Many of the things accessibility advocates believe are out of date. Yes, the web industry has loads of myths about accessibility which we constantly need to battle. But some of the understanding of accessibility advocates is equally flawed. In this talk to a11yLDN 2012 I challenge some of the accepted assumptions many of us hold that I believe are really not serving us, or the disabled and elderly people we are trying to help, well at all. In their place I detail some more researched, more effective findings from which to continue to grow our influence in the web community. Find the original blog, and join in the discussion at: http://www.hassellinclusion.com/2011/12/accessibility-myths-2011/

1. ©
Checking our footing…
16 Modern accessibility myths
debunked
Prof Jonathan Hassell (@jonhassell)
Director, Hassell Inclusion
19th September 2012
Photo by jjuochka - flickr

2. ©
I‟ll challenge the orthodox views…

3. ©
Why believe me? My experience…
• 10 years experience in accessibility and inclusion
• regular international speaker and thought leader
• lead author of UK Accessibility Standards BS 8878
& chair of its drafting committee
• former Head of Usability & Accessibility, BBC Future Media
• led work to embed accessibility across
BBC web, mobile and IPTV production teams
• Won BIMA 2008 & Access-IT@Home awards for the accessibility
features of BBC iPlayer
• Product Manager of innovative, award-winning products:
• won IMS Global Learning Impact Award 2010 for MyDisplay
• won „Best Usability & Accessibility‟ BIMA 2006 for My Web, My Way
• 3 x Bafta-nominated for rich-media eLearning projects using
breakthrough accessibility technologies for disabled children

4. ©
My views come from (analysis of) years of
user-research and real-world project management…

5. ©
• the full guide on how to transform your organisation
to achieve the consistent creation of web sites and
apps that are usable and accessible to all your
customers, at the most efficient cost
• with practical case-studies from leading
accessibility experts worldwide, including:
• Jennison Asuncion (Canada),
• Debra Ruh & Jeff Kline (USA),
• Andrew Arch (Australia)
• David Banes (Qatar)
• Axel Leblois (UN)
For information on the book‟s publication, free
access to video case-studies, and a chance of
winning the book… click below
There are many more myths, and tips on how to research
your own myths, in my book – available summer 2014

6. ©
1What disabled and elderly
people need is
accessibility

7. ©
No, what they want is a site to be usable…
just like everyone else…

8. ©
Accessibility is just the engine…
you still need the whole car to work to get you there…

9. ©
2What website creators
need is
WCAG 2.0

10. ©
WCAG is useful for…
WCAG useful for:
• websites
• techies – list of what I have
to do with the tech (e.g.
headings)
• designers – list of what I
have to do with my design
(e.g. colour contrast)
• requirements mgrs – list of
what I have to include as
features (e.g. subtitles)
Slight problem:
• All mixed together…
Other WAI documents useful for:
• browser creators
• CMS/tool creators
• mobile site creators
• Evaluation
• How disabled people use the
web
• How to get the best of a
browser
• How disabled people should
feedback to an organisation
• etc. etc.

11. ©
But who codes from scratch these days?
Most sites are mash-ups…

12. ©
So it‟s more about how you choose the technologies
& components you‟ll use

13. ©
Should you choose to use these techs…?
And, if so, how do you make them accessible?

14. ©
We need Standards that understand
modern web product creation…
WCAG useful for:
• websites
• techies – list of what I have
to do with the tech (e.g.
headings)
• designers – list of what I
have to do with my design
(e.g. colour contrast)
• requirements mgrs – list of
what I have to include as
features (e.g. subtitles)
Slight problem:
• All mixed together…
Other WAI documents useful for:
• browser creators
• CMS/tool creators
• mobile site creators
• Evaluation
• How disabled people use the
web
• How to get the best of a
browser
• How disabled people should
feedback to an organisation
• etc. etc.
BS 8878:
• Less about „technical
accessibility‟ more about the
process of how you create,
test and maintain web apps
and sites
• Harmonised with inclusive
design and usability
• Procurement guidelines, as
much as tech guidelines
• More emphasis on content
maintenance guidelines
• Emphasis on users reaching
the site‟s user-goals, not its
tech & design meeting
checkpoints

15. ©
3The best business case
for accessibility is
the law

16. ©
The legal business
case…
• if an organisation‟s web
product is not accessible to a
disabled person, that person
might have grounds for
making a claim against the
organisation under different
countries‟ laws & regulations
• e.g.
• USA: ADA, CVAA, state
disability laws
• UK: Equality Act 2010
• Canada: AODA
Equality Act: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2010/pdf/ukpga_20100015_en.pdf

17. ©
But there‟s very little case law, so
you can probably get away with it…

18. ©
… with a bit of insurance against risk

19. ©
So, if accessibility = insurance
which policy are you likely to buy…?
the
cheapest!

20. ©
The ethical business case…
• Ensuring disabled people are not
excluded from the benefits of modern
digital technologies, see:
• DCMS Digital Britain report, 2009
• DCMS eAccessibility Action Plan, 2010
• UN Convention on the Rights of
Disabled People
• 153 international signatories
Digital Britain report: http://interactive.bis.gov.uk/digitalbritain/final-report/
eAccessibility Action Plan: http://www.bis.gov.uk/policies/business-sectors/digital-content/e-accessibility-forum
UN Convention: http://www.un.org/disabilities/convention/conventionfull.shtml

21. ©
This rather falls apart
in a recession…

22. ©
Leaving you with… the bottom line – costs & benefits

23. ©
4Accessibility is cheap…
no, it‟s expensive…
no, it‟s cheap...

24. ©
Accessibility is not cheap…
• Unless you don‟t user-test
• And you don‟t do any video
• And you don‟t do any games
• Or anything richly interactive
• Or with user-generated content
• Er, which is most of the web these days…

25. ©
Yes, thinking about it at the start does make it cheaper

26. ©
But cost estimating is still difficult
as different checkpoints have wildly different costs…
Estimated unit cost

27. ©
Game over?

28. ©
No – the question is… is it worth it?

29. ©
5We won‟t get enough
Return on Investment

30. ©
Who could you reach…?
“Anyone with a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial
long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day to
day activities”
Disability Discrimination Act / Equality Act 2010
11 million adults(between 12-26% of UK population)
Sources: Experience and expectations of disabled people (ODI 2008), TGI,
Disabled for Life (DWP 2002), BBC Talking Disability Phase 3 research

31. ©
And your “future selves”…

32. ©
Whose numbers are growing rapidly…

33. ©
Unfortunately different checkpoints have wildly
different potential reach benefits…
Estimated benefit
7m hoh
people 
200k blind
people 

34. ©
And, in practice, how many of these people do you get?
On the best „case-study‟
site, all the studies are at
least 3 years old 

35. ©
How the SEO industry sell their benefits…
• Relative monetary value of google rankings
• Benchmark current ranking
• Tell us where you want to rank
• We‟ll tell you how much it will cost
• And you don‟t need to pay us unless we prove we got you
there…

36. ©
cf. How accessibility advocates sell their benefits
• Potential monetary value of attracting disabled customers
• Benchmark current disabled usage – oh, we can‟t 
• Tell us where you want to reach
• We‟ll tell you how much it will cost – oh, we can‟t 
• And you don‟t need to pay us unless we prove we got you
there… – oh, we can‟t 

37. ©
Come on, who‟d you give your money to…?
or

38. ©
6If you build it
(to be accessible)
then they will come…

39. ©
What you were hoping for…

40. ©
What you get if you don‟t market to your audiences…

41. ©
How do you „market‟ to disabled audiences…?
The „obvious route‟ doesn‟t necessarily
work
Social media to the rescue?

42. ©
7Accessibility and
Inclusive Design
are anti-creative

43. ©
Listening to your diverse audiences need‟s…
identifies challenges…
but innovation often follows a challenge

44. ©
How disabled and elderly people can free you from fixation…

45. ©
Opportunities: mainstream inclusion vs beyond inclusion

46. ©
Don‟t be afraid of beyond inclusion => reverse inclusion

47. © 2011 Centre for Business Innovation Ltd
- 47 -
Centre for Business Innovation
“Connected Communities, helping you Do more with Less” Engineering Design Centre
OXO Good Grips
• Well-known pioneer of Inclusive Design in
the USA
• Sam Farber‟s wife, a keen cook, suffered
from arthritis
“Why do ordinary kitchen tools hurt your
hands?”
• First 15 products launched in 1990
• Sales growth over 35% per year from 1991 to
2002
• The line has now grown to over 500
products
• Over 100 design awards received

48. ©
8Accessibility and
Inclusive Design
help everyone

49. ©
Comment: at 08:24am on 14 Jul 2010, thrifty
wrote:
* The secondary menu bar is a bright red -
glares "danger" in western psychology.
Perhaps you could use a darker shade of
the burgundy instead.
* The background colour is forced to white -
high contrast contributes to eye strain &
headaches. Perhaps a light grey would help
here?
Comment: at 08:05am on 14 Jul
2010, chris b wrote:
…
Awful 'UK News/World New'
panel - … Terrible contrast too
between the text and dark
background.
Comment: Ana wrote:
Your website claims to be
accessible, but it is not, at
least not 100% AA
compliant. It fails the
criteria: 1.4.3 Contrast
(Minimum): The visual
presentation of text and
images of text has a
contrast ratio of at least
4.5:1(Level AA)-
http://www.w3.org/TR/WC
AG20/
With inclusive design, sometimes you just can‟t win…

50. ©
This is why personalisation is often necessary…

51. ©
8. Consider inclusive design and user-personalized approaches
– non-individualized/inclusive
• accessibility through guidelines, inclusive design, ATs, user-testing…
– user-personalized allows…
• users to specify their needs and then…
– finds a suitable product from a number of alternative versions, or
– adapts the web product to those needs
• often through „additional accessibility measures‟
– circumstances where a personalised approach could be useful:
• where a „one size fits all‟ approach doesn‟t work for all your target audiences
• if individual relationship with audience is possible/expected
(e.g. eLearning) then a personalised approach might be expected
• for audiences with restrictions on browser, installation etc.
– user-personalized should always complement,
never replace, inclusive design approaches
And why personalisation is in BS 8878

52. ©
9Disabled people
use
assistive technologies

53. ©
Actually, use of Assistive Technologies is low…
6-8%of UK web users use an
Assistive Technology
(screenreader, adapted
mouse or similar)
to access the Internet
Source: EEDP (2008)

54. ©
Even when Microsoft research finds their benefits
should be useful to a huge number of users…
Source: Microsoft/Forrester Research study 2003, USA
57%of USA computer users
(aged 18-64)
are likely or very likely to
benefit from the use of
Accessible Technology

55. ©
Why? - current web accessibility solutions expect:
1. one site to work for all…
2. or an Assistive Technology or OS/browser setting/tool to exist to make
the site accessible
• often they don‟t (e.g. text to sign language, text to „Easy Read‟)
3. and expects web users to:
a. be aware that an Assistive Technology or OS/browser setting/tool exists
for their need
• (even with sites like BBC My Web My Way
to point the way) most are not
b. be able to afford that technology
• most are C2DE so have difficulty affording
expensive techs
c. be able to work out how to install it
• most are not technical (don‟t know
what a browser is) and scared of downloads
d. be able to work out how to use it
• most are unconfident
e. be able to use it to access online content
• thus… most never get this far,
even if the site is WCAG AAA
• … and to do this for every device on which they use the web

56. ©
For more see…
http://gpii.net/

57. ©
10Accessibility is just about
blind people
- now for platforms…

58. ©
The bad old days…

59. ©
Motor Dysfunction, 1,562,000,
9%
Dyslexia, 1,900,000, 10%
Mild Learning Disability,
1,750,000, 10%
Severe Learning Disability,
350,000, 2%
Severely or Profoundly Deaf,
688,000, 4%
Hearing Impaired (disruptive to
lifestyle), 7,569,000, 42%
Registered Blind or Partially
Sighted, 434,000, 2%
Visually Impaired (disruptive
to lifestyle), 2,720,000, 15%
Adult (15+) with Reading Age of
under 5, 1,100,000, 6%
People in the UK affected by some form of Disability
Thankfully, we learnt to care about the other 98%

60. ©
But it seems mobile platform creators
didn‟t quite get the message…
In iOS 6 Apple are going beyond blind
(at last, but still have “blind spots”)
Google‟s Android still focuses on blind
(and VI) + some captions

61. ©
11Text is more accessible
than other media

62. ©
Motor Dysfunction, 1,562,000,
9%
Dyslexia, 1,900,000, 10%
Mild Learning Disability,
1,750,000, 10%
Severe Learning Disability,
350,000, 2%
Severely or Profoundly Deaf,
688,000, 4%
Hearing Impaired (disruptive to
lifestyle), 7,569,000, 42%
Registered Blind or Partially
Sighted, 434,000, 2%
Visually Impaired (disruptive
to lifestyle), 2,720,000, 15%
Adult (15+) with Reading Age of
under 5, 1,100,000, 6%
People in the UK affected by some form of Disability
Let‟s be informed by those stats:

63. ©
Motor Dysfunction, 1,562,000,
9%
Dyslexia, 1,900,000, 10%
Mild Learning Disability,
1,750,000, 10%
Severe Learning Disability,
350,000, 2%
Severely or Profoundly Deaf,
688,000, 4%
Hearing Impaired (disruptive to
lifestyle), 7,569,000, 42%
Registered Blind or Partially
Sighted, 434,000, 2%
Visually Impaired (disruptive
to lifestyle), 2,720,000, 15%
Adult (15+) with Reading Age of
under 5, 1,100,000, 6%
People in the UK affected by some form of Disability
Who prefers words… and who prefers pictures…?

64. ©
Maybe all text should get an alt-video…
After all, which would you prefer?
Read how to do it…
Watch the demo video
or

65. ©
12The most important
accessibility requirement
for images is alt-text

66. ©
Motor Dysfunction, 1,562,000,
9%
Dyslexia, 1,900,000, 10%
Mild Learning Disability,
1,750,000, 10%
Severe Learning Disability,
350,000, 2%
Severely or Profoundly Deaf,
688,000, 4%
Hearing Impaired (disruptive to
lifestyle), 7,569,000, 42%
Registered Blind or Partially
Sighted, 434,000, 2%
Visually Impaired (disruptive
to lifestyle), 2,720,000, 15%
Adult (15+) with Reading Age of
under 5, 1,100,000, 6%
People in the UK affected by some form of Disability
As this is the case…

67. ©
Then more important than your alt-text…

68. ©
Is that your pictures tell the story
without words…
✔✗

69. ©
13The most important
people in accessibility
are developers

70. ©
To be clear…
the accessibility of your web
products is in all
these people‟s hands…
Designers Writers
Project Mgrs Product Mgrs
Finance Legal Marketing Strategy
Snr Mgrs
TestersDevelopers

71. ©
But, when it comes down to it, who defines the product?

72. ©
14It doesn‟t matter if your
mobile site/app isn‟t
accessible, just as long as
your desktop site is

73. ©
What does research tell us…
• Older
– 47% over 65 compared to
20% of general population
• Less likely to be working
– 43% of working age compared
to 74% of general population
– So they may well be using the cheapest way of
getting online in the UK
• Heavy media consumers
– Particularly TV and radio
• Only half see themselves
as „disabled‟
Sources: Experience and expectations of disabled people (ODI 2008), TGI,
Disabled for Life (DWP 2002), BBC Talking Disability Phase 3 research

74. ©
15Websites have to be
accessible
from the start

75. ©
We all got so scared by this…

76. ©
We forgot the real world, of proofs
of concept, experiments, and
versioning
Minimal viable product:
Not perfect yet…
But with enough of the
core unique selling points
to test in public while you evolve it
And accessibility may not be
necessary for v1 MVP

77. ©
Lose the battle, win the war…

78. ©
16BS 8878
is just for
huge companies

79. ©
BS 8878 maps well to
guidelines for creating
„effective websites‟
which are crucial for
SMEs

80. ©
Join the discussion online…
http://www.hassellinclusion.com/2011/12/accessibility-myths-2011/

81. ©
• the full guide on how to transform your organisation
to achieve the consistent creation of web sites and
apps that are usable and accessible to all your
customers, at the most efficient cost
• with practical case-studies from leading
accessibility experts worldwide, including:
• Jennison Asuncion (Canada),
• Debra Ruh & Jeff Kline (USA),
• Andrew Arch (Australia)
• David Banes (Qatar)
• Axel Leblois (UN)
For information on the book‟s publication, free
access to video case-studies, and a chance of
winning the book… send us your details
via the form on the next slide
There are many more myths, and tips on how to research
your own myths, in my book – available summer 2014

82. ©
Training &
support for
BS8878
Standards
Innovation
www.hassellinclusion.com
Strategy &
research

83. ©
And if I can help you
Please get in touch…
e: jonathan@hassellinclusion.com
t: @jonhassell
w: www.hassellinclusion.com