Web Accessibility on a Shoestring Budget

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Web Accessibilityon a Shoestring Budget
Presented by Ron Jones National Weather Service
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The Webmaster Challenge
Ensuring that everyone, no matter what their
level of ability, has comparable access to and
use of information and data on NOAA websites

• Lack of understanding of usefulness of
  accessibility
• Lack of time
• Lack of expertise
• Lack of money for accessibility software/tools

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So How Many People Have Disabilities?
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Accessibility Isnt Just for the Blind

• If you think that web accessibility is only about
  making information accessible to the blind,
  you're only getting part of the story.

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Who Benefits From Accessibility?
Section 508 addresses the needs of people with
the following functional disabilities

• Vision Impairments
• Blindness / Low-Vision
• Color Blindness
• Mobility Disabilities
• Hearing Disabilities
• Photosensitive Epilepsy

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Cognitive Disabilities
People with cognitive disabilities also benefit
from an accessible website

• Mental retardation
• Learning disabilities
• Reading disorders
• Attention deficit disorders

• Traumatic head injury / stroke
• Aging population
• Language barriers

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Situational Limitations

• Situational limitations relate to the prevailing
  circumstances, environment, or device.
• Examples include mobile devices and device
  limitations, such as having no mouse, or
  constraining circumstances, such as interacting
  with a web site through a computer integrated
  into a car's dashboard, where the use of the
  hands and eyes is limited.

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How People With Disabilities Use the Web

• Assistive Technology

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What is Assistive Technology (AT)?
In general, "assistive technology" is any
technology that makes it possible for a person to
do something they could not do without that
technology. In a broad sense, a step stool could
be considered assistive technology, as could a
pair of eyeglasses.
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Head Wand

• A common method for individuals with quadriplegia
  to access their computer.
• Can be used to provide keyboard access, turn
  pages, dial push-button phones, etc.

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Sip/Puff Switch

• Sip/Puff Switch is a head mounted accessory used
  to actuate a switch by a simple sip or puff.
• Sips and puffs are converted to switch closures
  inside the Switch Box.

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HeadMouse

• The HeadMouse sensor replaces the mouse for
  people who cannot use their hands. An optical
  sensor tracks a tiny target placed on the user's
  forehead or glasses.

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Refreshable Braille Displays

• A refreshable Braille display is an
  electromechanical device that renders Braille
  dots with tiny, independently controlled pins.
• The device reads the text that a computer sends
  to the monitor and displays it as Braille.

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Vision Impairments

• Blindness
• Totally blind, cannot see at all
• Legally blind, less than 20/200 in the better eye
  or very limited field of vision
• Functionally blind
• Low vision
• Colorblindness

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How the Vision Impaired Use the Web

• Blind users
• Screen readers
• Audio web browsers
• Braille displays
• Low vision
• Screen readers / audio web browsers
• Screen magnifiers
• CCTV displays

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Evaluating Accessibility

• Display page with graphics turned off
• Opera browser
• Display page as text only version
• Lynx
• Lynx viewer

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Screen Readers - Windows

• JAWS
• Window Eyes
• HAL
• OutSpoken

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Audio Web Browsers

• IBM HomePage Reader
• Connect Outloud
• WeMedia
• Simply Web

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Macintosh Accessibility Options

• outSPOKEN, a screen reader software
• inLARGE, a screen magnification software
• Duxbury Braille Translator (DBT), Braille
  translation software
• Wanna-Be Web Browser (similar to Lynx)

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Linux Accessibility Resources

• Screen Readers
• Emacspeak (Linux)
• BEAM XVI for Linux
• Speakup
• YASR (Yet Another Screen Reader)
• Linux Accessibility Resource Site
• http//trace.wisc.edu/linux/

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Colorblindness

• Vischeck online simulation of color deficiency
• Checks individual images and web pages
• VischeckJ and ImageJ
• Windows, Macintosh OS, and Linux
• Vischeck Photoshop Plug-In for Windows

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Colorblindness

• Grayscale a web page
• Free plug-in for Internet Explorer 5 Only
• Removes all color from page

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Mobility Impaired

• Speech recognition systems
• On-screen keyboards that can be used in
  conjunction with mouse, touch screen, trackball,
  joystick, switch, or other pointing device
• Alternative input Devices such as alternative
  keyboards,wands and sticks, sip and puff systems

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Deaf / Hearing Impaired

• Captioning
• Captioning displays spoken dialogue as printed
  words on a computer monitor.
• Real-time captioning - a method of on-line
  captioning to provide simultaneous, word-for-word
  transcription of a speaker's words.
• Post production captioning
• Transcripts

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HTML Editor Add-in Tools

• Dreamweaver
• 508 Accessibility Suite
• Check Page for W3C Accessibility
• Several Accessible Image Extensions
• Flash requires Flash MX

• FrontPage
• AccVerify SE
• Adobe GoLive 6.0
• InSightLE

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On-line Tools

• Bobby
• Ask Alice (report on www.noaa.gov)
• The WAVE
• LIFT on-line (report on www.noaa.gov)
• Vischeck (downloadable version also available)

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A-Prompt Toolkit
A-Prompt (Accessibility Prompt) is a software
tool designed to evaluate Web pages for
accessibility barriers and then provide fast and
easy way to make the necessary repairs

• Free
• Checks both Section 508 standards and WAI
  guidelines
• Windows 95/98/NT/2000

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HTML Tidy

• Fixes HTML-tagging mistakes automatically
• Works on hard-to-read markup generated by
  specialized HTML editors and conversion tools
• Can help identify where further attention on
  making pages more accessible is needed

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HTML Kit

• text editor designed to help HTML, XML and script
  authors to edit, format, validate, preview and
  publish Web pages.
• Includes syntax highlighting for HTML, XHTML,
  XML, CSS, XSLT, JavaScript, VBScript, PHP, ASP,
  Java, Perl, Python, C/C, Visual Basic,
  Pascal/Delphi, Lisp, SQL, INI/Conf, and more

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Accessibility Bookmarklets

• Free plug-in for Internet Explorer 5 or above
• Located in Favorites and may be triggered like
  any Favorite

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Accessibility Bookmarklets

• Grayscale the Page removes colors from the page
  so you can see what the page will look like to a
  color-blind person.
• Kill Style Sheets removes style sheets from the
  page. Accessibility guidelines require that the
  page still be readable without style sheets.
• IMGs without ALTs displays the addresses of the
  images on the page that have empty ALT
  (alternative) text.

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Making Multimedia Accessible
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Does Multimedia Have to Be Accessible?

• Video and multimedia products that "support
  NOAAs mission"are required to be captioned and
  audio-described.
• For instance, a training film on how to use the
  AWIPS system of the National Weather Service to
  forecast weather, is a training production that
  supports NOAAs agency mission.

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Captioning

• Captioning displays spoken dialogue as printed
  words on a computer monitor.
• Captions comes in two forms open - where the
  spoken information is presented visually on the
  screen without additional equipment and closed -
  where use of a decoder is necessary to view the
  captions.

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Real-Time Captioning

• a method of on-line captioning to provide
  simultaneous, word-for-word transcription of a
  speaker's words. It is typically used for live
  programs such as a presidential speech, sporting
  event, newscast, or other events that do not
  allow time to prepare prerecorded captions.

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Audio Descriptions

• Audio Descriptions (AD) are additional narrative
  tracks that describe the current scene or
  setting.

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What Should Be Captioned?

• Captioning and audio descriptions are only
  required to be provided when important to
  understand the audio or visual components of a
  video or multimedia production.
• Ex A videotaped lecture would need to capture
  the lecturers words in captions but the captions
  need not also relate that students chairs were
  squeaking or that the door at the back of the
  room was closing loudly as people exited.

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What about audio descriptions?

• Only those visual portions that are necessary for
  the comprehension of the productions content
  need to be audio described.
• Ex A videotaped lecture would need to include an
  audio description of graphics the lecturer draws
  to illustrate a point, but would not need to
  include an audio description of the strictly
  verbal or "talking heads" portion of the
  lecture.

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Captioned Presentations
SAMI (Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange)
Demo
SMIL (Synchronized Media Integration Language)
Demo
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Off-line Captioning

• Preparation of captioning for non-live or
  prerecorded programs. At time of playback,
  captions are part of the video and may be "open"
  or "closed."
• Off-line captioning is highly accurate and can
  include descriptive captions as well as dialogue.

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MAGpie Captioning Tool

• Media Access Generator (MAGpie), for creating
  captions and audio descriptions for rich media
• A tool for adding captions to Flash using
  MAGpie's XML data file. This tool is available
  for beta testing along with MAGpie

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Accessible Javascript
Not every user has a graphic environment with a
mouse or other pointing device. Some users rely
on keyboard, alternative keyboard or voice input
to navigate links, activate form controls, etc.
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Accesssible Javascript Events
A page designed for keyboard access (in addition
to mouse access) will generally be accessible to
users with other input devices.
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Accessible PDF files

• Read Adobe PDF documents with Windows based
  screen readers from vendors such as Freedom
  Scientific and GW Micro
• Create new tagged Adobe PDF files from
  applications such as Microsoft Office 2000 for
  Windows
• Check and touch up documents for accessibility
  with the Accessibility Checker and the Tags
  Palette.

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Evaluating PDF Files

• Convert PDF file to simple HTML on-line
• If the Adobe PDF is on the Internet, you can
  mail the URL of the PDF in the body of an e-mail
  message and receive the file back via e-mail as
  either text or HTML
• If the Adobe PDF is on a local drive, you can
  mail the PDF file as an attachment and receive
  the file back via e-mail as either text or HTML

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Macromedia FLASH -Making it Accessible

• Uses Microsoft Active Accessibility
• Requires Macromedia Flash MX development software
• User must have Macromedia Flash Player 6
  installed
• A tool for adding captions to Flash using
  MAGpie's XML is also available for beta testing

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PowerPoint Accessibility
PowerPoint content can usually be easily made
very accessible on the Web to every type of
disability group except one the blind

• Copy the outline into an HTML page and format it
  yourself, making sure that you add in any parts
  that were left out of the outline.
• Use the "Save as accessible HTML" plug-in for
  PowerPoint which is still in the development stage

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Achieving Web Accessibility

• Growing numbers of web users will benefit
• Creating accessible web sites does not add
  significant time to the process
• Create web sites to HTML standards, not software
• WYSIWYG editor plug-ins and other
  evaluation/repair tools are readily available

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• Ron Jones
• NWS Columbia SC
• Ronald.c.jones_at_noaa.gov
• [phone] ext 225