Searchbox is here: Alt plus 4
Accessibility information page
|
Navigation begins here
Home (1)|Questions
Questions are categorized according to type:
- What questions, primarily definitional,
- How questions, addressing technique,
- Why questions, which provide rationale, and
- Where questions, which mainly address finding things
Questions are listed under each category and link to a response.
What Questions
- What is accessibility?
- What is accessible content?
- What are the best assessment tools to use?
- What are the CSS scripts I can use for my website?
- What is the difference between accessibility and usability?
- What Macintosh adaptive technology applications are available?
How Questions
- How do I convince people accessibility is important?
- How do I make a new site accessible?
- How do I revise an existing site?
Where Questions
- Where can I find examples of accessible code for my site?
Why Questions
- Why is there less Macintosh adaptive technology than for PCs?
Answers
According to John Slatin, Ph.D., Director of the institute for Technology and Learning at University of Texas at Austin, accessibility is not something that is contained in an html document, but that it is experiential and environmental.
Experiential because the user is able to use data, information and services as effectively as someone without a disability, and environmental because it depends on the interaction of the document with user agents, assistive technologies, and people.
This distinction is important, because it recognizes the personal nature of something that is too easily thought of abstractly. Accessibility literally opens the door for others.
Accessible content is content that can be understood and utilized by people irrespective of physical or cognitive disability. In the case of web pages or web-based software, it is designing sites that enable persons with disabilities to take advantage of the capabilities built into adaptive, also known as assistive, technology in a way that will benefit them most.
Your choice of assessment tools will depend on your needs and preferences. Bobby provides a comprehensive review of individual pages with links to explanations, but requires you to wait between submitting pages. A downloadable version of Bobby that will evaluate a website automatically is available for $299. A-prompt simplifies corrections by providing input boxes for revising code. The WAVE gives a graphical review as well as information about tab order. A comparison of the tools is under development.
It depends on the browsers used by your target audience. Correct interpretation of CSS script for the Macintosh began with Netscape Navigator 6.0 and Internet Explorer 5.0. Correct interpretation for PCs began with Netscape 6.0 and Internet Microsoft Explorer 5.5. If your users use these browsers they will will have consistent results.
There are exceptions, however. Netscape 6.0 for Mac and PC does not support: text-decoration passing from parent to child, and right margin for inline elements, such as <a> and form inputs. IE 5.0 for the Mac can have trouble floating text elements correctly. IE 5.5 doesn't render small caps correctly and sets the default for font size to small instead of medium. This won't be a problem if you use relative font sizes such as em or %. IE 5.5 also won't render support borders, padding, or margin-right for inline elements.
A complete reference to browser support for Cascading Style Sheets can be found at: http://www.westciv.com/style_master/academy/browser_ support/index.html
Usability describes how easily someone can accomplish a task, whether it is using an object, such as a teapot to pour tea, or software, such as saving a document in Microsoft Word.
Accessibility is a subset of usability. Accessibility describes how easily a person with a physiological or cognitive disability can accomplish a task.
Making something more accessible to persons with disabilities usually, although not always, improves usability for persons without disabilities. For example, curb cuts assist moms with strollers as well as persons with wheel chairs.
There is little adaptive technology available for the Macintosh since most equipment is based on the Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) standard. This standard codifies operations of Windows equipment for use by adaptive technology such as screen readers. For example, there are no Macintosh versions of JAWS, Window-Eyes or IBM Home Page Reader.
OS X has some built-in features, however, that improve accessibility. These include: visual modifications, such as greyscale, text enlargement, and screen flash for sound, and equipment modification, such as sticky keys for key sequences, key sensitivity, mouseless keyboard use, and shortcuts for performing operations. Most Macintosh applications have built-in hot keys, also known as keyboard shortcuts.
There are three key reasons why accessibility is important: 1) it is the right thing to do, 2) it is a legal requirement for some entities, including State and Federal Governments and educational institutions receiving government funds and 3) persons with disabilities will be excluded from using your website or software if it is inaccessible.
If the first two reasons do not apply, or are not convincing enough, consider these two additional facts:
- Twenty percent of the U S population has a disability, which equals 54 million people. This is equivalent to the combined populations of Texas and California; and
- Persons with disabilities have direct control over $176 billion in discretionary spending, and influence significantly more than that.
Making websites and software accessible makes both common and business sense.
Accessibility should be introduced at the initial stages of website design, when user needs and expectations are being considered. If designers are creating personas, for example, a person with disabilities should be included. In that way, his or her needs for content, functionality and access can be an integral part of site design.
If user testing is part of the design process, an effort should be made to include persons with disabilities. Generally, it is best to perform tests in the subject's home or worksite, since he or she will probably have customized their computer and software. The Nielsen Norman Group has published a helpful guide called "Testing Persons with Disabilities," with can be ordered from the Nielsen Norman Group website (http://www.NNgroup.com/reports/accessibility/testing).
If personas and user testing are not part of the design process, or persons with disabilities are not available for testing, it is crucial to review any of a number of publications about designing accessible sites. These publications can be found in this website's resources section.
Remember that including accessible tags and forms is only the first step in ensuring that a site will be accessible to persons with disabilities. Designers must also consider site layout, navigation, and content for their usability and relevance.
The first step is to figure out what must be done to make a site compliant. Start with one of the free evaluation tools listed in this site's evaluation section. Begin by evaluating your site's main page's compliance with Section 508, along with several typical second level pages. You will probably find that the issues are consistent from page to page. Then make a list of the corrections that must be made. It may help to then rank them in order of difficulty. Some of the most important modifications, such as adding Alt tags to images, are also the easiest. Then systematically revise your website so that it will be at a minimum Section 508 compliant.
Revising pages in a website is greatly simplified by using an application like Dreamweaver that has a Find and Replace function. Remember that you can easily differentiate what you want to replace by including the code that precedes it.
There are examples of accessible code for tags and formats throughout this website. Also see the W3C website section containing samples of accessible code (http://www.w3.org/WAI/wcag-curric/oversam.htm).
- Why is there less Macintosh adaptive technology than for PCs?
Part of this is due to the law of the jungle, i.e., there are more PCs in the market place than Macs, therefore more incentive for manufacturers to create adaptive technology for the leading platform. But a more significant reason may be that Microsoft established accessibility standards (MicroSoft Active Accessibility or MSAA) that the leading providers of adaptive technology such as Freedom Scientific and GW Micro could adopt.
Nonetheless, there are some Mac-friendly adaptive technology tools available, including the Kurzweil 3000 Version 2 Scanner/Reader/Text Enlarger for the Mac (www.kurzweiledu.com/). It is used most often to assist persons with reading disabilities. It is available for O S X.
Further development of two other Mac products, the OutSPOKEN 9.2 Macintosh Screen Reader and inLARGE Screen enlarger from the ALVA Access Group (http://www.aagi.com/home.asp), was discontinued at the end of 2003, although they may still be available for purchase. They are compatible with O S 8 and O S 9.0
