Devin S. Olson's presentation from Lotusphere 2006. This was the very first session on Accessibility in the history of Lotusphere

1. BP301
Accessibility for the Visually
Impaired With IBM Lotus
Domino
Devin S. Olson
azlighthouse works, llc.

2. narcissism – Devin Olson
▪ Live in Phoenix, AZ with my wife and 2 children.
▪ Developing software for over 20 years (have actually coded
using punch cards and paper tape). Lotus notes since R3.
▪ CNA, MCP, PCLP (SA & AD) R4, R5, R6, lots of other TLAs
▪ Founded azlighthouse works, llc. In 2001; currently work for the
Bureau of Land Management.
▪ Home Brewer
(Anheuser-Busch Certified Beer Master).
▪ Muay Thai Kickboxer.
▪ Visited every State except Alaska,
(most on motorcycle)
▪ email: devin.olson@azlighthouse.com
▪ blog: www.devinolson.net

3. Accessibility for the Visually Impaired with IBM Lotus Domino
Agenda
▪What is "visually impaired“?
▪What are the legal, moral, & ethical
issues?
▪What should you consider?
▪Some development tips to help make
your domino website more accessible.

4. Table of contents
▪Visually Impaired Users – who are they?
▪Section 508 and how it applies to you.
▪“Letter of the Law” vs. Doing what is RIGHT.
▪Where to Start
▪ W3C Design Principles.
▪ Baby Steps 1-4; Understand, Convince, Kill, & alt.
▪Use Cases: think about the End User.
▪Development Tips
▪Designing Help
▪Summary & Resources

5. “ 128 million Americans age 18 or
older use the internet.”
▪ Pew Internet & American Life Project
Visually Impaired Users - Who are they?

6. Visually Impaired Users - Who are they?
▪1.3 Million Legally Blind
▪5.5 Million elderly (65 or older) vision
impaired
▪Over 10 Million either partially or totally
visually impaired
(Approximate numbers of people living in the United States)
Bureau of the Census: 1994-95
National Center for Health Statistics: 1994-95

7. Visually Impaired Users - Who are they?
▪10 Million with ET (Essential Tremor)
syndrome
1 in 20 age 40 or above;
1 in 5 age 65 or above
▪33 Million with some level of paralytic
disability
“Trembling Hands” (Tremors/Palsy); Partial or full Paralysis
International Essential Tremor Foundation
American Academy of Family Physicians

8. Disabled Computer Users
▪15-34 years: 69%, 46%
▪35-54 years: 45%, 40%
▪55-64 years: 24%, 28%
▪65+ years: 7%, 10%
by Age Group; Internet Use in 1999, Home Internet Connection
Disability Research Information Page;
Canadian Council on Social Development
(General Social Survey - 2000)

9. Visually Impaired Users - Who are they?
▪Your friends.
▪Your family.
▪Your co-workers.
▪Your customers.
More than you think at first
People you care about.

10. What is Section 508?
▪President Clinton signed
amendment into law on
August 7, 1998.
▪Section 508 of the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973,
as amended, 29 U.S.C.
requires that all electronic
technology developed or
provided by any Federal
Agency be accessible to
people who are disabled.

11. Legal disclaimer - I am NOT a lawyer
The following information is the sole OPINION of
Devin S. Olson, and does not represent the opinions,
beliefs, political motivations, or official policies of
either his employer or IBM in any way.
This information is meant to be informative in nature
only; it is NOT official legal advice.
For any legal questions, consult with your attorney.

12. Section 508: how it applies to you
▪Section 508 does not apply to State
and Local governments.
▪Section 508 does not apply to
companies using federal funds.
▪Section 508 does not apply to Private
Sector.
“I don’t work for the government, this doesn’t apply to me!”
However....

13. Section 508 defines a standard for accessibility
▪ADA does apply to State and Local
governments.
▪ADA does apply to companies using
federal funds.
▪ADA does apply to Private Sector.
Related Legislation:
Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, Titles 1 and 4
ADA leans heavily upon Section 508

14. “Letter of the Law” vs. Doing what is RIGHT
▪ Your legal department should
provide advice regarding your
legal responsibilities.
▪ Visually Impaired users
represent a large pool of
untapped potential customers.
▪ Generates good will.
▪ Building an inaccessible
website is just plain rude.
Juggling your priorities

15. Where to Start?
1. Perceivable. You should ensure that all content can be
presented in forms that can be perceived by everyone.
2. Operable. You should ensure that the interface elements
in the content are operable by everyone.
3. Navigable. You should facilitate content orientation and
navigation.
4. Understandable. You should make it as easy as
possible for people to understand your content and controls.
5. Robust. You should use technologies that maximize the
ability of your content to work with current and future web
browsers, assistive technologies, and other programs.
Part 1: W3C Design Principles

16. Where to Start?
▪ Understand the Technology
▪ Convince the Boss
▪ Kill the Flash
▪ The alt attribute
Part 2: Baby Steps 1-4

17. Baby Step 1 - Understand the Technology
▪Screen Readers (JAWS from Freedom
Scientific).
▪Refreshable Braille displays.
▪Adaptive & voice browsers.
▪Text only browsers.
▪Browsers made specifically for people with
disabilities (IBM Home Page Reader)

18. Baby Step 2 - Convince the Boss
▪Designing for accessibility requires a different point of
view from that of most development projects.
▪Adding support to most existing websites is hard,
time consuming (expensive) work.
▪Even though Domino is extremely conducive to this;
it will cost time & money to do right.
▪Without full management support, you are destined
to fail.
▪“Skunkworks projects” won’t work; to succeed, you
must have management buy in.

19. Baby Step 3 - Kill the Flash
▪Flash navigation looks cool.
▪Flash navigation is very robust.
▪Most Flash navigation is either incredibly frustrating or
absolutely unusable to Visually Impaired users.
▪Frustrated users rarely, if ever, come back to your site.
▪What to do?
▪Remove the Flash entirely.
▪Use latest versions of Flash (with enhancements for the
Visually Impaired).
▪Provide an easily accessible & prominent alternative
navigation method.

20. Baby Step 4 - the alt attribute
▪Defines “alternative text” for an image.
▪Also referred to as the “text-equivalent”.
▪Most browsers ignore it, unless the image
cannot be found.
▪Screen Readers (such as JAWS) read it.
▪You should use it for every image you include
on every page you design.

21. Use Cases: think about the End User
This section, and a majority of the rest of this presentation, is based heavily on the book
Dive Into Accessibility: 30 days to a more accessible web site by Mark Pilgrim*.
*Permission has been granted to copy, distribute, and/or modify this book under the terms of the GNU Free
Documentation License, Version 1.1
▪Who, specifically, are the potential users of
your website?
▪Think of PERSONS, not people.
▪What are their needs?
▪What can you do to make your site more
accessible to these PERSONS?

22. ▪ Jackie
▪ 19 year old, A student.
▪ Totally blind since age 11.
▪ Avid reader, knows very little
Braille (uses audio books).
▪ Active web user, uses JAWS
screen reader.
Potential Users of your web site
▪ Bill
▪ 62 year old stroke victim.
▪ Perfect vision, sometimes looses
track of what screen he is using.
▪ Cannot use a mouse, uses hot
keys instead. Uses Mozilla &
Evolution on Red Hat Linux.
▪ Lillian
▪ 54 year old, poor vision.
▪ English is second language.
▪ IT dept at work mandates IE6 &
WinXP, no Java, JavaScript, Flash,
or ActiveX Controls, except for
approved sites. (Your site is note
on the approved list).
▪ Michael
▪ 27 year old self made millionaire
▪ Has Protanopia, unable to tell red
from green.
▪ 56K dialup, uses Links (text only)
or Opera (with images off).
▪ Marcus
▪ 31 year old IT professional.
▪ Totally blind since birth.
▪ Uses a Refreshable Braille Display
▪ Relays calls between deaf and
hearing people. –Types 100 wpm.
▪ HATES Screen Readers - Runs
Text Only Lynx browser in DOS

23. Development Tips
▪ Use Color Safely
▪ Link Decoration
▪ Tables, Layouts, Captions, Headers & Summaries
▪ Spacer Images and the return of the alt attribute.
▪ Font Sizes: Pixels vs. Percents vs. Relative.
▪ Real Links vs. JavaScript "Active Links"
▪ Adding Keyboard Shortcuts: the accesskey attribute.
▪ Form elements and the label tag.
▪ STOP Opening new windows.
▪ Adding a search box to your site.
▪ Identify your language.
▪ Adding page titles

24. Development Tips Examples

25. Final Point: Designing Help
▪NO images, unless absolutely
necessary.
▪NO JavaScript
▪NO Java Applets
▪NO (or very minimal) CSS
HELP MUST BE FULLY ACCESSIBLE

26. Additional Resources
▪Building Accessible Websites, Joe Clark ISBN:
073571150X
▪Designing with Web Standards, Jeffrey Zeldman ISBN:
0735712018
▪diveintoaccessibility.org Mark Pilgrim's accessibility tips.
▪webxact.watchfire.com Website Accessibility Testing
Tool.
▪www-306.ibm.com/able IBM Accessibility Center
▪http://www.vischeck.com color blindness simulator

27. Additional Resources - continued
▪www-3.ibm.com/able/solution_offerings/hpr.html IBM
Home Page Reader
▪www.w3.org/WAI W3C WAI Page
▪www.section508.gov Section 508 resource page.
▪www.freedomscientific.com Freedom Scientific assistive
and adaptive technology. Distributor of JAWS screen
reader software.
▪wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html Color
Scheme Generator
▪www.afb.org American Foundation for the Blind

28. THANK YOU
Please fill out session evaluation form
BP301 - Accessibility for the Visually
Impaired with IBM Lotus Domino
Devin S. Olson