May 21, 2010
Accessibility in the Work Place
It is our legal obligation to make our websites accessible to everyone, including those with disabilities. Organizations who fail to comply with accessibility standards have been sued for such offenses. In the case of Maguire v. Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, 2000 the website was found inaccessible. The committee was ordered to comply with such standards while failure to do so would provide Maguire with cause for further litigation; including monetary compensation.1
But avoiding lawsuits and fulfilling these moral duties to the disabled in not the only reason to include affordances like these in our designs. There are over 60 million disabled Americans, over 500 million worldwide. According to of 2010 census that’s nearly 25% of Americans2. With such a huge percent of the population, Fortune Magazine has cited this market to be one of the largest, and most forgotten about demographic to target. Collectively, the annual gross income of disabled Americans is over $1 trillion.
Full article here.
Below, I’ve compiled a number of different ways in which we can make our sites more accessible. Some of the techniques here are having simple implementation, while others may require a little more time and investment but are potential business opportunities, especially for NPO’s.
1. WAI-ARIA
The first measure to consider when improving a site’s accessibility is this set of documents, published by the W3C (Worldwide Web Consortium) called WAI-ARIA. You thought we went crazy with the acronyms… This is the Web Accessibility Initiative – Accessibility for Rich Internet Applications. Any takers for S.W.A.I.? This primarily for the developer’s consideration and would involve standard processes of inserting metadata into regular HTML.
2. Progressive Enhancement
Progressive enhancement would be a design that takes into consideration modern browsers’ capabilities. Newer technology is better technology. It no longer a presentational argument. Browsers like IE6 and 7 are under constant scrutiny from developers on a global level for important reasons. Typically they don’t display content as they should but, more importantly they lack key functionality that not only aids the disabled but enhances every users experience. Progressive enhancement is a methodology where sites are built to function in older browsers and then add newer features for those that can access them.
3. Alternate Content
It goes without saying that images are there to support the textual content in order to convey the most powerful message possible. Making sure that the text stands on it’s own, or providing an alternative that supports images and videos is not always a primary concern. Is our alternative comparable to the real thing?
When you read the word below what do you envision? Hold you mouse over the word ‘Hungry Youth’ experience what a screen reader might miss.
Alt tags are deserving of well constructed copy too.
4. Captions
Similarly, video clips are deserving of well constructed captions or even full transcripts for the visually impaired. As an added bonus, captions help search engines index non-textual content. SEO boosters!
5. Screen Reading Software
Most blind and seeing impaired people use screen reading software when browsing websites. If the site doesn’t read anything to the user, they’ll go elsewhere fast.
6. Audit
Why do an accessibility audit?
“Web sites that are not accessible run the risk of costly legal settlements and a potential loss of business by being ‘named and shamed’ by pressure groups. As well as the reduced risk of litigation, accessible web sites rank higher in Google, they are easier to maintain, they increase brand equity and they can be used more easily by the large group of people who surf the web with new technologies like mobile phones.”
7. Usability Testing
Usability testing is another invaluable technique in identifying potential accessibility concerns. Having the entire office give there perspective on the functionality and affordances found in new designs is a tremendous help. Getting real feedback, in detail, about any problems encountered will help. Not accessibility issues will be immediately apparent.
8. Font Controls
Most browsers, including IE can enlarge fonts dynamically but lots of people are not aware of this (ctrl and = keys simultaneously). For this concern, something like the Greenwich House font-resize option is perfect.
9. Text for Navigation
In general it is bad practice to use images in place of navigation text. Screen readers can’t understand them, font resizes much more smoothly.
Conclusion
Accessibility is not often thought about, but is becoming a more pertinent issue. With proper planning from concepting to development it doesn’t have to be difficult. Also promising that that our content reaches more people means more potential customers.
If you read this far, send me an email and I’ll buy you a drink!
