1. Introduction to web accessibility Steven M. Swafford Radical Development

2. Why Web Accessibility? It’s The Law Americans with Disabilities Act, 1996 Rehabilitation Act, 1998 It’s the RIGHT thing to do. Not easy; not free

3. Goals of Web Accessibility Improve the usability of technology for all technology users through Universal Design as an underlying approach. Address accessibility challenges consistently over time. Foster collaboration.

4. Accessible Technology For All The goal is universal design that is integrated and equal: Don’t make disabled people use a different Web structure but make it so they can use it too. Dan Fruchterman, Engineer’s Focus: Accessible Technology for All

5. Web Accessibility Overview Web Accessibility Refers To The Inclusive Practice Of Making Websites Usable For People Of All Abilities And Disabilities Well Designed And Developed Sites Provide All Users Access To Information And Functionality The Assistive Needs That Web Accessibility Attempts To Address Include: Visual Motor/Mobility Auditory Seizures Cognitive/Intellectual

7. Aiding agent-type supportThe World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is committed to promoting usability for people with disabilities Universal access for everyone. Must take into account user agents other than browsers: mobile phones, PDAs, screen readers and magnifiers, etc.

8. W3C Accessibility Guidelines Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content Don't rely on color alone Use markup and style sheets and do so properly Clarify natural language usage Create tables that transform gracefully Ensure that pages featuring new technologies transform gracefully Ensure user control of time-sensitive content changes Provide context and orientation information Provide clear navigation mechanisms Ensure that documents are clear and simple

9. Accessibility Principles “Perceivable” Alternative text and “text only” website equivalents Supports assistive technologies (JAWS) Text and audio transcripts for video and audio features Remove reliance on shape, size, location, color, or sound to navigate “Operable” Use of keyboard alternative for site navigation No action “timeouts” Eliminate automatic “redirects” and other content changes Eliminate blinking screen features at certain rates (seizures) Alternative ways of finding other site pages (Table of Contents, Site Map)

10. Accessibility Principles, cont’d “Understandable” Identification of multi-lingual sections Glossaries for acronyms and unusual terms Identified page focus points as they change (for assistive technologies) Consistent functionality presented consistently across pages Intuitive and clear definition of input requirements and error messages “Robust” Supports plug ins, scripts, applets and other current and future user agents Accessibility of PDFs and other file types to assistive technologies

11. Important Facts 15,000,000 Number of visually impaired people in the United States 28,000,000 Number people in the United States with some amount of hearing loss September 6, 2006 A federal district court judge rules that a retailer may be sued if its website is inaccessible to the blind. (NFB v. Target)

12. Visual Barriers can include Images (still or animated) Video & Visual elements “Downloadable” files w/plugins Inconsistent navigation or content Lack of adequate Color Contrast Certain color combinations

13. Sound Barriers can include Video or audio Lack of transcript or captioning w/narrative “Downloadable” files Auditory stimulus that does not provide an alternative

14. the Challenge In the United States, over 8 million people are blind or visually impaired There were over 20 million deaf and hard of hearing people in the United States in 1994; of these about a million cannot understand any speech Over a quarter of a million Americans have spinal cord injuries About half a million Americans have cerebral palsy A third of a million Americans have multiple sclerosis

15. Investigating within How many people are expected to make use of the technology? Is it likely to be used again in the future, or repeatedly? Is it available publicly, or only to a pre‐determined audience? Is it required to be used for academic or institutional purposes?

16. Checklist for building your site Manual checking: how does site work with: Images turned off Sound turned off Larger than normal font sizes Small screen resolution Black and white display Without a mouse

17. Validating your sites Check with a semi-automatic accessibility checker: Wave Bobby Syntax check HTML through W3C validators Do user testing

18. The effect of age Physical impairments, minor and major, become more common with the passing years More than half of the population in the United States over the age of 65 has some kind of impairment This is a rapidly growing group; in the year 2000, there were 34.8 million people over 65, a number projected to be 53.7 million by 2020

19. What is a Screen reader? Narrates (reads aloud) the text on the screen Important considerations: HTML tables must not be used to control layout: doing so makes the narration difficult to understand HTML tables used to display tabular material need additional markup to make the meaning clear

20. Closed captioning Common web accessibility guidelines indicate that captions should be: Synchronized- the text content should appear at approximately the same time that audio would be available Equivalent- content provided in captions should be equivalent to that of the spoken word Accessible- caption content should be readily accessible and available to those who need

21. Closed captioning example

22. Accessibility In A Nutshell An Accessible Website Is One That Can Be Used By Disabled People As Easily As By The Non-disabled. Web Accessibility Means That People With Disabilities Can Perceive, Understand, Navigate, And Interact With The Web

23. Get Plugged In Keep An Eyes On The WC3 Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Review The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) Section 508

24. Additional Resources WC3 Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) Section 508 How To Meet WCAG 2.0 WebAIM Screen Reader Simulation Guidelines for Accessible, Usable Web Sites With Screen Readers Voluntary Product Accessibility Template WC3 Complete List of Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools Section 508: Opening Doors To IT

25. Conclusion