Web Accessibility

Please rate your computer proficiency Response% of Respondents Expert22% Advanced44% Intermediate27% Beginner8%

Please rate your screen reader proficiency Response% of Respondents Expert17% Advanced41% Intermediate32% Beginner9%

Screen Reader Usage

Of the 1121 respondents, 74% use JAWS, 23% use Window-Eyes, 8% use NVDA, and 6% use VoiceOver. While several other screen readers were reported, these were the most prominently reported. Individual versions of screen readers are not yet computed, but generally the majority of users are using the most up-to-date version of their screen reader.

How soon do you update your screen reader after a new version is released? Upgrade Window% of Respondents Immediately41% First 6 months25% 6-12 months9% 1-2 years9% 2-3 years4% 3+ years6% No response6%

How customized are your screen reader settings? (e.g., changed verbosity, installed scripts, etc.) Response% of Respondents A lot29% Somewhat40% Slightly21% Not at all7% No response4%

a lot or some customization was reported by only 27.6% of respondents with no disability versus 71.4% for those that reported blindness.

78% of respondents reported using a screen reader on a desktop computer, 54% use a screen reader on a laptop, and 12% use a screen reader on a mobile phone.

No respondents who use screen readers for evaluation reported using a screen reader on a mobile device.

Which web browser(s) do you currently use with a screen reader? Browser% of Respondents IE633% IE768% IE82% Firefox39% Safari6%

Respondents with no disability were nearly twice as likely to list Firefox as blind respondents - 66% to 37%.

The percentage of Safari users is over double that of the overall population - this may be due in part to the fact that some in the Mac community actively solicited survey participation and encouraged respondents to indicate their Safari use, perhaps partially due to feeling snubbed because we didn't list them with IE and Firefox as direct choices.

When first accessing a new, unfamiliar home page, I'm most likely to... Response% of Respondents Read through the home page46% Navigate through or listen to the links on the page35% Use the Search to find what I'm looking for13% Look for a site map or site index3% No Response2%

Interestingly, the more proficient screen reader users are more likely to read through the home page and use links less often than less proficient screen reader users. This may be due to faster reading speeds for more experienced users. The home page strategies used were very similar regardless of proficiency, disability, or amount of screen reader use.

I use "skip to content" or "skip navigation" links... Response% of Respondents Whenever they're available22% Often16% Sometimes28% Seldom19% Never10% No Response4%

Skip to content22% Skip to main content28%

I use Access keys... Response% of Respondents Whenever they're available22% Often16% Sometimes28% Seldom19% Never10%

I navigate by headings... Response% of Respondents Whenever they're available52% Often24%

76% always or often navigating by headings when they are available.

I use site search functionality... Response% of Respondents Whenever it's available26% Often25% Sometimes31%

Find the word "Search"18% Jump to the first text/edit field on the page25%

Jump to the first form element in a page36%

Proficient screen reader users were more than twice as likely to jump directly to the form or text/edit field than less proficient users. Less proficient users were nearly three times more likely to use more manual methods (reading, tabbing, or finding) than more proficient users.

a majority of respondents seldom or never use site maps. There was no marked difference in the use of site maps across screen reader proficiency or disability. In general, it appears that site maps may be beneficial, but are not commonly accessed by screen reader users.

Text-only versions are always used by many and never used by many. As such, it is very difficult to interpret the value they have for screen reader users. More proficient screen reader users were much less likely to use text-only versions than less proficient users. This may suggest that proficient users employ sufficient techniques to render the main version acceptable to them. Or, it may suggest that proficient users do not gain value in using text-only versions, which are often less than optimal.

If content is identified as being "for screen reader users", how often do you use it? Response% of Respondents Whenever it's available38% Often15% Sometimes25% Seldom13%

A closer analysis, however, reveals that pop-up windows are reported as very difficult twice as often by less proficient screen reader users than with higher proficiency. Alternatively, more proficient users were three times more likely to indicate that pop-up windows are not at all difficult. This shows that less proficient screen reader users (which represent 41% of respondents) have more difficult experiences with pop-up windows.

Firefox users were much more likely to give a favorable response, perhaps a reflection of Firefox support for ARIA, etc. Evaluators and those without disabilities were nearly twice as likely to indicate that these applications are not very or not at all accessible than those that always use screen readers or have disabilities. This may suggest that these applications are actually more accessible than evaluators believe them to be, or alternatively, that screen reader users with disabilities are less knowledgeable about the true inaccessibility of these technologies.

66% of evaluators preferred that the image be ignored, compared to only 28% of those that always user a screen reader. Similarly, 65% of those with no disability preferred that the image be ignored, compared to 29% of those with disabilities.

If a web page contains a photo of the White House, I prefer that the image be identified as... Response% of Respondents Photo of the White House80%

69.4% of evaluators found them difficult compared to only 42.6% of those that always use a screen reader. Those with higher screen reader proficiency naturally found these links easier.

71.5% of screen reader users reported that Flash is difficult

While the majority (58%) of users reported that frames are easy, those that are blind were 3 1/2 times more likely to indicate that they are easy than those with no disability. Similarly, those that always use a screen reader reported frames as easy nearly 3 times more often than evaluators. This perhaps suggests a misconception among those that do not have disabilities that frames are very inaccessible when in fact those with disabilities find them easy.

Closed Captioning Closed captioning can be added to all audio files. From the record audio dialog, closed caption text can be added under the Caption tab. The playback bar contains a CC button which allows the closed captioning to be displayed or hidden.

Button Accessibility Text buttons can be made accessible. The text that appears on-screen becomes the button’s accessible name. To make the buttons keyboard accessible, the “Set Keystroke: Select Keys” button should be used and the keystroke of “enter” should be set in the object’s properties dialog. Other shortcuts can be assigned but enter/space will then not work to activate the button after tabbing to it. The keystroke of “enter” can be assigned to multiple buttons and the button with focus will be activated when Enter is pressed.

Audio recordings can be associated with click boxes and thus authors can associate descriptive text to be announced when a shortcut keystroke is pressed to assist users with visual impairments.

Text from PowerPoint Much of the text from PowerPoint will come through as text in Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) and will be exposed to users of screen readers. Currently there isn’t a method to change the order or edit this text.

Quiz Questions There is some accessibility support for quiz questions. Simple types of questions such as true and false and multiple choice provide accessible names for the radio buttons and the text of the question appears as text in the accessible MSAA structure and is exposed to screen readers.

Accessibility Differences Between Captivate 3 and 4 The text in the “text caption” object does not show up as accessible text in Captivate 3 but does in Captivate 4. In addition, it is not possible to set accessible text for specific images in Captivate 3 but it is possible in Captivate 4.

6. No model for commercial components. It is not clear to me how a component vendor could sell an AIR component while protecting it from unlicensed deployment. This may limit the availability of 3rd party components, with a corresponding impact on productivity.

7. Schizophrenic development model. AIR supports either Flex development, or HTML applications which run in WebKit. The ugly side of this flexibility is that there are two SDKs, even two JavaScript virtual machines with different capabilities and characteristics. While it is nice to have a way to render HTML, I am not convinced that the web application model is worth it, given the complications it causes. After all, web applications run perfectly well in the browser.

Lack of UI standards may lead to annoying inconsistencies between AIR applications. We are used to this on the Web; now it is coming to the desktop as well.

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.