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An Inclusive Web
The background
The 'quick and dirty' method of producing a web page is by ‘converting’ a Microsoft Word document, and then publishing the result to the Internet. The page will ‘function’, and a powerful computer will be most ‘forgiving’, but, by today’s expectations this fails to meet many aspects of the W3C ‘Accessibility Guidelines’. That said, the tremendous growth of the Web and Internet is partly down to such easy methods of producing a web page, but issues of social justice and the wish to include marginalized groups or individuals, and newer Internet browsing devices, demand stricter adherence to a set of standards.
The word ‘accessibility’ covers much more than the consideration of access for people with different abilities. It's about considering access to a web site from various devices, such as web TV, mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDA's). It's also about giving ‘access’ to users who have different screen sizes, Web Browser types (there are others apart from Internet Explorer) and settings, or those who do not have ‘plug-ins’ such as Flash. A blind user may have Web Browser software that translates for them into Braille, or use ‘screen reader’ software.
An Inclusive design:
- places people at the heart of the design process
- acknowledges human diversity and difference
- offers choice where a single design solution cannot accommodate all users
- provides for flexibility in use
- aims to provide environments that are safe, convenient, and enjoyable for everyone, regardless of ability, age, gender and race
Accessibility and Usability applied to web pages / sites
People use the Web in different ways. A Web page / Web site should therefore present information in a way that people can access it regardless of what kind of hardware or software they are using (as far as is practical), and regardless of how they ‘navigate’ through a site, or find their way around. Web designers should not assume that everyone uses the same kinds of internet devices, or use those devices in the same way.
Accessibility and Usability are closely related, as they both improve user satisfaction, effectiveness, and efficiency. But while Accessibility is aimed at making a Web site ‘open’ to a wider user population, Usability is aimed at making a Web site audience more content with an efficiency and effectiveness. User satisfaction, ease of learning, ability to remember an organisation and its functionality, effectiveness of the task and efficiency and likelihood of errors while performing the tasks the web site has been designed for, are issues of Usability.
Sites that are not ‘usable’ score poorly in:
- Consistency of presentation and controls across the site
- Logical and natural organization of information: clear structure and page layout, systematic labels, clear and meaningful labels
- Contextual navigation: how much information is given for providing a context for the user (where are you in the site? where can you go? how can you go back?)
- Efficient navigation: the amount of time and effort the user needs to exert in order to move around the site
- Adequacy of feedback: are user interactions clear, are requests answered, do commands elicit the right response?
- Search ability: how effectively the site content can be sought in search engines
Accessible web pages ensure:
- Smooth transformation: information and services should be accessible despite physical, sensory or cognitive user disabilities, work constraints or technological barriers
- Understandable and navigable content: content should be presented in a clear and simple manner, and should provide understandable mechanisms to navigate within and between pages
An accessible web site can be perceived, navigated, utilised (with a keyboard or devices other than a mouse) and can be easily understood (even in attention-poor situations.) Accessibility for an electronic document (a word processor file or a web page) allows individuals with blind / low vision / mobility issues to read, hear and interact with computer based information and content, with or without the aid of an ‘assistive technology’.
An electronic document is considered accessible if the contents can be accessed by anyone, not just people who see ‘well’ and can use a mouse. People with low vision or blindness can be assisted by a screen ‘magnifier’ software (Windows XP has this in built) or ‘screen reader’ software that can convert text to speech or Braille output. For these groups, visual indicators of a documents structure such as font sizes to distinguish headings, may not be easy to follow. An ‘accessible’ document has ‘built in’, behind the scenes information that enables assistive technology (running on top) to interpret the documents structure and so present the information in a logical reading order.
Similarly people with mobility impairments may require an alternative keyboard, an alternative pointing device, or voice input software to navigate the document. They may be able to see a document but unable to use a mouse to position a text insertion point to fill in a form field. For this group, an accessible document has support for keyboard navigation, as well as a preset tab order that makes moving from ‘field’ to ‘field’ in a form easier.
Actually all users benefit because the underlying document structure that enables a screen reader to properly read a web page aloud, also enables a hand held device (with a small screen) to display a best layout for the document.
Screen readers and other such tools can not read certain web page elements such as graphics, form fields or links. Descriptive text or alternative text for graphics can describe these features. When a screen reader encounters the alternative text, it can read back the text description aloud. For example, a visually impaired Internet user can use a screen reader to translate the contents of web pages for speech synthesisers or Braille displays. The user will struggle to understand web pages if, for example, images are displayed on the page without a text alternative.
Official Guidelines
The World Wide Web (WWW, a collective term for all of the linked web pages, operating via the internet, the internet being the physical connections or wires and the like) has grown to the size today, partly because of a an undisciplined application of hyper text mark-up language (html.) Both professional and home users have found it easy to produce and display a web page on the Internet. However, things are now starting to ‘tighten up’ as the WWW reaches a greater maturity, and the use of html and newer languages must meet a more ‘exact specification’. Web pages must comply with requirements technically and morally, from the view of newer devices that can use the internet (which work with a more exact specification.) and the needs of individuals and groups with various ‘accessibility’ issues.
There are two issues for the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the governing body of the WWW. Firstly W3C set standards or ‘technical specifications’ for the use of web languages like html and xhtml, which are the raw ‘tools’ of web page development. Secondly, W3C publish the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) which are recommendations that address the accessibility of Web pages and the techniques of how (x)html should be applied, to accommodate accessibility issues. The Web Accessibility Initiative (W3C WAI) is an International forum for collaboration between industry, disability organisations, accessibility researchers, government, and others interested in Web Accessibility. The graphic below shows the complex interplay of components that give rise to the 'effective' implementation of a 'standard'.
In addition to WCAG, many countries have created legislation on the issue. For example in the USA, ‘section 508’ legislation deals with web sites that are developed for government bodies. Where countries have implemented accessibility guidelines, they tend to have based them on WCAG priority 1.0
The developers view
It is foreseeable that web designers choosing to make ‘standards compliant’ web pages will have to follow these Accessibility Guidelines and therefore will be culpable if they do not follow WCAG. There has been widespread speculation about new legislation being introduced in the UK to ensure that web sites are accessible to disabled users. In fact, many countries have already introduced some kind of law about this. Although in the first instance, consideration to this issue might seem burdensome to a web developer, there is advantage in working to official ‘standards.’ Maintenance and reworking are easier (because style is divorced from content – more later), and a standards compliant design is a foundation on which to build and consider accessibility features.
WCAG Checkpoint Priorities
The WAI is a group within W3C that creates the WCAG’s, version 1.0 is current with version 2.0 to follow soon. These guidelines have been developed to provide clear specifications for the creation of accessible web sites. The guidelines are accompanied by ‘checkpoints’ to confirm whether or not the site conforms. Each checkpoint in the WCAG’s has been assigned a priority, level 1, 2 or 3 and these levels help us to understand how important that particular checkpoint is, and can be use to measure the ‘conformance level’ of a web page. There are three levels A, AA, and AAA, which relate to priority, 1, 2 and 3 respectively.
I am a Business, what are the benefits for me?
It can seem a daunting prospect to read the checklists of recommendations to a web site design, in order for it to properly comply with ‘accessibility’. The big secret is that if your web site is ‘standards based’ initially, most of the accessibility features are very easy to implement afterwards, or are included in the ‘standard’ design in any case. You will want your business to have a standards compliant web site as this is imperative in the fast moving technology of the internet.
Ensuring that your web site is accessible to the widest possible audience should have a positive impact on your business and you should make more money, as more customers will be able to access the service you provide. The 9.1 million Disabled People in the UK have a discretionary income of more than £50 billion per year. Improved accessibility is also achieved from the new and alternative browsing devices (like a mobile phone.)
Also you should save money, as a site that is organised and coded to be accessible is likely to be easier to maintain, and your pages will load quicker. More people should find your site via search engines, such as 'Yahoo'. (Google also to some extent, although it has other criteria for ranking web sites.) Web content that is ‘standards based’, (part of the accessibility issue), are easier for search engines to ‘index’, in other words it will have an improved ‘ranking.’
‘Goodwill’ from the general public may be less tangible than the economic or technical, however, in an extremely competitive world-marketplace can any benefits be ignored? Increasing the ease of use of your Web site and online services to a wide range of people with disabilities and other marginalized members of the community will reinforce an organisation's socially responsible attitude, and is certainly not a trend likely to be reversed.
Raising awareness of the requirements of people with disabilities through the creation and promotion of an accessible Web site and associated online services can help to influence your internal operations and attitudes, thus creating a workplace that is more attractive and accessible to people with disabilities.
All countries have significant numbers of people with disabilities - they comprise an influential proportion of the population. The population in many countries is also ageing, and with older age the incidence of disability increases.
- Let’s create a ‘separate’ web site for a particular group of users – this will be more problematic, keeping different versions of a web site up to date, and more importantly, a contradiction of a ‘social inclusion’ policy (a separate web site would be seen to make a certain group or individual feel more marginalized.) The design and usability of your web site should be better for everyone, ‘mainstream’ users and those who are labeled ‘disabled’
- Our web site will be designed for Internet Explorer, as this covers by the far the most web users – you will want your web presence generally available to the widest possible audience. No part of a web site should be designed specifically for a particular browser. This will simply disenfranchise users who happen to use other applications software
- The procedures involved to get my web site ‘accessible’ are complex – possibly for a very large scale web site, but the designers of a large scale site will probably have been diligent in this issue, to address economies of scale, and will inevitably have been working to standards. Otherwise, the procedures are good working practice, so existing ‘bad habits’ might make them seem complex. Complying with standards from the start would always have been easier
- Accessible web sites are dull, unattractive and stifle creativity – accessibility need not detract from the ‘attraction’ of a web site in any way. Designing with CSS (cascading style sheets, which separate content from style) gives a particular beauty in ‘smooth operation’ and is the best way to give the user an option for style changes. Poorly designed, so called ‘accessible’ web sites may be ‘text only’ or ‘dumbed down’ or cater for the ‘lowest common denominator’. There is no reason why an accessible web site should be any worse looking than a site that is not accessible
- Blind and Disabled People do not use the Internet – these groups can benefit more than anyone else, so think about it. Online shopping and browsing for information may be especially convenient for them? Think also of people as they get older. Although the web is often seen as a visual environment, accessible web pages can and should adjust, remaining accessible in any browsing medium and adapt to allow audio and Braille presentations
- I can’t make a provision for ‘marginalized’ groups or a multitude of people with various individual needs, the task is too great. If you cover a certain part or indeed all of the W3C accessibility guidelines in your web design, you will have satisfied the requirement, not only from a possible legal perspective, but also improved the prospects for all potential visitors to your web site. An important point to note is that these ‘accessibility guidelines’ are relatively easily applied to a web page that is ‘standards based’
- Our particular Web page visitors and users do not have a problem – Your visitors are unlikely to contact you about these issues (unless are considering taking you to task legally), they will just take their custom elsewhere
What does the law say?
The Disability Rights Commission Code of Practice
This deals with the duties placed by Part 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 on those providing goods, facilities or services to the public and those selling, letting or managing premises. The Act makes it unlawful for service providers, landlords and other persons to discriminate against disabled people in certain circumstances.
http://www.drc.org.uk/open4all/law/code.asp
Extract: What does the Act make unlawful?
- 2.2 (p7) The act makes it unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against a disabled person: By refusing to provide (or deliberately not providing) any service which it provides (or is prepared to provide) to members of the public or; In the standard of service which it provides to the disabled person or the manner in which it provides it ; or In the terms on which it provides a service to the disabled person.
- 4.7 (p39): “From 1st October 1999 a service provider has to take a reasonable steps to change a practice which makes it unreasonably difficult for disabled people to make use of its services.”
- 2.13 — 2.17 (p11-13):“What services are affected by the Act? An airline company provides a flight reservation and booking service to the public on its web site. This is provision of a service and is subject to the Act.”
- 5.23 (p71):“For people with visual impairments, the range of auxiliary aids or services which it might be reasonable to provide to ensure that services are accessible might include ...accessible web sites.”
- 5.26 (p68):”For people with hearing disabilities, the range of auxiliary aids or services which it might be reasonable to provide to ensure that services are accessible might include ...accessible web sites.”
Could you be prosecuted?
The law about accessible web sites came into force on 1st October 1999 and the code of practice for this section of the Act was published on 27th May 2002. This means that many web sites are in breach of the law.
When the issue of accessibility is raised concerning your web site, you have the opportunity to make the necessary changes, rather than face the prospect of legal action. The DRC published their findings from formal investigation into a 1000 web sites. The DRC also made clear that it finds the current state of web accessibility to be ‘unacceptable’.
The DRC explained:
“Our report contains a range of recommendations to help web site owners and developers tackle the barriers to inclusive design. However, where the response is inadequate, the DRC will not hesitate to use its legal powers - from 'named-party' Formal Investigations, which can lead to sanctions against the owners of inaccessible web sites, to support for test cases brought by individual disabled people - to ensure the web becomes fully inclusive to disabled users.”
If contacted about an access issue with your web site you should try to resolve the dispute by informal or formal discussion. On the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) web site you will find the following statement, “If the dispute is not resolved, you could be taken to court. If the customer wins the case, they could win compensation for financial loss, for injured feeling or both.” You can find information and advice related to ensuring that you are treating disable people fairly at the Disability Rights Commission web site.
How to comply
It is widely believed that if and when a case makes it to court, the W3C guidelines will be used to assess web sites accessibility and ultimately decide the outcome of the case. Of the priority guidelines, 1, 2 and 3, priority 1 will almost certainly need to be adhered to, Priority 2 should be satisfied and are the EU recommended level of compliance, or some part of it.
