Accessibility: The Inclusive Web - One for Everyone in the Audience?
Research Institute for Networks and Communications Engineering (RINCE) Dublin City University
RINCE Seminar
DCU, 11 June 2004
[Presentation also available in PDF
Format.]
Contents
- Prologue - Who cares
- Overview of Presentation
- What is Web Accessibility?
- Why is Web Accessibility an Issue?
- Impact of the Web on People with Disabilities
- Web Accessibility is a Cross-Disability Issue
- Web Accessibility is a Marketplace Issue
- Accessibility Contributes to Universal Design (Design for All)
- Guidelines for Accessibility
- WCAG Conformance Levels
- How are we (in Ireland) doing?
- Methodology
- Key Results
- Pervasive Defects (Priority 1 or 2)
- Meanwhile, elsewhere in Europe...
- Internationally Comparative WCAG-A failure rates
- Internationally Comparative Defects
- Epilogue: Web Accessibility is a Right ...
- Thanks...
- Links
- Copyright
Prologue - Who cares
If anybody asks me what the Internet means to me, I will tell him without hesitation: To me (a quadriplegic) the Internet occupies the most important part in my life. It is my feet that can take me to any part of the world; it is my hands which help me to accomplish my work; it is my best friend--it gives my life meaning.
Overview of Presentation
- What is it?
- Who does it affect?
- Why does it matter?
- How to achieve it?
- How are we (in Ireland) doing?
- 40.1 All citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law ...
- Thanks ...
What is Web Accessibility?
Web accessibility means access to the Web by everyone, regardless of disability.
Web accessibility includes:
- Web sites and applications
- that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with;
- Web browsers and media players
- that can be used effectively by people with disabilities, and
- that integrate or interoperate with assistive technologies that some people with disabilities use to access the Web;
- Web authoring tools, and evolving Web technologies
- that support production of accessible Web content and Web sites, and
- that can be used effectively by people with disabilities.
Why is Web Accessibility an Issue?
There are several reasons why Web accessibility is important:
- use of the Web is spreading rapidly into all areas of society;
- there are barriers on the Web for many types of disabilities;
- millions of people have disabilities that affect access to the Web;
- some Web sites are required to be accessible;
- Web accessibility also has carry-over benefits for other users.
Impact of the Web on People with Disabilities
- The Web is becoming a key resource for:
- news, information, commerce, entertainment,
- classroom education, distance learning,
- job searching, workplace interaction,
- civic participation, public services.
- It is complementing or even displacing traditional
sources of information and interaction:
- schools, libraries, print materials, discourse of the workplace;
- some of these traditional resources were accessible; some not.
- An accessible Web (would) mean unprecedented access to information for people with disabilities.
Web Accessibility is a Cross-Disability Issue
Examples of design requirements for people with different kinds of disabilities include:
- Visual:
- described graphics or video;
- well marked-up tables or frames;
- keyboard support, speech synthesis compatibility;
- Hearing:
- captioning for audio, supplemental illustration;
- Physical, Speech:
- keyboard or single-switch support;
- alternatives for speech input on voice portals;
- Cognitive, Neurological:
- consistent navigation, appropriate language level;
- illustration; no flickering or strobing designs.
Web Accessibility is a Marketplace Issue
- At least 10% of the population in most countries has
disabilities;
- visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, and neurological disabilities can all affect access to the Web
- Average age of population in many countries is
increasing;
- aging sometimes results in combinations of accessibility issues;
- vision & hearing changes, changes in dexterity & memory.
- Few organizations can afford to deliberately alienate this market sector.
Accessibility Contributes to Universal Design (Design for All)
Accessible Web design contributes to better design for other users:
- Multi-modality (support for visual, auditory, tactile
access) benefits users of:
- mobile phones with small display screens, Web-TV, kiosks.
- Multi-modality increases usability of Web sites in
different situations:
- low bandwidth (images are slow to download);
- noisy environments (difficult to hear the audio);
- screen-glare (difficult to see the screen);
- driving (eyes and hands are "busy").
- Redundant text/audio/video can support:
- different learning styles; low literacy levels; second-language access.
- Style sheets can support:
- more efficient page transmission and site maintenance.
- Captioning of audio files supports:
- better machine indexing of content; faster searching of content.
Guidelines for Accessibility
W3C: Web Accessibility Initiative
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG 1.0);
- Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (ATAG 1.0);
- User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (UAAG 1.0);
- XML Accessibility Guidelines (XAG).
WCAG Conformance Levels
- WCAG-A is a minimum standard which a site must meet to be considered accessible for any significant disability groups;
- WCAG-AA is a "professional practice" standard, which all sites should meet to be accessible to a broad range of disability groups;
- WCAG-AAA is a "gold standard" of maximum accessibility which some sites may choose to aim for--for example, sites with a particular remit to serve communities of people with disabilities.
How are we (in Ireland) doing?
- Large Scale Surveying of the "Irish" Web
- Conducted at eAccessibility lab, RINCE
- Support from AIB PLC, HEA
Methodology
- Automated (severe limitation!)
- Capture:
pavuk - Assessment:
bobby - XML Reports
- Database
postgresql
- Capture:
Key Results
- 159 sites ("hand picked")
- 100% failed WCAG-AA.
- At least 94% failed WCAG-A.
- At least 90% failed generic HTML standards.
(... no surprises there then!)
Pervasive Defects (Priority 1 or 2)
- Rigid display coding (98.7%).
- Missing ALT (90.6%).
- Defective HTML (89.9%).
- Poor link text (76.7%).
- Inaccessible forms (69.8%).
- Device restrictions (69.2%).
- HTML frames (34.0%).
Meanwhile, elsewhere in Europe...
- How to objectively sample the web space of a given country?
| Country | Available in ODP | Sampled |
|---|---|---|
| IE | 5,509 | 272 |
| UK | 114,044 | 5,702 |
| FR | 30,892 | 1,545 |
| DE | 84,860 | 4,250 |
Internationally Comparative WCAG-A failure rates
- Ireland:94.0%
- UK: 94.5%
- Germany: 95.6%
- France: 98.6%
Internationally Comparative Defects
| ID | Description | IE | UK | FR | DE | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| g9 | Provide alternative text for all images | 93.0% | 92.5% | 97.9% | 92.5% | 93.3% |
| g39 | Give each frame a title | 21.9% | 26.9% | 41.2% | 50.9% | 36.8% |
| g38 | Each FRAME must reference an HTML file | 21.1% | 25.5% | 39.3% | 50.4% | 35.7% |
| g240 | Provide alternative text for all image map hot-spots (AREAs) | 21.9% | 19.9% | 37.7% | 18.5% | 22.1% |
| g10 | Provide alternative text for all image-type buttons in forms | 7.9% | 8.5% | 12.8% | 8.9% | 9.3% |
| g21 | Provide alternative text for each APPLET | 8.8% | 7.4% | 7.0% | 7.5% | 7.4% |
| g20 | Provide alternative content for each OBJECT | 0.0% | 0.2% | 0.5% | 0.2% | 0.3% |
Epilogue: Web Accessibility is a Right ...
- Bunreacht na hÉireann/Constitution of Ireland
- Equal Status Act, 2000
- Employment Equality Act, 1998
- EC Directive 2000/78/EC, 2000
- eEurope 2002: Accessibility of Public Web Sites and their Content, 2003 [MS-Word Format]
- NDA IT Accessibility Guidelines, 2002
- Education for Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2003
- Disability Act, 2003/4?
Thanks...
- John Kelly, Head of Business Banking, AIB PLC.
- Research students: Esmond Walshe and Carmen Marincu.
- RINCE, HEA.
- W3C WAI Education and Outreach Working Group
Links
- eAccess Lab
- Shortform Paper
- Detailed Technical Report
- A Comparative Assessment of Web Accessibility and Technical Standards Conformance in Four EU States
- Presentation authored with FoilTeX
Copyright
Portions of this presentation are derived, on a fair use basis, from Overview of the Web Accessibility Initiative by Judy Brewer and Participants of the Education and Outreach Working Group. The latter is Copyright © 1994-2003 W3C® (MIT, ERCIM, Keio), All Rights Reserved. Otherwise this presentation is subject to the standard eAccess Lab Copyright Policy.
