Building Communication With Access for All

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Building Communication With Access for All

• Richard B. EllsSenior WebmasterUniversity of
  Washingtonrells_at_cac.washington.edu

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Introduction

• The Web is a fundamental means of communication
  and service for all of us.
• We want our Web pages and applications to work
  for anyone interest in them, including people
  with handicaps.
• This goal can be achieved by careful attention to
  standards and by awareness of alternative
  experiences of interaction with what we create.

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Explosion

• in hardware capabilities
• in software complexity, capabilities
• in access devices, including assistive
  technologies
• in rich media, interactive applications
• in uses for the Web
• in reliance on the Web and Internet in
  conducting business and delivering services

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What is Accessibility?

• Accessibility is the degree to which a Web site
  or service is available to and usable by a person
  with a disability.
• If they can successfully meet their needs in
  coming to the site, the site is accessible.

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Why Care About Accessibility?

• Compliance with the law
• Keeping talent
• Serving your clientele
• A waiting market
• Because you care
• A sound technical approach

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Why CareCompliance With the Law

• Government, education, and public institutions
• Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act requires
  Federal sites be accessible
• Used by many states
• W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Web
  Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
• Framework for many laws in Europe
• Courts may find private Web sites are a public
  accommodation covered by 508 as they become more
  essential to the delivery of public services

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Why CareKeeping Talent

• Important parts of our workforce are aging
• Selecting inaccessible software could force
  capable people out of their roles
• Poorly considered design changes can make a
  needed Web site or service suddenly unusable
• A valued employee developing a common disability
  could be prevented from continuing their career

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Why Care Serving Your Clientele

• Many institutions by definition serve people with
  disabilities
• Education
• Social services
• Banks and other financial services
• Government

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Why Care A Waiting Market

• About 12 of people between 16 and 24 have some
  form of disability (21 million people)
• Aging segments of the population develop
  limitations and impairments that can be addressed
  with software, if the services they want to use
  are designed to interact well with such software

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Why Care Because You Care

• Consideration and inclusion of people
  differently-abled than the norm is a positive and
  necessary value for many institutions
• Including the disabled yields benefits
• Gives richness to the enterprise
• Depth to learning and team experiences
• Remind us of the breadth of human experience and
  ability

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Why Care A Sound Technical Approach

• Technical methods for supporting adaptive and
  assistive technologies are the same as those used
  to ensure support of a wide range of access
  devices
• By doing professional quality Web management, you
  are already doing much of which is included in
  accessible Web design

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Disabilities

• Cognitive impairment
• Dyslexia
• Physical impairment
• Limited dexterity
• Sensory impairment
• Blind
• Deaf

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Disabilities Cognitive disabilities

• Dyslexia, learning disabilities, hyperactivity
• Supporting the persons interaction with content
• Software that speaks highlighted text
• Search that suggests alternative spellings

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Disabilities Physical Impairment

• Poor motor control
• Keyboard navigable user interface design (fully
  functional without using the mouse)
• Specialized keyboards and pointing devices
• Sip and puff

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Disabilities Sensory Impairment

• Low contrast vision, color blindness, blind, deaf
• Text to voice conversion
• Tactile interface
• Selected colors
• Alternative stylesheet
• Alternative texts for graphics
• Transcripts provided for audio

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How AT Works

• Programs
• Adaptive Technology API
• Web sites
• Static
• Dynamic
• Interactive Dynamic (AJAX)

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How AT WorksPrograms

• Aspects of Accessibility APIs
• Standardized roles for interface divisions
• Standardized properties for elements
• Focus management
• Interaction model
• Device navigation mappings
• Semantics interpretation
• Change notification

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How AT WorksWeb Pages

• Standards-based
• Semantic markup
• Alternative text for non-text objects
• Association
• Tables
• Forms

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How AT Works Web Pages

• Early AT simply scrapped text
• Current AT can read the HTML or DOM
• Utilizes semantic text element types such as
  headers
• Generally page by page
• Current AT has difficulty with dynamically
  updated page content
• Hard to track where and when changes occur

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Web Technology Improvements

• Device Independence
• Standardization
• HTML/XHTML
• DOM
• Scripting
• Adaptive Technology
• Rich Media

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How AT WorksSimple HTML
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How AT WorksHTML And Javascript
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How AT WorksHTML and AJAX
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How AT WorksSupporting AJAX

• Accessible Rich Internet Application (ARIA)
• Developed cooperatively by W3C
• Added functionality to support interactive
  dynamic Web pages
• Roles
• Focus management
• State

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Achieving Accessibility

• Organization priority
• Build understanding of accessibility across the
  organization
• Provide development frameworks that support
  accessible design
• Build accessibility evaluation skills

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Arguments

• Ship now, fix later
• The product we use does not do accessibility
• Agile development (80/20)
• If so few people have disabilities, dont their
  needs fall in the 20 that agile development says
  are optional?
• Utilitarianism
• Greatest good for the greatest number
• Jeremy Bentham, the philosopher who defined
  utilitarianism, disavowed the greatest number
  part
• The dictates of utility are neither more nor
  less than the dictates of the most extensive and
  enlightened benevolence. Jeremy Bentham

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