ASPECTS OF WEB DESIGN
WEB SITE ACCESSIBILITY
OBJECTIVES
Suggest criteria for producing effective
multimedia applications
 Look particularly at Accessibility and Usability
 Suggest factors to be avoided when producing
multimedia applications
 Investigate some visual impairments through
simulation
 Research current literature on accessibility and
websites

ACCESSIBILITY
"The power of the web is in its
universality. Access by everyone
regardless of disability is an essential
aspect." Tim Berners-Lee (1997)
http://www.w3.org/Press/IPOannounce
WHY BOTHER! WHO CARES!
 The
percentage of people with disabilities
in many populations is between 10% and
20%.
 Not
all disabilities affect access to
information technologies such as the web
(for instance, difficulty walking, or a heart
condition, would not affect web access) but
many do.
FIVE PRIMARY DISABILITIES
 Visual
impairments
 Hearing impairments
 Mobility impairments
 Intellectual Impairment
 Cognitive impairments
 Seizure disorders
7% of all men are colour blind!
INTELLECTUAL IMPAIRMENT

Historically, intellectual disability was defined
through intelligent quotient (IQ) scores—0– 70
points for people with ID, compared with a
general population range of 100 ± 15 points,
according to the

World Health Organization (WHO).
(KENNEDY et al 2011) Paper on VLE
COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENTS

Include:
Down syndrome,
 Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI),
 Autism,
 Dementia


Also
Dyslexia,
 Attention Deficit Disorder,
 Dyscalculia,
 and other learning disabilities.

From: http://www.disabled-world.com/disability/types/cognitive/
WHY BOTHER?
Accessibility = usability
‘It is also notable that both blind users and nonimpaired users took far longer on low accessibility sites
than on high accessibility sites, and that this effect was
not much more pronounced for disabled users: 51%
longer for blind users, and 46% for non-disabled users.
It follows that all users, not just disabled people,
would benefit greatly from the measures required
to make sites accessible and usable by blind
people.’
WHY BOTHER?

legal implications;


best practice;


guidelines for accessibility overlap considerably with
usability
search engine optimisation;


various pieces of legislation relating to accessibility
SEO is usually a very important aspect of web design –
accessibility guidelines help search engine spiders too…
ethical considerations;
do we have a moral duty to not exclude groups of users?
 even if you don’t feel obligated personally, others will alter
their opinion of your site if you are seen to exclude some
people…

DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION ACT (DDA)
1995 AND 2005
THE

gives disabled people rights in;

employment

education

access to goods, facilities and services

buying or renting land or property
requires public bodies to promote equality of
opportunity;
 defines ‘disabled’ as;


‘someone who has a physical or mental impairment that
has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his or her
ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities’
IMPLICATIONS OF THE ACTS

websites are not addressed separately, but included in
the act under ‘services’, eg


‘What services are affected by the Act? An airline company
provides a flight reservation and booking service to the
public on its website. This is a provision of a service and is
subject to the act.’ (Code of Practice 2.13 - 2.1, 1999)
puts a legal obligation on the website owner to ‘make
reasonable adjustments’

Section 19; Discrimination in relation to goods, facilities
and services
IMPLICATIONS OF THE ACTS

a ‘failure to comply’ must be justified
Section 21; Duty of providers of services to make
adjustments.
 ‘For the purposes of section 19, a provider of services also
discriminates against a disabled person if he fails to comply
with a section 21 duty imposed on him in relation to the
disabled person; and he cannot show that his failure to
comply with that duty is justified.’ (DDA, 1995)


affects intranets as well

equality of opportunity means accessibility within an
organisation, as well as the public web site
WHAT ARE ‘REASONABLE ADJUSTMENTS’?

the act does not provide specific guidance for websites,
but accepts that various factors will apply, such as;
the type of service being provided
 the type of organisation providing the service
 resources available to the organisation
 the effect on the disabled person and likely effect on other
disabled persons


…a small florist is likely to be held to a different
standard than a major airline…
WHAT ARE ‘REASONABLE ADJUSTMENTS’?

to date, no case has been brought against a website
owner in the UK
no case law or tort for guidance
 plenty of precedent for defining ‘unreasonable’ in other
areas of the law
 several cases elsewhere, eg hotels.com, Maguire v SOCOG
(Australia) http://www.tomw.net.au/2001/bat2001f.html


case brought against on-line examination provider;
Project Management Institute
details at http://www.out-law.com/page-7692
 candidate passed but brought successful case for damages
anyway against US firm operating in UK

COMPLYING WITH THE LAW

currently impossible to guarantee compliance due to a
lack of case law;


‘It is not possible to provide a definitive specification for a fully
accessible website which will satisfy the requirements of the DDA.
Website commissioners should therefore be sceptical if contracting
companies declare that they will create websites that are “DDAcompliant” or “compliant with the law”. Conversely, website
commissioners should not require a web designer to design a website
that is “DDA-compliant” or “compliant with the law”. Until case law
has been established such claims cannot be made or honoured.’ (9.1.1
PAS 78 , 2006)
sensible option is to make sure you have a policy
statement about your compliance…

…and to be able to back it up with evidence that you’ve made
‘reasonable adjustments’…
PRACTICAL STEPS FOR ACCESSIBILITY

probably the most concise and comprehensive source of
information is the WCAG 2.0 quick reference;

http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/quickref/
‘following usability guidelines gives you 80% of
accessibility guidelines’ - Steve Krug
 Don’t overlook the very basics of accessibility;




use clear, easy to read text – test the effect of altering the text size in
different browsers
avoid absolute sizes for text areas so that the page displays in low
resolutions
aim for a fluid rather than fixed layout; use percentage values instead
of absolute values
quick and easy things to do;

don’t use ‘access keys’
there’s no agreed ‘standard’ – different sites use different
keys
 they can override screen readers and make the site even
worse for those that help the most


don’t bother with ‘accessibility widgets’


users’ machines will be set up to their own preferences;
don’t override their browser’s settings
leave out ‘statements of compliance’

users will decide for themselves whether or not the site is
accessible whatever you say
QUICK AND EASY THINGS TO DO;

specify the language; <html lang="en">


avoid horizontal scrolling


especially on pages with technical information
this is good practice anyway, but can be very difficult for
those with poor mobility
provide alt text for images that describes the image
concisely

like ‘photograph of Gordon Brown looking nervous’
quick and easy things to do;

for images used for backgrounds, list items, etc have
the alt text set to “ “


so that screen readers ignore them silently (and do not read
out the file name of the image)
provide summary text for tables only if context is not
clear from the rest of the page content

if the text says ‘the table below shows music industry
revenue for the last five years’ there’s no need to repeat
that in the table summary
quick and easy things to do;

put an invisible ‘skip links’ link at the start of your
navigation list


never put in links that say ‘click here’ or similar


skip to the next level of navigation on a large site, or to the
main text area of the page
the link itself should describe the target
don’t separate adjacent links with space – character –
space
eg privacy policy - copyright - disclaimer
 (some old browsers needed this to help screen readers, now
it’s just a nuisance)

quick and easy things to do;

choose URIs carefully;
avoid upper case, make it short but more importantly make
it descriptive
 make it future proof as much as you can so that locations
do not change as the site evolves


consider the structure of the page


divide into logical sections so that users can skip around
the page quickly - navigate by heading
summarise the content as part of the first few sentences
(most screen readers can skip to the next heading with a
single key - no need to listen to the whole thing)
FURTHER INFORMATION






Webaim
 http://wave.webaim.org
open source screen reader
 http://www.nvda-project.org/
FireVox plugin for Firefox
 http://firevox.clcworld.net/
Web Developers’ Toolbar
 https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60
information from Pinsent Masons (law firm)
 http://www.out-law.com/page-337
advice from Google
 http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769
WORKSHOP
Look at the examples of visual defect simulated
with glasses
 Colour Blind test
 Sim Dis simulation
 Which side of brain is dominant
 Research current literature on accessibility and
websites
 Readings on Moodle
