Accessibility Better, Faster, Cheaper

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AccessibilityBetter, Faster, Cheaper

• Shawn Lawton Henry

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• Were not in accessibility session yesterday?

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W3C WAI

• World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
• Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
• www.w3.org/WAI/

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W3C WAI

• World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
• International
• Develops Web standards (HTML, CSS, )
• Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
• Develops Web accessibility guidelines,internation
  al standards
• www.w3.org/WAI/

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Screen Magnification
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Topics

• Responsibilities
• Business Case
• Black, White, Gray
• Collaborators with Disabilities
• Handouts Additional URIs

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Interdependent Components

• MythWeb accessibility is the responsibility of
  the Web content producer
• FactWeb accessibility depends on several
  components working together

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Components of Web Accessibility
Web Content(WCAG)
User Agent(UAAG)
Authoring Tool(ATAG)
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www.w3.org/WAI/intro/components
Web Content(WCAG)
UserAgent(UAAG)
Authoring Tool(ATAG)
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Interdependencies Between Components, Example
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Make or Break
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Authoring Tools Support
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ACTION !

• Actively encourage improvements in authoring
  tools
• WAI resources
• Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG)
• Selecting and Using Authoring Tools for Web
  Accessibility

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ACTION !

• Actively encourage improvements in authoring
  tools
• WAI resources
• Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG)
  www.w3.org/WAI/intro/atag
• Selecting and Using Authoring Tools for Web
  Accessibility www.w3.org/WAI/impl/software

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Topics

• Responsibilities
• Business Case
• Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for
  Your Organization
• Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Usability
• Black, White, Gray
• Collaborators with Disabilities

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Access for people with disabilities is it
however
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Business Case

• Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for
  Your Organization
• Social Factors
• Technical Factors
• Financial Factors
• Legal Policy Factors

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www.w3.org/WAI/bcase/Overview

• Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for
  Your Organization
• Cafeteria plan
• Questions to focus

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Business Case

• Social Factors
• Digital Divide, Corporate Social Responsibility,
  Auxiliary Benefits
• Technical Factors
• Maintenance, Server Load, Device Independence,
  Forward Compatibility
• Financial Factors
• Financial Benefits, Cost Considerations
• Legal Policy Factors
• Applicable Policies, Risks Of Non-compliance,
  Multiple Standards

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Examples Access

• Corporate social responsibility (CSR)
• Overlap with digital divide
• Benefits also
• Older people
• Low literacy, not fluent in the language
• Low-bandwidth connections, older technologies
• New and infrequent web users
• Employees with disabilities

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SEO Accessibility Overlap
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Google's Webmaster Guidelines

• www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
• Following these guidelines will help Google
  find, index, and rank your site.

Netherlands bank
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SEO Accessibility Overlap

• SEO Make sure that your TITLE and ALT tags
  sic are descriptive and accurate.
• Accessibility TITLE read by screen reader
• Accessibility ALT read by screen reader, text
  browsers
• (Usability search results, bookmarking, title
  bar)
• (By the way, alt is an attribute, not a tag.)

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SEO Accessibility Overlap

• WCAG Provide a text equivalent for every
  non-text element
• SEO Text equivalents for multimedia
• (Usability e.g., reporter searching for quote in
  CEO speech)

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SEO Accessibility Overlap

• SEO Check for . . . correct HTML.
• SEO Headings
• WCAG Use header elements to convey document
  structure...
• A Headings navigation

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SEO Accessibility Overlap

• SEO Make a site with clear . . . text links.
• SEO Keep the links on a given page to a
  reasonable number (fewer than 100).
• WCAG Clearly identify the target of each link.
• A Links list
• A Overview by links (sad, but true)

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SEO Accessibility Overlap

• SEO Offer a site map to your users.
• WCAG Provide information about the general
  layout of a site (e.g., a site map

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SEO Accessibility Overlap

• SEO Try to use text instead of images to
  display important names, content, or links. The
  Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained
  in images.
• WCAG 1.0 When an appropriate markup language
  exists, use markup rather than images to convey
  information.

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SEO Accessibility Overlap

• SEO Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine
  your site, because most search engine spiders see
  your site much as Lynx would. If fancy features
  such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames,
  DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your
  site in a text browser, then search engine
  spiders may have trouble crawling your site.
• A same as above, substitute then people with
  disabilities may have trouble using your site.

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Topics

• Responsibilities
• Business Case
• Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for
  Your Organization
• CSR
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Usability
• Black, White, Gray
• Collaborators with Disabilities

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Bad
Good
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Bad
Good
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Prioritize

• Greatest impact on users experience
• Impact many pages
• Templates
• Style sheets
• Elements such as navigation bars and scripts

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Prioritize

• Greatest impact on users experience
• Impact many pages
• Pages
• Home page
• Main pages functionality for purpose of site,
  including
• The path to get there
• The path to complete transactions
• Frequently-used pages functionality, including
  path transactions

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Prioritize by Barrier

• WCAG 1.0 Priorities (WCAG 2.0 Levels)
• Approach
• Priority 1
• Lower priorities
• Approach
• High impact easy
• Harder

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Prioritize by Barrier

• WCAG 1.0 Priorities (WCAG 2.0 Levels)
• Approach disadvantages
• Priority 1
• Lower priorities
• Approach advantages
• High impact easy
• Harder

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Prioritize by Barrier

• Impact on people with disabilities
• Depends on context of site
• Effort required for repair
• Time, cost, and skills
• Type of repair, development environment

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Resources

• Improving the Accessibility of Your Web Site (WAI
  Resource)www.w3.org/WAI/impl/improving
• Understanding Web Accessibility(book chapter
  online)www.uiaccess.com/understanding.html

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Topics

• Responsibilities
• Business Case
• Black, White, Gray
• Collaborators with Disabilities

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Involving Users Benefits

• Better understand issues
• Understand why behind guidelines
• Implement more effective solutions
• More efficient (thus maximize investment)
• Powerful motivator
• Demo success first, then own
• More budget
• Note Alone doesnt cover all issues, WCAG vital
  role

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Example

• alt"This image is a line art drawing of a dark
  green magnifying glass. If you click on it, it
  will take you to the Search page."

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Involving Users Scope

• Range
• Informal, Hey, try this
• Formal usability testing
• Informal early on throughout
• Diverse users
• Experience with Web AT(too low or too high)

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Involving Users Scope

• Range
• Informal, Hey, try this
• Formal usability testing
• Informal early on throughout
• Diverse users
• Experience with Web AT(too low or too high)

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Tips for Involving Users

• First
• Preliminary review
• Pilot test
• Expert evaluator with first-hand experience
• Carefully consider feedback
• Whats wrongmarkup/code, AT, user knowledge

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Resources

• Just Ask Integrating Accessibility Throughout
  Design (online book)
• The Basics
• Accessibility in the User-Centered Design Process
• Involving Users in Web Accessibility Evaluation
  (WAI Web resource)
• Understanding Web Accessibility (book chapter
  online)

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Resources

• Just Ask Integrating Accessibility Throughout
  Design (online book)www.uiaccess.com/accessucd/
• The Basics
• Accessibility in the User-Centered Design Process
• Involving Users in Web Accessibility Evaluation
  (WAI Web resource)www.w3.org/WAI/eval/users
• Understanding Web Accessibility (book chapter
  online)www.uiaccess.com/understanding.html

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Myths

• Myth text-only versions are good accessibility
  solution
• Myth Web accessibility is for people who are
  blind
• Myth its dull, boring
• Stifles creativity
• Too restrictive
• Myth (partial) its too expensive
• Myth (partial) its too hard

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ACTION !

• Actively encourage authoring tools
• Promote business case
• Do the high impact easy stuff now
• Involve users with disabilities throughout

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AccessibilityBetter, Faster, Cheaper

• Shawn Lawton Henry