First set of slides used by Brian Kelly in debate on "Web accessibility is difficult to implement" at the IWMW 2003 event held at the University of Kent on 11-13 June 2003. See http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2003/debate/#debate-1

1. 1
Is Web Accessibility Difficult?
Creating Accessible
Web Pages Is Easy
The Case Against The Motion
Brian Kelly
UK Web Focus
UKOLN
B.Kelly@ukoln.ac.uk

2. 2
Although W3C is an
international consortium
WAI Guidelines the
driving force comes
from US companies.
Who would gain most
from international
standardisation of WAI
guidelines:
• IT industry in
countries throughout
the world
• Microsoft, Sun, IBM,
…
Although W3C is an
international consortium
WAI Guidelines the
driving force comes
from US companies.
Who would gain most
from international
standardisation of WAI
guidelines:
• IT industry in
countries throughout
the world
• Microsoft, Sun, IBM,
…

3. 3
Background
In Sep 2002 a survey of the accessibility of University
home pages was published.
The survey made use of Bobby and reported only on
compliance with WAI features which can be measured
in an automated way.
Despite:
• The culture in UK HEIs of wishing to do a good job
• The SENDA legislation (Sept 2003)
• The limits of the survey (only entry points
We found:
• Only 4 (3 really) pages complied with WAI AA
• Only 70 complied with WAI A
If Web accessibility is easy, why such poor results?If Web accessibility is easy, why such poor results?

4. 4
The Tools
Creating Web pages is easy  - my children
can do it
But:
• It's easy because many Web authors (but not us)
use tools such as MS Word, PowerPoint, … and
simply save as HTML 
• Users don't want to be forced to change tools –
they are conservative (unlike many of us)
• There are significant costs in migrating to better
tools (licence costs, testing, training, …) – even
for open source tools
• There are even bigger costs in moving to a CMS
environment (sorry Andrew)

5. 5
The Browser
• W3C guidelines generally seem to assume
that software implementations of W3C
standards will work correctly
• Sadly, this isn't true
• We should have instigated a large-scale
search and destroy policy on Netscape 4
(with its very buggy support for CSS which
greatly hindered deployment of CSS)
• Instead we hate Microsoft more than we
wish to support accessibility and so we didn't
do this 

6. 6
Accessibility and E-Learning
How do we make
this interactive
exercise
interactive?
Can we design a
single system as
usable as this?
Isn't it expensive
to do this?
Accessibility of e-Learning is probably the most
difficult challenge facing us
And what about graphical quizzes in which we 'obscure'
answers in order to assist learning; 3D visualisations, …
And what about graphical quizzes in which we 'obscure'
answers in order to assist learning; 3D visualisations, …

7. 7
Workflow
• I have a dozen or so PowerPoint files from
speakers at the workshop
• I wish to make them available on the Web in an
open and accessible format
• I store the file & the MS-derived HTML
• I can use a (currently clunky) tool to produce
accessible & compliant HTML
• But I'm asked for ALT tags for every image – and
the software won't let me save the file until I've
done this 
• If it's difficult for me I think it's clear this approach
won't scale

8. 8
Conclusions
To conclude:
• Universal Web accessibility is a great idea
• World peace and harmony is another great
idea
• But it's a myth that either ideal can be
implemented simply and without cost
• There is therefore a need to make
priorities, make compromises and carry
out risk assessment
• These are legitimate issues to raise –
saying them doesn't make you an uncaring
Thatcherite!