Understanding

1
Understanding

• Accessibility
• in the Online Space

2
Contents

• Business Value
• The Business Case for Accessibility
• Who Benefits?
• Accessibility Demographics in Australia
• The Standard Scope
• What Does the Accessibility Standard Specify?
• When Does the Accessibility Standard Apply?
• Roles and Responsibilities
• The Compliance Process
• Overview of Compliance Process
• Step 1 Testing Methods
• Step 2 Interpreting the Test Results
• Step 3 Fixing Problems Identified
• Bobby Example
• Step 4 Completing the Accessibility Test
  Report(ATR)
• What To Do If You Cant Comply (Exemptions)
• Step 5 Submitting Results to UAT

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The Business Case for Accessibility

• Minimize Legal Exposure
• to customer discrimination complaints under the
  Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act (1992)
  (eg Bruce Lindsay Maguire v Sydney Organising
  Committee for the Olympic Games , August 2000
  Bruce Lindsay Maguire v Sydney Organising
  Committee for the Olympic Games)
• Instigate a Disability Action Plan
• list the actions your company is undertaking to
  ensure that products, services, information and
  buildings are more accessible to people with a
  disability. This is officially presented to the
  Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
• Improve Market Share
• by embracing customers with disability who are
  likely to be frequent loyal users for
  accessible sites
• Improve Online User Experience
• by making it consistently effective for people
  with both major and minor accessibility issues

More about Maguire vs SOCOG
4
Who Benefits?

• Your Customers
• The Accessibility Standard ensures our content is
  available to people with
• vision impairments,
• hearing impairment
• motor impairment (particularly arms, hands and
  fingers)
• people with print disability (e.g. dyslexia)
• Your Business
• Approx 19 of the Australian population or 3.2
  million people have a disability. This is a big
  potential market to manage!

More about impairment
5
Accessibility Demographics in Australia
More detail
6
What Does the Accessibility Standard Specify?

• Forms coding
• Users accessing Telstras online sites with
  assistive technology such as screen-readers are
  able to complete all forms presented.
• Text alternatives for images and other multimedia
  content
• Visually impaired users are able to access
  information typically conveyed by graphical
  content.
• Hearing impaired users are able to access
  information typically conveyed audibly
• Use of colours and fonts
• People with colour blindness and/or other visual
  difficulties can view and use our sites.
• Use of plain language and simple consistent
  navigation
• People with language cognitive disabilities can
  access and explore your site.

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When Does the Accessibility Standard Apply?

• Q What domains and sites do the Accessibility
  Standard apply to?
• A All of them Internet, Intranet and Extranet!
  Both things you build and things you buy
  (off-the-shelf)!
• Q Are there any exceptions?
• A ONLY where you are developing a solution for
  client and that client specifically excludes
  accessibility compliance from their requirements
  and accepts the subsequent liability.

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Roles and Responsibilities

• Business Owner
• Allocate budget for Standards compliance
• Accept risk and responsibility for any
  non-compliance impacts
• Project Manager and/or Producer
• Include usability/accessibility in project
  planning
• Identify and document potential accessibility
  impacts in Key Requirements Document (KRD) prior
  to Business Case submission or Production Process
  
• Request Exemptions from your IT or standards
  department as appropriate for any non-compliant
  elements in the Accessibility Test Report(ATR)
• Provide any exemptions as part of the delivery to
  User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

More about allocating compliance budget
9
Roles and Responsibilities (continued)

• Development Team
• Run Bobby on web pages during development
• Fix all mandatory Technical Checks
• For each optional User Check
• Verify if any action is required
• If so, document and correct the issue
• Include exemption file(s) in the Support
  Documentation in accordance with Standards
• User Acceptance Test (UAT) Team
• Conduct JAWS review of delivered code
• Review Accessibility Test Report and any attached
  exemptions and ensure that all items have either
  been actioned or have a documented exemption
• If this condition is not met, the project should
  fail UAT and deployment stopped until rectified
• Deployment Team
• Ensure corrected code is deployed and any
  required
• Exemption files are appropriately stored

More about testing
10
Overview of Compliance Process

• Five easy steps
• Testing Methods
• Interpreting the Test Results
• Fixing Problems Identified
• Completing the Accessibility Test Report
• What To Do If You Cant Comply (Exemptions)
• The Exemption Process and accepting the risk.
• Submitting the Results to UAT

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Step 1 Testing Methods

• Development Projects
• Automated testing using Bobby
• Manual review by page author(s)/coders
• View representative pages with accessibility
  options (High contrast white on black selected
  in Windows 2000)
• View pages with images turned off (i.e. text
  only)
• Off-the-Shelf / OEM Solutions
• Vendors need to successfully complete the same
  tests as above or provide documentary evidence of
  compliance

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Step 2 Interpreting the Test Results

• Manual Review
• Refer to the supporting documents with the
  Standard for manual review guidelines
• Bobby Testing
• Technical Checks (Bugs that must be fixed)
• Specific accessibility defects associated with
  the coding of the page, these errors must be
  fixed
• User Checks (Issues that may need attention)
• Items that the page author/coder must review to
  determine whether or not the page complies with
  the Standard

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Step 3 Fixing Problems Identified

• Once Bobby testing is completed, developers must
• Ensure that all instances of all Technical Checks
  identified by Bobby are corrected
• Review all the User Checks identified and
  determine whether each one requires any action
  (i.e. does the design meet the checkpoint
• Correct the User Checks identified for action

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Example 1Links to Other Information with Errors

• The following links represent a Priority 2
  Accessibility error that link phrases make sense
  when read out of context
• Click here to see our Terms and Conditions
• Click here to see our Privacy Policy
• The link Click here provides no context for
  the link. It is recommended to change the link to
  the target text as below.
• Read our Terms and Conditions
• Read our Privacy Policy

More about screen reader output
15
Example 2Form with Errors
What happens when a JAWS user enters their name
in the form?

• Inaccessible design
• As they tab what they hear is
• Firstname init lastnameedit
• Firstname init lastnameedit
• Firstname init lastnameedit
• In testing this error prevented even skilled JAWS
  users from completing the form.

• Accesible design
• When a JAWS user enters their name they will
  hear
• First name mandatory field edit
• Init edit
• Last name mandatory field edit.
• Note Jaws tells users that they are in an edit
  field

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Step 4 Completing the Accessibility Test Report
(ATR)

• Each User Check identified by Bobby and confirmed
  as requiring action must be documented in the
  Test Report, along with its Resolution
• Each Resolution documented must specify either
• The problem has been or is currently being fixed
• Or
• The project has chosen to take no action due to a
  Business Requirement priority and can reference
  an Exemption from your IT or Standards department.

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What To Do If You Cant Comply

• Exemptions from compliance should only be granted
  by the your IT or Standards department
• Any complaint raised under the Disability
  Discrimination Act (1992) as a consequence of the
  site/application being inaccessible will be the
  direct and sole responsibility of the relevant
  Business Owner(s).
• The Business Owner is accountable for bringing
  the site/application into accessibility
  compliance in future releases

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Step 5 Submitting the Results to UAT

• Provide the
• completed Test Report,
• associated exemptions if any, and
• corrected code to the
• Project Manager and/or Producer for the project.
• These items will then be presented to the User
  Acceptance Testing (UAT) team as per the
  deployment process used

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And Please Remember

• Without effective Standards to build to, how do
  we know what were building will ultimately work
  and endure?

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Impairment
An impairment results in a temporary or permanent
restriction in peoples ability to carry out
normal life activities. Impairments may be
congenital or arise from injury, illness or the
effects of aging A disability results from the
intersection between a persons physical
capabilities and their circumstances Some of the
major disabilities that limit peoples ability to
use computers and the internet are vision
impairment, motor impairment, to a lesser extent
hearing impairment and print disabilities such as
dyslexia
Return
21
Maguire vs SOCOG

• The provision of information or functionality
  over the web is considered a service under the
  terms of the Disability Discrimination Act and
  failing to make a web site accessible provides
  grounds for a discrimination complaint.
• A complaint was made against SOCOG over the
  Sydney Olympics web site and resulted in an award
  of damages to the complainant a blind man Bruce
  Maguire.
• There is also a positive argument for companies
  to make web sites accessible. People with
  disability have a strong interest in using the
  web as a means to undertake activities on their
  own for which they may otherwise require
  assistance. They are likely to be frequent and
  loyal customers for companies who provide
  accessible sites.

Return
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Demographics Detail

• This slide is based on 1998 ABS data.
• Observe that the sum of different types is
  greater than the total this reflects the
  incidence of people with multiple disability in
  the population
• Sensory and speech combines vision loss, hearing
  loss and speech impairment.
• The ways in which these disability impact on
  peoples ability to use PCs and the Internet
  some of the assistive tech these people use
  include
• Vision impairment unable to see colours/ read
  text - high contrast setting/ screen enlarger/
  screen reader
• Physical disability unable to use a mouse,
  unable to use a standard keyboard / screen
  reader/ alternative access device single switch
  etc
• Intellectual disability difficulty in locating
  information dealing with complex or inconsistent
  navigation
• Print disability difficulty in reading text
  self voicing browser

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Allocating Compliance Budget

• As part of their budget, business owners need to
  allocate money for accessibility compliance.
• While there are no strict formulas, typically
  3-5 of project budget should be allocated for
  usability and accessibility.
• Project managers need to make allowance for
  accessibility activities in planning.

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Testing

• Vendors have the responsibility for carrying out
  and documenting accessibility activities.
• It is important that you communicate this
  responsibility to vendors at the start of
  development.
• UAT is responsible for carrying out JAWS review
  of delivered code. (this provides a high level
  check against work done.)
• Completed code should only be accepted into UAT
  if it is accompanied by a test report (failing to
  provide a test report should result in work being
  returned to the vendor.)
• UAT needs to review the test report and ensure
  that all items have either been fixed or an
  exemption requested.
• If this is not the case the delivered item should
  fail UAT.

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Screen Readers

• Screen reader users often browse by tabbing from
  one link to the next. They also often generate a
  list of links to get a summary view of the page.
• There are three main problems with this page.
• Links phrases that do not describe the
  destination make it harder for screen reader
  users.
• Using the same link phrase for links to different
  destinations is also confusing.
• Finally click here is not intuitive for someone
  who does not use a mouse to navigate.

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