TechDis: Accessibility

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TechDis Accessibility UsabilityRSC Eastern

• Allan Sutherland

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Who am I?

• FE Co-ordinator for TechDis
• Director of Learning Resources for North Tyneside
  College Tynemouth College
• Responsible for online learning developments in
  both colleges
• Inclusive Learning Co-ordinator

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Overview of Presentation

• Describe the work of TechDis
• Outline the implications of SENDA
• Report on two sets of research
• Provide practitioner guidelines for creating
  accessible and usable sites
• Identify useful links
• Answer questions

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TechDis

• A JISC service, based in York
• Part of Technologies Centre TechDis and
  TechLearn
• Mission
• Enhancing access for those with learning
  difficulties and/or disabilities to learning and
  teaching...through the use of ICT

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Summary of Strategic Aims

• To be the primary information advice resource
  on the use of ICT to support students with
  learning difficulties and/or disabilities
• To provide info advice on the use of ICT for
  staff with disabilities
• To promote, transfer broker innovative practice
• To monitor, review advise on accessibility of
  current emerging technologies

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TechDis Colleges

• Regional Support Centres
• Tutors of students with learning difficulties
  /or disabilities
• Inclusive Learning Co-ordinators
• Inclusive Learning Action Plans
• ILT champions
• Learning Skills Councils
• Regional consortia

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Current Projects

• SENDA and its implications (Briefing paper)
• Code of practice on DRC web site
• TechDis web site www.techdis.ac.uk
• TechDis Accessibility Database (TAD)
• Expertise contacts
• Virtual tutorials
• Resources articles, papers, reviews
• Knowledge Database searchable all media

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Current Projects (2)

• VLE accessibility 2 stages
• How to create accessible content
• Wireless networking issues for Deaf Hearing
  Impaired students
• PDA accessibility
• ICT for students with learning difficulties (new
  project)
• Identifying useful research guidelines...

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Smarter than the WebCreating Accessible
Internets Intranets
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Context

• Disability Discrimination Act 1995
• Special Educational Needs Disability Act 2001
• Illegal to treat a disabled person less
  favourably
• Colleges required to make reasonable
  adjustments and to be anticipatory
• Sept 2002 impact on teaching learning
• See TechDis Briefing on our web site
• www.techdis.ac.uk

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Accessibility Research Studies Users with
learning difficulties and/or disabilities

• Nielsen Norman Group Beyond ALT Text
• Mencap Report Accessing the Web
• Quantifiable data
• Non-technical guidelines for more usable
  accessible design aimed at practitioners

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NN Group Quantitative Research

• 20 screen reader users
• 20 screen magnifier users example...
• 20 people who use no assistive technology (with
  no vision or physical disabilities)
• Experienced assistive device users
• Reasonably experienced Internet users

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NN Group Quantitative ResearchTasks

• Fact-finding find the average temperature in
  Dallas (no site specified)
• Buy online Janet Jacksons latest CD from
  www.target.com
• Information retrieval take a bus in Chicago
  www.transitchicago.com
• Compare and contrast find a specific kind of
  mutual fund on www.schwab.com

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NN Group Assistive Devices Used by Participants
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Mencap Research

• Identify accessibility of 30 popular web sites
  for people with learning difficulties
• 11 users reviewed the sites in August 2001
• Varying levels of familiarity with the Internet
• Scores out of 90
• Good (50)
• Room for improvement (40-49)
• Could do better (39 and below)

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Mencap Research

• Questions asked of each site
• Visual appeal?
• Clarity?
• Is it obvious whats being provided?
• Navigation?
• Help and contact buttons visible?
• Language readable and understandable?
• Graphics and/or audio to help with understanding?

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NN Group Major findings

• Sighted participants who use no assistive
• technology were
• about six times more successful at completing
  tasks than people using screen readers
• three times more successful than people using
  screen magnifiers

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NN Group Sighted participants were

• significantly less frustrated than people using
  assistive technologies
• more satisfied than people using assistive
  technologies
• more confident than assistive technology users
• very close relationship between success and
  satisfaction

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NN Group Who completed task?

• No assistive technology users 68
• Screen magnifier users 20
• Screen reader users 12

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NN Group Who didnt complete task?

• User ran out of time (20 mins per task)
• No assistive technology users 3
• Screen magnifier users 44
• Screen reader users 53

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NN Group Who didnt complete task?

• User stopped themselves
• No assistive technology users 13
• Screen magnifier users 43
• Screen reader users 44

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NN Group Finding and Searching

• Screen reader and magnifier users used the
  browsers find feature much more frequently
  than sighted users (35 to 1) - a form of auditory
  scanning
• Number of times clicked back
• Screen magnifiers 185
• No assistive technologies 151
• Screen readers 99

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NN Group Independence is the killer application

• Even with the prevalence of inaccessible design,
  participants in our study said they embrace the
  Web and find it helps them do many things they
  could not do without it.
• Kara Pernice Coyne, Nielsen Norman Group

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Mencap findings top marks to www.royalmail.com/ac
cess
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Mencap lowest marks to www.bluewater.co.uk
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Mencap low marks towww.learndirect.co.uk
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Design guidelines examples

• Follow basic rules of good design
• accessibility/usability
• focus on users core tasks
• write concisely
• avoid superfluous marketing language
• dont include graphics, bells or whistles just
  for the sake of having them

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Design guidelines examples

• Minimise the use of graphics
• several participants used their browser to turn
  off all graphics
• increases speed of download decreases visual
  noise
• consider text only version if graphics are
  crucial to the content (use longdesc)

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www.royalmail.com/access text only
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www.royalmail.com/access text only
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Design guidelines examples

• Name all graphics something that is
  understandable and that thoroughly conveys what
  the graphic is and does
• the only way screen reader users can understand
  an image is if the developer explicitly tells
  them
• test it!

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Design guidelines examples

• Always use clear images
• Never blur pictures to indicate unavailability
• When graphics provide key information, also
  provide it in text I dont want mapsI cant
  read them (screen reader user)

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Design guidelines examples

• Make it easy to skip any multimedia or Flash
  demos
• Avoid using pop-up windows
• Dont rely on rollover text to convey information
• Limit the number of links on each page
• 20 links or less
• too many overwhelming (like call centre menus)
• name links clearly and intuitively

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Too many links!!
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Design guidelines examples

• Avoid very small buttons and tiny text on links
• Leave space between links and buttons
• Avoid using images as the only method of linking
  to something
• Immediately confirm company name once homepage
  has loaded
• Keep scrolling to a minimum
• Choose a simple informative web address

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Design guidelines examples

• Avoid splash pages
• Limit the amount of information forms asked for
• Dont use only red text or yellow highlighting to
  indicate form errors
• Dont rely only on an asterisk to indicate
  required fields
• screen readers repeat star, star, star

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Design guidelines examples

• Put instructions before a field, not after it
• Always create good contrast between text and page
  background
• Dont rely on an image as a page background
• Test fonts and colours with screen magnifiers
• Tell screen readers how to pronounce acronyms etc.

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Design guidelines examples

• Offer a search engine that forgives spelling
  mistakes
• Clearly describe search results google
• Try www.seti-search.com
• simple layout
• text only
• search box seen and read first
• can change colours

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Finally

• Usable web sites are accessible web sites
• Accessible web sites are usable
• Good designis good design
• Put choice in the hands of the user as much as
  possible
• Links and references to follow...

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Links References

• www.techdis.ac.uk
• www.nngroup.com/reports/accessibility
• www.mencap.org.uk/download/webreport.rtf
• http//ferl.becta.org.uk (learning difficulties
  disabilities resource category)
• www.becta.org.uk/inclusion/index.html
• www.rnib.org.uk/digital
• www.cast.org/bobby
• www.w3.org/WAI/

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• E-mail me for a copy of the slides or see the
  FERL website under FERL Conference 2001
• allan.sutherland_at_techdis.ac.uk