Plan For Accessibility - TODCon 2008

From concept to implementation Presented by Denise R. Jacobs Planning for Accessibility

Overview of Accessibility For the purposes of this presentation, "accessibility" refers to making web sites accessible to people with disabilities, and at the same time to people using different operating systems, web browsers and devices.

Who Cares? “ If anybody asks me what the Internet means to me, I will tell him without hesitation: To me (a quadriplegic), the Internet occupies the most important part in my life. It is my feet that can take me to any part of the world; it is my hands which help me to accomplish my work; it is my best friend — it gives my life meaning.” — Dr. ZhangXU

Accessibility matters to…
The User
The Client
User Interface Designer(s)
The Search Engine
The Host

7 Real-Life Situations where Web Accessibility is a Must
Users cannot see.
Users cannot hear.
User cannot move.
Users cannot understand complex text.
Users have slow Internet connections and the images either take too long to download or do not download at all.
Users are not native speakers and have difficulties understanding the foreign language.
The situation prevents for the user from using their hands, eyes or ears to access a web page.

Knowledge is power
Know yourself, know your audience
It's important to make sure that you know what outcome you want with the end-product of your website and how your site will best serve your audience.
~ 10% of the population has disabilities
What are your audience's needs?
What are your internal needs?

If the users have …
sight disabilities
correct page semantics for screen readers
audio equivalents to audio pieces
color schemes optimized for contrast and people with color blindness
Know what to provide in each situation

Know what to provide in each situation, 2
If the users have…
hearing disabilities
text equivalents to any audio pieces
motor disabilities
easily navigatable pages (by multiple methods: click, tab, keyboard)
content chunked well
cognitive disabilities
content chunked well
clear, simple presentation of content
content written in clear, simple language

Know what to provide in each situation, 3
If the users have …
different browsers and operating systems
thorough cross-browser testing
alternative media
alternative stylesheets
updated easily in the future: progressive enhancement
correct page semantics (proper HTML coding)
properly styled implementation that can be altered

Trends in accessibility Adhering to Web Standards: Following the specifications created by the W3C for the version of markup or scripting language that you are using.

Trends in accessibility
Web Standards make for good business
Accessibility
Usability
Compatibility
Substantially increased performance
Higher search engine rankings
Powerful designs

Trends in accessibility
Standards Harmonization
"Standards Harmonization" refers to the adoption of a consistent set of international technical standards for accessibility of:
Web content
browsers and media players
authoring tools

Accessibility and Your Website Project
Integrate accessibility standards into design process
Examples of design requirements for people with different kinds of disabilities include:
Visual:
described graphics or video; well marked-up tables; keyboard support, screen reader compatibility
Hearing:
captioning for audio, supplemental illustration

Accessibility and Your Website Project
(continued)
Physical, Speech:
keyboard or single-switch support; alternatives for speech input on voice portals
Cognitive, Neurological:
consistent navigation, appropriate language level; illustration; no flickering or strobing designs

Site wireframing and designing
Incorporating accessibility into wireframes and design – what to look for
The wireframes/design should have logical and consistent navigation.
Elements should be grouped and relationships between elements should be evident.
The design should not rely on color alone to convey information.
As a client, do NOT require browser pop-up windows for your site (pop-up divs are different, however).

Some (potentially) tough design choices:
Submit buttons – standard buttons have full functionality, whereas Javascript buttons may pose accessibility issues.
Use (and/or abuse) of Ajax – Ajax is a combination of technologies that is not reliable from an accessibility standpoint. Be sure that any Ajax desired on the site is proven to be accessible.
Color - luckily, most of the unusable color combinations are also visually unappealing. However, it is still important to test the colors for contrast and color blindness.

The Goal: Graceful Transformation
“ Graceful Degrading” – backwards degrading: the site works well in its simplest form.
“ Progressive Enhancement" – while users are still able to see everything with a basic browser, JavaScript can overwrite and add functional richness if necessary. Also, if the site is redesigned, conceivably, only styles would need to be changed, but the page semantics and hierarchy are still solid.

Site wireframing and designing Accessible is Beautiful Once you get past all of the hard thinking to make sure you have all of your accessibility bases covered, then the fun can begin! Don’t think that just because a site is accessible, it can’t be beautiful too!

Content creation
Some Accessibility Guidelines for Web Content :
Provide context and orientation information.
Link text should be meaningful enough to make sense when read out of context - no more "click here"!
Place distinguishing information at the beginning of headings, paragraphs, lists, etc.
Use the clearest and simplest language appropriate for a site's content.

Accessibility and Implementation You have the power…But with power comes responsibility! The WC3 has created the WCAG Guidelines, the standards by which web developers can create sites that are accessible to all audiences.

Accessibility and Implementation
Here are some of the guidelines we will cover:
Guideline 1. Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content.
Guideline 3. Use markup and style sheets and do so properly.
Guideline 5. Create tables that transform gracefully.
Guideline 6. Ensure that pages featuring new technologies transform gracefully.
Guideline 9. Design for device-independence.
Guideline 12. Provide context and orientation information.
Guideline 13. Provide clear navigation mechanisms.

Accessibility and alternate browsers Most web browsers on mobile devices, such as PDAs or cell phones generally render sites with minimal css and no javascript. Consequently, all of the issues that affect screen readers also affect these mobile browser applications. (WCAG Guideline 9)

Accessible HTML: General
Use Headings Properly
Include more than just “read more” in links.
Skip Navigation/Jump to Content Link

Distinguish between
Presentational Images
Content-Based Images
Accessible HTML: Images

Tables Are Not For Layout
Tabular Data
How the Blind “see” on the web
Semantic Forms
Use Required flag to promote important content
Accessible HTML: Tables and Forms

Similar to the table tag being used for layout, iframes are another tag that can make navigation with a screen reader difficult. Keeping track of content with more than one page, and the difficulties of tracking which link opens in which frame, can be a headache. It is best avoided.
(WCAG Guideline 12)
Accessible HTML: Iframes

Flash: Provide an alternative Most Flash is not developed with accessibility in mind. Because of the difficulty of Flash working properly with screen readers, most screenreader users don’t even have flash installed. If a user doesn’t have Flash installed, you should show the user alternate text. Flash files that use dynamic content can be reproduced in HTML as an alternate text version. (WCAG Guidelines 1, 6) Accessible HTML: Flash

Lists for Navigation
Definition Lists
Accessible HTML: Lists

The main way increase blog accessibility is to maximize the ways to get to content.
categorized content is essential
tagged content
popular/rated content
Accessible Blogs

Conclusion
"Accessibility is a Process, Not a Product."
Bob Regan, Macromedia
Questions? Comments?

Plan For Accessibility - TODCon 2008

by Denise Jacobs on Nov 21, 2008

Accessibility

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Plan For Accessibility - TODCon 2008 — Presentation Transcript