Accessibility on the Web

Introduction

Why is the web so popular? Well, anyone connected to the web has access to all kinds of information in a relatively short time. Most information is available to everyone and anyone willing to search for it. Now imagine if you are searching for a piece of information and the information is inaccessible due to the document being styled and structured incorrectly. For example having certain colors assigned to the font and background may result in the content being unreadable for some people, people who suffer from color blindness. People who go through such an event will experience frustration and rightly so.


Being a web designer for several years I was quite aware of web accessibility and always tried to use appropriate colors and structure, but during the presentation I got a renewed perspective on what some people go through when browsing the web. Later in this post we will go through some techniques used to make a web site more accessible.


A correct definition of web accessibility would be the design and development of a web site were all users have equal access to information and functionality. 

Different disabilities affected by web accessibility

When talking about accessibility we must put into perspective the different types of disabilities that affect web accessibility when designing a web site. Trying to categories different disabilities is not that simple as different people might have multiple disabilities and the severity of might vary for example with age which all affect web accessibility. This is a generic list of some disabilities accompanied with some examples of each.

• Visual
• blindness
• color blindness
• low vision
• Hearing impairment
• deafness
• hard of hearing
• hearing impairment
• Motor / Mobility
• tremors
• muscle slowness
• loss of fine muscle control
• Seizures
• Photo epileptic
• Cognitive / Intellectual
• learning disabilities
• development disabilities

Technologies assistive in web accessibility

By having a greater understanding of the tools and technology used by people with disabilities, we can then understand how to design web content as to make it easier to be interpreted by these tools. Assistive technologies are tools which facilitate tasks for people with disabilities, tasks which otherwise cannot be executed or be done with difficulty. These technologies range from web browser plugins to specially designed keyboards or buttons. This is a list of some of the assistive technologies used :

• Keyboards and other input alternatives
  This technology mimics a function produced by a keystroke. These specially designed keyboards vary from the conventional keyboard by having larger keys and key guards which only allow for one key pressing at a time. This type of assistive technology is used by people with dexterity and physical impairment issues.

A Typical Switch

• Braille and refreshable braille
  Braille is a system which uses dots to represent characters. An 8-Dot ASCII version of the braille was created. This type of assistive technology is used by people with visual related disabilities.

Refreshable braille

• Scanning Software
  A screen reader highlights the choices available in a given web page. This enables people with cognitive or physical disabilities to navigate through the content by pressing on a switch like the one shown above.
  
• Screen Readers
  This type of assistive technology reads the content to the user by using speech synthesis for audio output. On the web screen readers use the document structure as an input for the software. This tool highlights the importance of well structured content in an HTML document since a badly constructed document will be result in the screen reader outputting confusing information. This type of software is used by people who are blind or dyslexic. An example of a screen reader is JAWS.
  

Designing an accessible web site

Now that we have a general idea of what web accessibility means and the types of disabilities that are affected by web accessibility we can go through some guidelines which help improve our site to be more accessible. Each disability or group of disabilities required a set of guidelines, guidelines which often overlap with each other due to similar characteristics. 

• Browsing technologies
  People suffering from some kind of disability tend to stick to a browser that works well for them. The version of the browser might not even be the latest version or even text based like Lynx. When designing a web site one must also keep in mind to check that the web site works the same not only on different browsers but also on different versions of the browser. This can be often achieved by using alternative methods that can be captured by older versions of these browsers. For example :
• Include ALT text with every image that is displayed. The text has to be meaningful and descriptive in such a way that people using screen readers can picture the image you are displaying.
• Use the
• Provide an HTML equivalent for any flash embedded on the page. Even though there are screen readers that attach and synthesize flash one should make sure to provide the alternative.

• Form design
  Well designed forms is key in web accessibility. If fields are incorrectly positioned or validation prompts are displayed at the top or bottom of a screen then people have a harder time filling out the form.
  
• Page Content
  When going through a page we don't generally read the whole page as that would take a lot of time to get to find specific information. The common trend is to skim through a page and read the section or paragraph which we are searching for. Non-Keyboard or visually impaired users do the same by using a screen reader which highlights headings an bold text. If the content is not properly marked then the impaired user would have to listen to the whole content to find a piece of information.
  
• Page Structure
  The page structure must be organised and easy to navigate. Also must maintain its integrity when the text size is enlarged due to people with low vision.
  

Conclusion

To conclude I must say that this presentation was very informative and as already mentioned gave me a totally new perspective on how to approach web design. One must also keep in mind that when publishing content on the web that content can be read by a wide variety of people, people who have the right to read your content whatever disability they might have. Accessibility has been gathering a lot of momentum in recent years and a lot of regulations and legislation have been implemented all around the world to make sure that people with disabilities have the same opportunities as able people.