Links:
OZeWAI 2001 home page
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presentations
Web Accessibility: Introductory Workshop
Brian Hardy, Andrew Arch, Vision Australia Foundation
& Graham Oliver, AccEase, New Zealand
Web Accessibility
The power of the web is in its universality. Access by
everyone regardless of disability is an essential
aspect.
Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide
Web
Accessible design is good design.
Steve Ballmer, President of Microsoft
Who Benefits
- People with disabilities
- People with poor communications infrastructure
- Older people
- People with old equipment
- People with non-standard equipment
- International users
Disability in Australia
ABS (1998):
- 3.6m people had a disability
- 50% of older people in private dwellings had a
disability
- Ageing population greying baby
boomersReference: agelight.com
Major types of disability:
- Vision
- Hearing
- Physical
- Cognitive
- Literacy
Rural and remote users
- Rural and remote users need sites that are quick and easy
to use, both technically and in their design
- More than 55% can only operate at 14.4 kilobytes per
second, 30% @ 9.6kb/second
- Estimated that more than 30% of rural users keep images
turned off
- What do these figures mean?
- Slow download times result in user frustration
- Average homepage takes 28 secs to download @ 14.4 kb/sec
in otherwise perfect conditions (ie longer in reality)
- @ 9.6kb/sec it takes 43 secs.
- Sites are not well-indexed on search engines
- Inconsistent navigation models make it difficult to
navigate to find required information
Policy and Legal contexts
- Benchmark: meeting recognised standards of
accessibility
- Disability Discrimination Act 1992
- HREOC guidelines
- Online Council of Ministers agreement
- Commonwealth & State policies
- W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
Good Business Practice
- Market Share
- Technical Efficiency
- Social Responsibility
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
- Collaborative International Program of the W3C - Web
Access Initiative (WAI)
- Guidelines are a stable document (released
May 1999) Techniques and Notes updated frequently to
keep pace with technology
- Guidelines for Authoring tools and User Agents also
exist
- You cant build an accessible website without using
WCAG
Common Problems
- Image-based navigation with no text alternatives and
problematic download times
- Use of PDF with no alternative access
- No allowance for different browser settings
- Inappropriate use of fonts and other presentation
elements
- Tables often used inappropriately to force layout and
present text
- Problems with construction of forms
- Use of plugins and scripts that exclude some disabled
people or inconvenience many other users who dont have
the plugin or have Java & Javascript disabled
- Unnecessary and inadequately-maintained text-only
versions
- Often badly coded and designed - the same site as before,
minus images
- Often dramatically out of date - blind users avoid
them
- Sloppy and inadequate code
- Browsers compensate, assistive technology not so
forgiving
- Problems with overall usability and navigation
- Navigation bars & consistent approach
- HTML writing software doesnt encourage compliance
to guidelines and standards
- W3C Authoring Tool guidelines;
- Still requires thought and extra work to conform
Common Problems
education
- Online learning
- Courseware management systems
- Content development systems
- Purchased content
- Accessible authoring and delivery
Getting it Right
- Design accessibility in from the start
- Adopt user-centred design
- Involve accessibility experts
- Involve people with disabilities
Design accessibility in from the start
- Set your target(s)
- Inform and educate Developers
- Inform and educate everyone else involved
- Use up to date authoring tools
Adopt user-centred design
- Establish the target audience
- Establish at the outset the perceived needs being met by
the site
- Encourage feedback from site users
- Deal appropriately with the feedback
Involve accessibility experts
- Accessibility is challenging
- Accessibility has to be maintained
- Accessibility doesnt have to be boring
Involve people with disabilities
- Automated tools only go so far
- Is the site really accessible?
- Assistive technology is a specialist field
An accessible website has gone through this process
- Skilled and intelligent use of WCAG guidelines
- Skilled and intelligent use of electronic tools such as
Bobby, Wave and W3C Validators to test code
- Usability testing with disabled users and expert
organisations (eg Vision Australia Foundation)
Links:
OZeWAI 2001 home page
|
presentations