FACTS: The Newsletter of LEARNS-Web Accessibility

Accessibility? Who needs it?

By Alan Parks

The Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies has taken the lead at the University of Maine in advancing policy and technical assistance in universal accessibility in web design. The Center's web pages are accessible (note the "Bobby 508 Approved" icon on the homepage navigation bar). The entire FACTS newsletter is accessible. Because of CCI's leadership, The University of Maine has developed a policy requiring that all websites be fully accessible by April 2005. As a result, all UM web-based courses will also be accessible. Are your school or organization's websites accessible to all users? The following article can help you learn if your pages are accessible, why you should make them accessible, and who will benefit.

Could Helen Keller use your website if she were around today? If you incorporated universal accessibility in the design and maintenance of your site she could. In fact, incorporating universal accessibility will help assure that all users can access and benefit from your site.

Implementing the federal government’s “Section 508” guidelines, a single standard for web accessibility, isn’t difficult, but most web designers and managers aren’t aware of the need for applying such standards to their sites.

Why is web accessibility necessary? Who benefits from accessible websites?

The quick answer is: All users! But upon closer examination we can see specifically who benefits and in which ways in more detail.

Blind and vision-impaired users often have “screen reading” software on their computers. This software reads aloud the content of any window and the operational menus. Using keyboard commands, users navigate around the window quickly to access the contents they want. The screen reader reads the text in the selected menus, links or paragraphs. But what happens when the reader encounters a picture? Also consider users who are viewing your site through a slow modem connection. Perhaps they have turned "images off" in their browser, to speed download times. Without an “alt tag” inserted in the web page code by the web designer, these users won’t know what the picture is showing. The alt tag is text that describes the picture, in nine words or less. Not including it excludes some users from your web site's full content.

Next consider color. Section 508 guideline C states that web pages shall be designed so that all information conveyed with color is also available without color, for example from context or markup. For example, let’s say that a web designer used blue buttons for “Student Course Information” and green buttons for “Teacher Information.” A user who cannot see the difference between blue and green, or who is viewing the webpage in black and white, or who is using a monitor with very poor color rendition, will not be able to distinguish between student and teacher buttons. Thus, the web designer must add identifying text to the buttons, making it clear which are student-related buttons and which are teacher-related.

We now know two essential components to accessible web design. First, accessible web design benefits ALL users--not just those with disabilities. Second, it is the use of text that makes potentially inaccessible features on a website accessible. The appropriate inclusion of TEXT is the key to addressing many of the accessibility issues in web design.

We have taken a look at only a couple of web design issues and how they affect users. What about audio portions of a web page? How does the use of video and video with audio impact various users? What about the speed of a user’s connection to the Internet?

Do you know if your site is accessible? How can you tell? For much more information about web accessibility, please visit www.umaine.edu/insider/accessibility. Here you will find an accessibility helpsite designed by The University of Maine’s Universal Design for the Web Subcommittee. You will find the Section 508 guidelines and a help file for implementing each guideline. You will also find links to “validators” that can help you determine if a web page is currently accessible, or accessible once repairs have been applied.

What is the point of having a website if all users can’t access and benefit from it? By implementing accessible web design to your site, you can assure that everyone benefits from your work!