Accessibility Ahead - 0 views

  • Distance education is not only appealing to people in full-time employment, but it can be empowering and accessible to students with a wide variety of disabilities. I’ve had students who are blind, visually impaired, hearing impaired, physically disabled, as well as a whole host of learning disabilities including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyspraxia, dyslexia, and other mental disabilities.
Sandra Earl

E-Access Blog » Blog Archive » Organisation in the Spotlight - W3C: Global St... - 0 views

  • One major new piece of work undertaken by WAI is the EC-funded WAI-AGE Project (http://www.w3.org/WAI/WAI-AGE/), a look at the implications of an ageing population for web access, given the older people are more likely to have disabilities and may also be less familiar with new technologies. “Demographics worldwide are dramatically changing at the moment,” says Andrew Arch, who works with Abou-Zahra on WAI-AGE. “The proportions of older to younger people are changing as well as the numbers. We’re living longer, and we haven’t got the support behind us. “Lots of things have got to change in governments and organisations - with an ageing workforce, you have to keep learning to stay accessible.”
  • The WAI-AGE project is partly aimed at finding out whether there are any significant new pieces of work needed to ensure web accessibility for an older population, Arch says. “We’ve looked at what research and user observation has gone on over the decade. There is a pretty big overlap between older people and others with disabilities - sight starts to decline, motor dexterity - and individually these overlap. But with older people there is often a lack of recognition that there is a disability there. For example some people might just say they can’t remember so well, rather than that they have a cognitive impairment. Or people won’t see failing eye-sight as a disability, it’s just ‘part of growing old’. But they are disabilities, and often multiple disabilities.”
  • Having gained a grasp of current research the project returned to guidelines such as WCAG 2.0 to see if any changes might be needed. “A large proportion of the needs of older people are met by the new guidelines, but other things might need to feed into the guidance we will issue on implementing the guidelines, for example guidance on how people prepare content for older people.,” said Arch. “Many older people have not grown up with computers, and may not realise their capabilities, for example that you can magnify text in your browser.”
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  • This argument is a development of the age-old mantra from the accessibility sector that people with disabilities want to use the web in the same way as everybody else - “it is a human right recognised by the UN,” says Abou-Zahra. But he recognizes that businesses in particular will also  be interested in the additional business benefits, especially in the current financial climate.
  • “With commercial organisations the return on investment is often an important argument. Well, a few years ago, companies might have said ‘how many older people are online?’ but with demographics changing they know the answer. And with the current surge in mobile phone use there is another incentive, since accessible sites work better on mobile phones.”
  • Another change of style will be a greater separation between the core guidelines and references to specific technologies such as Javascript or browser types, Abou-Zahra says.
  • “WCAG 1.0 was too  technology-specific. Back then HTML was more dominant, and there was less use of multimedia, but today we have a flurry of technologies such as Ajax, so the first lesson we learned is don’t write for a specific technology. Also, in the days of WCAG 1.0 we had to exclude Javascript because it was not sufficiently standardised and  assistive technology could not handle it consistently, but now that has largely changed so you need to include it, to look at how any technology should be accessible. The requirements - such as tagging images with text - needs to apply to any technology you are using.
Sandra Earl

E-Access Blog » Blog Archive » People With Impaired Vision 'Less Likely To Be... - 0 views

  • The RNIB report finds people over 55 are three times more likely to have seeing difficulties as those in the 16-24 age bracket, which is a greater increase with age than with other kinds of disabilities.
  • In addition, the report finds that people who are disabled with seeingdifficulties are less likely to be employed (48 per cent) than those with other kinds of disability (50 per cent); this compares to an overall employment rate of 75 per cent among people of working age. For people with more than one disability, the employment rate drops to 38 per cent, however for people with ’seeing difficulties’ that do not constitute a disability the rate is much higher at 83 per cent. The unemployment rates are 8 per cent for disabled people as a whole but 13 per cent for those disabled by visual impairment. In contrast, the report also found that a higher than average proportion of visually impaired disabled people are employed in high-level positions.
Sandra Earl

WebAIM: Accessibility of Rich Internet Applications - 0 views

  • WAI-ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications or ARIA) is a W3C protocol for enhancing and supporting accessibility of scripted and dynamic content.
  • ARIA provides accessible interactive controls (such as tree menus, drag and drop, sliders, sort controls, etc.), content roles for identifying page structure (navigation, search, main content, etc.), areas that can be dynamically updated (called "live regions" in ARIA), better support for keyboard accessibility and interactivity, and much more.
  • accessibility issues with rich internet applications can be characterized as: Providing the semantic structure of page areas and functionality (e.g., navigation, main content, search, etc.) Maintaining accessibility of content that is dynamic and may change within the page (e.g., AJAX content updates) Allowing certain non-focusable page elements to receive keyboard focus (e.g., setting focus to an error message within the page) Providing keyboard and screen reader accessibility with complex widgets and navigation elements (e.g., sliders, menu trees, etc.)
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  • WAI-ARIA provides the ability for developers to specify roles for document areas (and many other things).
  • ARIA is being implemented into many scripting libraries (such as jQuery, Dojo, YUI, and GWT). While developers can certainly implement ARIA into their advanced widgets and applications, using ARIA-supported libraries greatly simplifies the process of providing this level of accessibility.
Sandra Earl

WebAIM: Accessibility of AJAX Applications - Accessibility Issues - 0 views

  • AJAX is
  • a smorgasbord of web technologies put together to allow dynamic client-server interactions to occur in web applications without requiring pages to reload or refresh.
  • AJAX uses the following:
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  • The XHTML and CSS elements can be dynamically modified to display new information or styling. These changes are typically done using the Document Object Model.
  • XHTML (or HTML) and CSS to create an interface and visually style information.
  • JavaScript is used to manipulate the interface elements and is also used to establish a communication with a web server through XMLHttpRequest. This allows data (typically in XML format) to be transmitted between the client and the web server without requiring page reloads or refreshes.
  • standard type of client-server interaction
  • A web page interface is presented. User information is collected (via forms, links, etc.). The user submits information (submits form, activates link, etc.). The server processes submitted information. A new web page interface is sent to the user.
  • With AJAX, all of these steps can be handled in one interface.
  • The types of web applications and interactions allowed by using AJAX has given rise to the term "Web 2.0"
  • AJAX allows feature-rich, dynamic web applications which use server-side processing without requiring the traditional "submit data — retrieve web page"
  • allows more streamlined applications that require less processing and data transmission
  • higher levels of interactivity
  • current solution to these problems is to either provide a non-AJAX alternative to your application or to allow your AJAX application to continue to function if JavaScript and XMLHttpRequest are not supported. Such a requirement may be very difficult to achieve
  • Another issue with AJAX is how the application interface is updated. When updates to the interface occur, it may not be visually apparent that a change has occurred. The problem is even more troublesome for screen reader users. Screen readers typically read in a linear fashion. When changes happen in the interface, the screen reader user may not be aware of the change and the new content will likely not be read.
  • to allow dynamic interface changes to be accessible, the application must alert the user that a change has occurred, allow direct access to the new content, and then allow continued functionality of the web application. This process, while difficult to achieve, especially for screen reader users, is possible to achieve in many AJAX applications.
Sandra Earl

The order of link pseudo-classes matters | 456 Berea Street - 0 views

  • Common knowledge to most who have been working with CSS for a few years, but perhaps not something that relative newcomers have come across yet: the order in which you define the different link states affects the end result. I prefer the following order: :link, :visited, :hover, :focus, :active.
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