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Web accessibility: the user groups

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Joe Navin, Managing Director of Winona eSolutions, gives an overview of the W3C's Web Accessibility Inititiative, and the five groups who will benefit from sites that observe its guidelines.

Article by By Joe Navin, MD, Winona eSolutions (www.winona-e-solutions.com)

Web accessibility – the user groups

There are more than 750 million people in the world with disabilities.

For disabled users the web can provide access to information, products and services that may not be available through other channels because of circumstances related to their disability. If sites are constructed without regard to accessibility significant sections of this audience will be shut out.

The W3C’s Web Accessibility Inititiative (WAI) was set up to address this problem and has published a series of guidelines and initiatives to assist developers with the process of building accessible sites. The purpose is not to inform developers on how to cater for a disabled audience, but to advise on development methods for delivering sites that are accessible to all, so that disability becomes irrelevant.

Accessibility is now a legal requirement for web sites that are publicly funded, and briefs for public, education and arts projects among others now contain accessibility requirements as a matter of course.

So if you want public sector work you have to understand the issues addressed by the WAI, and absorb them into you working practices.

A useful first step toward becoming an ‘accessible’ developer is to understand which users have problems using non-accessible sites. There a five main groups to consider –

People with visual disabilities

• Not just the blind, this group includes the partially sighted and colour blind.
• Given the graphical nature of web interfaces this group is the most profoundly affected by inaccessible sites.
• Accessibility barriers affecting this group include
  • Unlabelled graphics (use the ‘Alt’ tag), undescribed video
  • Poorly marked up tables or frames (use the ‘noframes’ element)
  • Design elements where meaning is conveyed by colour alone
  • Lack of keyboard support or screen reader compatibility

People with hearing disabilities

• The deaf do not consider themselves disabled. They have their own culture that includes their own form of communication (usually sign language).
• Accessibility barriers affecting this group include
• • Lack of captioning for audio, and video soundtracks
  • Proliferation of text without images
  • Overly busy layouts

People with physical or motor disabilities

• Covers a wide range of conditions, including paralysis, arthritis, muscular dystrophy and RSI.
• Many users will not be able to use a mouse freely and may have problems holding down multiple keys on a keyboard. Others will be using mouth sticks, head pointers or infra red devices rather than a keyboard and mouse.
• Accessibility barriers affecting this group include
• • Lack of keyboard or single switch support for menu commands
  • Navigation features that require very precise cursor positioning

People with cognitive or neurological disabilities

• Includes those with dyslexia, dyscalculia and auditory perception difficulties, as well as users with learning difficulties.
• This audience benefits from having content presented in short, discrete chunks, with plenty of white space to aid readability.
• They also prefer customisable sites where they can adjust colours, fonts and font sizes to suit their preferences.
• Accessibility barriers affecting this group include
• • Lack of consistent navigation structure
  • Overly complicated presentation or language
  • Small fonts
  • Lack of illustrative non-text materials
  • Flickering or strobing designs on pages

People with speech disabilities

• One to watch in the future when voice activated interfaces become commonplace.
• Accessibility barriers affecting this group include
• • Lack of alternative input devices for voice portals

The extent to which you accommodate each of these groups will obviously be influenced by a site’s target audience and content. But if accessibility forms a key part of your development methodology all your sites will benefit by being easier to use and available to the largest possible audience.

Case study – ArtSigns - www.artsigns.ac.uk

Winona eSolutions work with clients in the arts, education and public sectors with a mission based commitment (and often a legal obligation) to accessibility.

When developing sites for these clients we generally target full priority 1 compliance of the WAI guidelines (which requires there be nothing in the site that makes it impossible for any group to access information), with whatever priority 2 and 3 items are practical for the individual project.

However there have been situations where we needed go beyond the WAI guidelines to deliver the level of accessibility required. Most notably on ArtSigns (www.artsigns.ac.uk), an online glossary of British Sign Language that supports UK undergraduate art and design study.

The glossary comprises a comprehensive library of art & design terms to help deaf students avoid the ambiguity and confusion associated with terms without equivalent signs. It holds contains 1273 terms, and 1150 video signs in four formats (QuickTime and Windows Media Player, broadband and narrowband).

The key considerations for the project were –

• Accessibility – must observe W3C's accessibility guidelines
• Usability – quick downloads, ease of navigation, intuitive searching
• Design – aesthetically appealing & visually stimulating
• Video – must be good quality, quick to load, easy to view
• Maintenance – must be easy to administer & maintain by non-technical staff
• Collaborative working – deaf practitioners, steering and advisory committees, etc were to give input on the development

We worked closely with deaf practitioners on the project steering group to gain an understanding of how they used the web and what they liked and didn’t like. Managing this process was Judith Mole of Direct Learn (www.directlearn.co.uk) an experienced BSL interpreter and an authority on usability and accessibility issues for the Deaf community.

We were advised that busy layouts and clutter were very distracting for deaf users and that they didn’t like hypertext links within blocks of text.

We also learned that literacy levels for Deaf people can be lower than average, as English is usually their second language (BSL is the first). So it was important that users were not excluded from the signs and definitions because of spelling errors when searching.

During development a focus group comprising Deaf people from education and the arts and BSL interpreters was assembled to test the site and provide feedback. An evaluation document of the group’s findings was compiled and their recommendations were factored into the development process.

A lot of time was spent investigating video formats. Our users wanted full control over playback so they could scan sections of a clip while learning a definition. Video quality had to be high, to allow easy reading of hand movements and facial gestures – but they also had to load quickly.

QuickTime was a clear winner in terms of quality and control (it was the only embedded player that allowed users to properly scan the clips). Windows Media Player was chosen as a second format because of its wide user base.

For video delivery we opted for progressive download rather than streaming because the delay waiting for streams to connect was frustrating, and you have to reconnect each time you want to replay the clip. The clips are only a few seconds long so the wait for each download is minor. All clips have links for viewing larger broadband versions of the signs.

The finished site is clean and very easy to use. Several routes to the definitions are available to suit different browsing styles (quick search, power search, browse by subject, department or letter). Keyword searches incorporate ‘fuzzy logic’ to field any spelling errors and provide suggestions for any searches that don’t produce results. Every definition has direct links to related terms to encourage further investigation.

The site won an unequivocal ‘thumbs up’ from project stakeholders and feedback from the Deaf community has been very positive.

ArtSigns was developed on behalf Wolverhampton University School of Art & Design and funded by the Department for Education and Skills. Two further glossaries for Science and Engineering are in the pipeline.

Joe Navin
Managing Director
Winona eSolutions