Testing Web site Accessibility

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Testing Web site Accessibility

• Review of disabilities, legislation techniques

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What well cover

• Web accessibility overview
• Accessibility tools
• Break out session
• Summarise findings
• Accessibility toolkit

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Web Accessibility Overview

• Disabilities
• Legislation
• ICT Compliance

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What is Web site Accessibility?

• Assistive technologies
• TTS (text-to-speech) browsers
• Text-only browsers
• Voice-enabled browsers
• Keyboard or mouse commands
• Braille devices
• Screen magnification

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Why is it Important?

• More people accessing the web
• Disabled 10 to 20
• Average age of population in many countries is
  increasing
• Carry-over benefits for other users
• Legal requirements

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Disabilities

• Low Vision
• Hearing
• Motor Skills
• Cognitive Abilities
• Low Grade Technology

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Low Vision

• Background colour
• Contrast
• Colour scheme can be over-ridden
• Avoid Graphics
• Italics
• Underline
• CAPITALISATION

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Hearing

• Captions
• Transcripts

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Motor Skills

• Key Tabs
• ltIMG SRC"banner.gif" ALT"Navigation banner"
  WIDTH"580"
• HEIGHT"21"BORDER"0"
  usemap"bannermapgt
• ltMAP NAME"bannermapgt
• ltAREA SHAPE"rect"
  HREF"internal.html" ALT"Employee
• information" COORDS"506,2
  577,18" TABINDEX3gt
• ltAREA SHAPE"rect"
  HREF"news.html" ALT"News and
• events" COORDS"186,2 303,18"
  TABINDEX"1gt
• ltAREA SHAPE"rect"
  HREF"searches.html" ALT"Search"
• COORDS"311,2 475,18"
  TABINDEX"2"gt
• lt/MAPgt

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Cognitive Abilities

• Use clear language
• Simple Navigation
• Write for the web
• Use non-text examples

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Low Grade Technology

• Bandwidth
• Old Machines
• Old Browsers

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Legislation

• History
• Whats Affected?
• Responsibilities

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Legislation History

• Disability Discrimination Act of 1995
• Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001
• 01 September 2002
• Reasonable Adjustments
• Assistive Technologies
• Accessible Services

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Whats Affected - Accessible ICT

• Departmental, Faculty, Institutional Web sites
• Intranets
• VLEs MLEs
• Information Gateways
• Resource portals
• Web-based applications
• any digital resource

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Responsibilities in theory

• Reasonable Adjustments

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Responsibilities in practice

• Validate using available tools
• W3C Guideline compliant
• Accessibility Policy in place

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Accessibility Tools

• Preliminary Review
• Conformance Evaluation
• Automated Evaluation

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Preliminary Review

• Turn off images
• Turn off sound
• Change font size
• Set screen resolution
• Change display colour
• Use tab keys

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Conformance Evaluation

• Images animations
• Image maps
• Multimedia/Scripts applets
• Hypertext links
• Page organisation
• Frames
• Tables

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Validation Tools

• W3C Validation Service
• HTML and CSS validation service
• http//validator.w3.org
• Bobby CAST
• Automated Accessibility service
• http//www.cast.org/bobby
• Lynx Checker
• A tool that simulates a text-based web browser
• http//www.delorie.com/web/lynxview.html
• Vischeck
• A tool that simulates colour-blindness
• http//vischeck.com/vischeckURL.php3

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Break out session

• Your HE Website
• Select 3 key pages (home, prospectus, other)
• Preliminary Review
• Conformance Evaluation
• Automated Evaluation

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Techniques to keep in mind

• Provide text equivalents for all non-text
  elements
• Provide summaries of tables
• Organise content clearly
• Provide alternative content for all plug-in
  elements

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Accessibility Policy

• We are committed to ensuring accessibility of our
  Web sites for people with disabilities. New and
  updated Web content produced by us organization
  will conform to W3C/WAI's Web Content
  Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, Conformance Level A

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Web site help
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Prioritise Compliance

• Home page and high-traffic pages
• All new pages
• Medium-traffic pages
• longer-term goal of overall compliance

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Accessibility Toolkit

• Resources handout
• Web site evaluation checklist
• Preliminary review
• Conformance evaluation
• Automated evaluation

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Thank you

• Questions?