This document discusses web accessibility and the challenges of implementing accessibility standards. It summarizes key aspects of web accessibility including: - Laws requiring public websites to comply with accessibility standards - The WCAG 2.0 guidelines which define principles, guidelines, and success criteria for accessible websites - Tools like WAI-ARIA that add attributes to make websites accessible to assistive technologies - A study that measured developers' awareness and use of accessibility standards, finding only partial compliance and awareness - Challenges to wider adoption including lack of awareness, unclear responsibilities, and perceptions that standards are too time-consuming

1. Web Accessibility - why we
are still here?
Dr Vladimir Tomberg
Senior Research Fellow
Tallinn University
24 November 2016
Riga Accessibility Meetup
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2. Accessibility is a law
•Banks, energy providers and public bodies should
be subject to web accessibility rules;
•Just a third of the 761,000 public sector websites in
the EU currently conform to "international web-
accessibility standards“;
Source: http://www.out-law.com
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3. EU Directive on the accessibility of
public sector bodies' websites
•Organizations whose websites would be subject to
the new rules would have one year from the
introduction of the new laws to ensure that new
content added to their sites complies with the new
rules;
•They would have three years within which to adapt
existing content and five years if that content is "live
audio“
28 Feb 2014
Source: http://www.out-law.com
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4. Web accessibility is nicely
standardized
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5. WCAG 2.0
•Web Content Accessibility Guidelines ─ guidelines
and techniques for making websites and web
applications accessible to people with disabilities;
•WCAG consist of 4 principles and 12 guidelines and
many success criteria
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6. Principles
•At the top are four principles (POUR) that provide
the foundation for Web accessibility:
• Perceivable;
• Operable;
• Understandable;
• Robust
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7. Guidelines
•Guidelines are under the principles;
•The 12 guidelines provide the basic goals that
authors should work toward in order to make
content more accessible to users with different
disabilities
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8. 8Image: http://www.projectrics.org

9. Success Criteria
•For each guideline, testable success criteria are
provided to allow WCAG 2.0 to be used;
•In order to meet the needs of different groups and
different situations, three levels of conformance are
defined:
•A (lowest),
•AA, and
•AAA (highest).
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10. Library Ramp Analogy
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Sourse: http://acc.nics.gov.uk

11. WAI-ARIA
•Accessible Rich Internet Applications Suite – a
framework for adding attributes to web documents
in order to make actionable elements accessible to
people using assistive technology
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12. Different input devices
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13. Challenges for accessibility
1. Awareness
2. Responsibility
3. Avoiding Ignorance
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14. Challenges for accessibility
1. Awareness
(Education,
empathy modeling)
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Image courtesy to http://err.ee

15. Challenges for accessibility
1. Awareness
2. Responsibility
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16. Typical training requirements for
different professional roles
Executive
Manager
Middle
Manager
Software &
Hardware
Developer
Designer Reviewer
& Tester
(QA)
Marketing &
Communication
Human
Resources
User
Interfaces
S O D D O S S
User-Centred
Design
S O O D D O S
Assistive
Technology
S S O D D S S
Web
Applications
S O D D D S S
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Summary (S) Overview (O) Details (D)

17. Challenges for accessibility
1. Awareness
2. Responsibility
3. Avoiding Ignorance
For whom is this ramp?
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18. I guess that is the only one possible answer
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19. Measuring awareness on
accessibility standards
A study
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20. Demographic distribution
• 92 Participants
• 16 countries
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21. Industry
21
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Public Sector
Academia (university, etc.)
Startup
Self-employed
Industry (Insurance, Baking, Consulting, etc.)
Other
Software company

22. Job
22
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Mobile Developer
Project Manager
Technical Lead
Back-end Developer
Application Developer
Senior Back-end Developer
Senior Front-end Developer
Other
Front-end Developer
Interaction Designer

23. Measuring Awareness
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24. Do you consider yourself aware about accessibility
issues on the Web?
24
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
I am expert in this field I know quite much about
it
I don't know anything
about it
I know something, but
not so much

25. Writing accessible code enables me
to produce higher quality software
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Strongly Agree Agree Neither agree nor
disagree
Disagree Strongly Disagree
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26. I am aware of what are the WCAG & WAI
ARIA specifications
WCAG WAI ARIA
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22
70
Yes No
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60
Yes No

27. Measuring Responsibility
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28. My colleagues always use accessibility
standards and guides in their work
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Strongly Agree Agree Neither agree nor
disagree
Disagree Strongly Disagree
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29. Most of developers I know, consider no
real necessary in use of accessible
technologies
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Strongly Agree Agree Neither agree nor
disagree
Disagree Strongly Disagree
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30. Do you use sometimes
WCAG guidelines in your projects?
17
15
Yes No
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31. What was a purpose for you to use
WCAG?
0 2 4 6 8 10
I think that it is important
It was a project requirement from a
client
It is standard practice of our
development process
It is regulated by national law
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32. Do you use sometimes WAI
ARIA guidelines in your projects?
8
14
Yes No
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33. Ignorance
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34. It is very time consuming task to
learn about accessible technologies
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Strongly Agree Agree Neither agree nor
disagree
Disagree Strongly Disagree
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35. Using accessibility standards increases
need for communications among
developers
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Strongly Agree Agree Neither agree nor
disagree
Disagree Strongly Disagree
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36. My organization provides libraries that
already contain required accessible
markup in code
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Strongly Agree Agree Neither agree nor
disagree
Disagree Strongly Disagree
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37. Participate in my study, please!
https://goo.gl/60rp2d
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38. Global Accessibility
Awareness Day
Every 3th Thursday of May
http://www.estchi.org/gaad/
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39. Thank you!
Email: vtomberg@tlu.ee
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