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Adapting Existing Federal Web Sites For The Disabled?
Rafajafar asks: "I work as part of a federally-funded Webteam for a prestigious laboratory in the states. It has recently come to my attention that our government has placed a burden on us. Congress passed the Rehabilitation Act back in '98 which instantiated a committee to ensure that all federal technologies do not treat those with disabilities unfairly. This board released a set of standards that they created to ensure that the government doesn't violate the Rehab Act. This, although wonderful for the disabled, leaves many of us media lackeys at these federal facilities with a bit of a conundrum. How do we fix all this stuff within 6 months? Our site has thousands of pages that would need to be sorted through by hand and even with us abandoning all projects for 6 months, we would not be able to guarantee all pages to be fixed. I know our team isn't the only one with this problem, so I was wondering if you guys have any good ideas on how to go about changing our site, our videos, our presentations, and pretty much anything else that relies on one sense over another. We would prefer to avoid using the 'Undue Burden' clause as much as possible."
I would start by examining the logs to see which pages are requested the most and fix them first.
OpenSourcerers
What you fail to understand is that this guy is just one person who suddenly has been given the task of making all the content in his domain accessible. The content itself was input from hundreds if not thousands of sources.
As far as complying to W3C standards, even today there isn't even one HTML editor that is 100% compliant. The closest I've seen is HTML-Kit. Really, if I had to point any fingers it would have to be at the W3C for dragging ass on implementing needed standards. By acting so frigging slow, being indecisive, they all but ensured that software companies would either develop their own standards of pick and choose among the W3C standards for those they didn't think would be depricated in six months. Then I would blame the software companies that still fail at making content creation simple enough that laymen can create presentable, standards compliant HTML. Then I would point to the government for failing to realize the potential of the internet for collaborative efforts and information dissimination. Even today.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Frist I'd start out by seeing what thes pages look like in lynx browser. Do you see everything? Can all the info be accessed? Many people who are blind or using braile reads WONT get the images, unless you put the alt= tag with ALL the images. Next make sure your URL's are accessable and if you use image maps make sure there is also an alt text.
Next if you are using JavaScript make sure that you include the noscript so that they can see what they are missing. Also make sure you are not using JavaScript to perform any sort of extra features that they may miss out on if they're braile reading browser does not handle JavaScript. The best way to do this is to turn off JavaScript on your browser and make sure you can still access ALL the functionality of the site.
Lastly or alternatively you could make a link on the front door to handcap accessable pages.
Many people here seem to think that they do not need to do anything extra to help the handcap view pages, but they do. Also you should realize that there are more browsers out there than just IE and netscape and some people are minimalists and use some of these lightweight browsers. If this is a goverment page, you MUST be accessable by all.
Additionally you may want to see how it is in other languages. Some states may require that a site be accessible in multiple languages, like english and spanish, or it may be worth it to make the site this way if it is a local goverment site and you have alot of a particular ethnic group.
These are suggestions.. the best one is to ask your boss what the hell they really want ...
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Only 'flamers' flame!
You do not have to change your website at all.
Your website does not define the media which will be used to define it. Your website will just send down the Internet pipe what it is requested for.
The accessibility concerns are fully dependent on the equipment used to communicate and receive the information at the users end and this is not within your power nor should it be your concern.
Did you write this website manually...??? You could do with a content management system...
Accessibility: more than the right thing to do
Workforce investment act of 1998
Accessibility: The Clock is Ticking
Getting Started with Usability Testing
I was somewhat suprised to see that many of the posts to this discussion fall into two categories (i) Why didn't you write this web pages correctly in the first instance & (ii) You can avoid doing it by this...
The original request was for advice and suggestions on how to deal with this, and more or less stating that they didn't want to use any get out clause.
I think this attitude should be applauded, all too many people are willing to avoid this sort of problem, and an honest request for help and suggestions on a difficult subject should be met with positive help and advice. It is very easy to throw stones.
Personally I think that pragmatically you should do your best to ensure the major pages are dealt with and have a rolling program of gradually updating those pages that it is practical and sensible to changes. You should also have along with this, some sort of standard for web pages that advises on making new and updated pages as multiple-sense friendly (or whatever the PC term is) as possible.
--
Actually it is rocket science...
A few composite replies to some of the statements that have been made here:
fleener wrote:
Either the W3C standards will change to somehow radically change the makeup of pages on-the-fly for blind users, or another Jakob Nielsen will rise to power and make a lot of money.
Actually, the W3C standard to change the makeup of pages on the fly exists; it's XSLT -- XSL Transformations. We use it at Reef (formerly Edapta) to do dynamic edaptations of the user interface to meet the needs of various audiences, including people with disabilities. If you want to see the semi-non-public demo pages from last year, drop me a note in email. (I'm not at liberty to get us slashdotted at the moment!)
Argy offered great advice, including:
As to what you're looking for, I'd spend some time browsing your sites using lynx.
If you haven't used Lynx for a long time, and don't want to bother to install it, you can also try Delorie's Lynx Viewer, a web-based lynx simulator script.
GC wrote:
You do not have to change your website at all. Your website does not define the media which will be used to define it. Your website will just send down the Internet pipe what it is requested for. The accessibility concerns are fully dependent on the equipment used to communicate and receive the information at the users end and this is not within your power nor should it be your concern.
I beg to differ here; it's a common fallacy that assistive technology can solve all of the problems of access. In fact, I included this on a list of Common Myths About Web Accessibility because many people seem to think that a screenreader or braille terminal can fix everything.
The problem, however, is a simple "garbage in, garbage out" scenario. Assistive technology needs enough information to be able to cobble together an alternate access method. That information is encoded within the HTML file. If the HTML file is poorly done, then it may prove impossible to get even the minimum information from a page.
If you don't want to simply believe me because I say it's so, then you could do a test yourself -- download a screenreader and try it out on a web page and see how it works. You may be disappointed to find that it's not as easy as you'd hoped -- and then remember that for many people this is their only way to access the web.
A few quick links to screenreader (or screenreader-like) technology:
Enjoy!
--Kynn Bartlett
Kynn's page: http://kynn.com/
Formulate a fixing strategy, focus on the more important/essential areas first.
Do the best you can, make it clear from day one that you are doing your best and spell out the additional resources required to get it done in time.
Everyone has to deal with unattainable goals, demonstrate you are making an honest effort is pretty much the only thing you can do.
Learn Perl! Learn Perl! Learn Perl!
Then really, and I mean really learn regular expressions.
I use these to change the look and feel of web pages all the time.
As was previously noted, the rules apply to technology created/procured after mid-2001. But it wouldn't hurt to change what you've got anyway.
With thousands of pages, I'd write a program to read through all of them, labeling whether they seem to be okay as is, or if not list what elements may need work, the most common example being "add alt tags to images," but also audio or video files that could use transcription, server-side image maps, and that sort of thing. If all your html files are on one server, this is pretty easy, but you could also modify a web crawler to scan multiple servers. There are web-based checkers that do this sort of thing, including W3C's own HTML validator, but you'll probably want to write your own, dealing only with the issues you find really require changes.
As to what you're looking for, I'd spend some time browsing your sites using lynx. Navigation and comprehension doesn't have to be perfect, but it should seem basically usable. The W3's guidelines give all sorts of specific suggestions, but for the most part, browsing in lynx and applying common sense will obviate the areas that need work.
Some of JLab's pages are very visual, but most just need alt tags added. For pages that need changes, look at http://www.jlab.org, which has essentially one image cut into 30 GIFs to allow pretty mouse-over highlights on its links. There are essentially three choices for this sort of page.
1) Parallel pages. Put a "text-friendly version" link at the top, with a parallel, text-friendly version. This is only necessary for certain pages - keep links on the pages the same and just put alternate versions of each page as it's needed. And I wouldn't go text-only, just text-friendly....
2) Text-only makeover. Redo the page to cut out the unnecessary graphical frills you put so much work into creating, thereby having *only* a text-friendly version.
3) Dual-use makeover. Redo the page to use unnecessary frills, but with text-friendliness in mind as well. This doesn't really take any more work than the doing a text-unfriendly design, but since you're doing it over, text-unfriendly design, but since you're doing it over, it's certainly a hassle.
Ultimately I think dual-use, accessible design is what the legislation in question is trying to encourage.
If you haven't looked at it yet, anybrowser.com is a great resource in making your site readable by anyone, for instance, people without sight (i.e., via lynx in blinux).
The same issue is on the table at my university, where there is a big push to make the websites available to people with disabilities and/or without the latest technologies.
-- Count Spatula: The Culinary Vampire "...because my cooking sucks."
You apparently don't know what HTML 4 is. HTML 4 Transitional and HTML 4 Frameset may cater to people with working eyes, but HTML 4 Strict does not.
I use HTML 4 Strict on all new pages that I write, and eyes are not required.
<reaching for calculator>
Six months, 20 work days per month (allowing for some sick/vacation), just 2 people assigned to the task, that's 1920 man/hours for the project.
You've got 11 1/2 minutes per document. You need to be converting 84 document per day (if the total really is 10000), so keep track of the progress and make sure you're meeting the 84 document daily quota. The message say "thousands", if it's really closer to 2000 or 3000, this really isn't such a difficult task.
Perhaps each of these thousands of documents really does require a substantial rework, but the much more likely case is that many of them are designed similarily which will speed the process. If most of it is poorly built html (adding alt tags, etc), 11 minutes per page should be plenty, even 5 minutes may be ok. How long does it really take to make similar changes to a large pile of documents?
I read the tone of this posting as basically the victim mentality. With that mindset, you'll probably never even get started.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Some designers welcome this monstrous retrofit project. For example, universities traditionally provide meager funding for web site development. Although this law does not apply to them, it is a harbinger for things to come. Such non-committal organizations will be forced to throw resources at web development to accommodate disabled access, or seriously reduce the site of their sites. The days of relying on a design infrastructure consisting of students, interested faculty and secretaries are numbered.
After state and federal sites are made accessible, disabled users will want more (as they should) because of how many services will be delivered online. Vision impaired users, in particular, will want sites tailored to the hardware and software and distinctly different style of navigation they must use. Either the W3C standards will change to somehow radically change the makeup of pages on-the-fly for blind users, or another Jakob Nielsen will rise to power and make a lot of money.
You're crazy. The more fancy but pointless graphics a page has, the less likely I am to stick around and finish reading the text. Pages that require shockwave or flash to view don't even get seen by me. Yeah, I miss out on a few things, but so far I've found they are worth it. If the page is readable using lynx, it is a well designed page. Graphics have their place, when information cannot be presented as effectively with text, but most of the graphics on the web even now is just eye-candy that, at best, gets in the way of the text.
Edward Burr
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
But how would you convert a Powerpoint demonstration to one of these technologies? Or a gif with text in it? Can you?
--------
Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
I thought for CERTAIN I had my email address in my slashdot user info-
email victor at ripal.co.il
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
The simplest thing might be to generate a set of parallel pages which are oriented to those with various disabilities.
This might be far easier than trying to do a combo page. And once a template is set up, you might be able to set up a script for bulk conversions. It would probably be less effort to correct a bunch of text oriented pages which are 90 -95% compliant then to re-design everything from scratch.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Well, we know we want to make the building layout accessible to all users and we know that plain text is accessible to all users (since blind users can use a screen reader). Therefore, the obvious solution is...
You are standing in the first floor hallway of the Applied Research Center. To your north is room L117. To your south is room L110. The hallway continues east and west.
> n
You are standing in room L117. On one side of the room is a fume hood made by Thin Films Technology. Standing here is Prof. Mool Gupta.
> say Natalie Portman rulez!!!
Prof. Gupta mutters something about idiot Slashdot trolls. He pushes a button on his desk. Moments later, security guards arrive and escort you out of the building.
You are standing outside the main entrance to the Applied Research Center. The lobby is to your southwest.
> sw
The security guard pulls out a gun and shoots you. Your body is never found. Your score is -1 out of 5. This gets you a rating of "Lame Troll". Play again? (y/n)
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
When it involves the government, why must people always used the most screwed up logic?
I for one, always run to the nearest web browser when I hear a fire alarm. RIIIIGGGHHHTT. Come on... all public buildings already have fire safety measures for disabled people, modern ones include rescue areas for each floor for people in wheelchairs, and braille/big red signs, guiding you to them.
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I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Note to self: Reading the last paragraph in messages BEFORE you reply to them helps avoid such foot in mouth syndrome. hehehe
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I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Well, considering that about 50% of the population has an IQ under 100, should we design all sites dumbed down so that these borderline retards can read it?
Depending on your view of intelligence, most people say that it is a fixed factor, after childhood, therefore, these people must be in the same situation as disabled people. Your logic kind of breaks down.
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I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Anyhow, I know one of the things they require is placing "ALT" tags for images. This would be a major undertaking for any medium to large website that didn't place ALT tags initially, at least to place relevant ALT tags on IMG's. Maybe you could follow the "letter of the law" by just putting the same ALT tag on all images on the site?
We love ALT tags. The Linux Pimp
--It's Pimptastic!--
This could be used to cull the pages that are already acceptable.
If Godzilla did not exist, man would have had to create him.
Section 508 compliance for "Web-based Intranet and Internet Information and Applications " is retroactive and does not fall under the enforcement of procured items. You are right that Section 508 does not require retroactive enforcement of procured software such as operating systems, etc, etc. But, from the summary:
"However, even though section 508's enforcement mechanisms apply only to procurement, the law does require access to technology developed, used or maintained by a Federal agency."
I will try and find the document but I have seen a document which specifies that the twenty most visited pages on every federal website must be compliant six months after the final standards were published.
The w3 has been talking about this for years. The Web Accessibility Initiative is their site dedicated to exactly this issue, and is rich in information and resources for implementation. See particularly the guidelines, checklists, and techniques sections.
You do have a lot of work ahead of you. It's much easier to start with accesibility in mind than to retro-fit everything. You might be able to script some of it, as others are suggesting, but your first step should be to thorougly familiarize yourself with the information at the WAI.
TomatoMan
-- http://frobnosticate.com
First of all, there was no such thing as "HTML 1".
HTML 4 Strict is useful even for "plain pages" because it provides style sheet hooks (CLASS and ID attributes), internationalization (LANG and DIR attributes, BDO element, entities for characters such as the euro), as well as useful new elements like ABBR and ACRONYM that allow you to give the long form of the abbreviation through the TITLE attribute.
HTML 4 Strict also adds accessibility aids such as the LABEL element for indicating the text associated with a form control.
Web sites don't rely on one sense over another unless they've been written poorly. A well-written Web site will adapt seamlessly to any display device, whether it's your 21" monitor, your PalmPilot, or your speech browser.
Of course most Web sites are written poorly, so now you have to fix the mess. Good luck.
Have a look at the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative for some guidelines and techniques.
While I think that the federal government is really going way overboard on "disability compliance", etc. etc., there is one way that this burden might be reduced. If all of the pages on a site are formatted the same, you could use a Perl script to automate a lot of the changes. If you're using stylesheets, even better; a simple addition of extra media types will make many pages instantly "handicapped accessible."
It seems to me as though this is a piece of legislation that has been passed to make people happy rather than to actually be implemented in full. Sure you should make some of your more critical web pages compliant, but if I were you I'd prepare a time study detailing exactly how long it'll take you to get all these changes implemented, and watch how fast they decide it falls into an "Undue Burden" category...
If you really need to do so at some later point it can be done then, but as it is it's a lot of effort for no real gain. This sounds harsh, but sometimes it's just not worth the time to cater for such a small part of your audience - just look at how many sites are giving up on supporting Netscape because it's dead and there's so little point in spending the time to keep a site compliant for different audiences...
I have to congratulate Jlab on doing a stunningly great job on the safety pages. I was awestruck that you put the emergency evacuation plans available for the public to see, right down to showing where the extinguishers are in each building. Amazing.
However, each one of these pages alone represents a true barrier to the handicapped. For example, if a visually impaired user heard the fire alarm, and navigated to the Jlab web site in order to find their way out of the building, one can just imagine their screams of fright when they realize that their only resource is a JPEG. Oh, the horror. If only the web designers had thought ahead, and planned for these kinds of circumstances, death could have been avoided.
Sarcasm aside, man, you really do have a heck of a case for the undue burden clause. A lot of the stuff on this site is frills. (An image of each building?) You could indeed make them more accessible, or you could just plain delete them. I love the site, you're doing a great job of disseminating information, but some of that stuff just isn't necessary for the outside world to see over the internet, is it?
What's your damage, Heather?
Just because you can create a five-minute Flash flyover of Washington D.C. to play before anyone can get into your site does not mean you should.
I am currently working on a US government web site. (OK, it's a state web site, but they are holding us to the federal rules because they know they're next...) Here's some practical advice:
It's not rocket science once you know what you're doing. Personal anecdote: I applied the same principles to my own web site, even though I didn't have to and my friends told me I was wasting my time because "nobody uses Lynx anymore." In the first week, I got 10 Lynx visitors.
-M
You're smart; what haven't you learned Python yet? http://diveintopython.org/
I don't see any reason that we shouldn't have to customize websites for persons with disabilities.
I can.
A properly-designed web site does not need any customization for persons with disabilities.
A web site which is not universally accessible is an indication of gross incompetence on the part of its designer.
Obviously, not every adornment and photo needs to be described in painstaking detail. But - and this is particularly important on government sites, which exist to make important information available to the public - there should be no frivolous impediments to the transmission of information. And this goes from Day One.
A couple years ago I was with a government agency which, to its credit, decided to get an early move on this and get all its pages accessible.
It was a tremendously valuable project, because running all the pages through Bobby and other validators not only highlighted the pointless inaccessiblities that riddled the web site, but called attention to all the other coding errors and other latent problems lying beneath the surface.
It also made it very clear which of the web developers knew what they were doing, and which were utterly useless goldbrickers, tossing together nonsense using FrontPage when they had claimed to know HTML.
Many of these same people thought it was impossible to have pages that are visually engaging and accessible at the same time. This is precisely because they did not know HTML, and thought that the only things that could show up on the web were the fetid oozings from the back end of FrontPage and its ilk.
So, here's the Rapid Accessibility plan:
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
If the job had been done properly using the tools available at the time this situation would never have come up. I'm sorry but I can't feel bad for a government agency which did a poor job and now wants us to feel sorry for them because they're being told to correct the problem.
Go spend an afternoon browsing through the W3C archives, useit.com, and htmlhelp.com and when you realize that this is nothing new but rather exactly what those with clear vision have been advocating since the dawn of the web maybe you'll just have to crawl back to your post and do your job properly.
--- Juggle juggle@hitesman.com
Call the people at the access-board.gov. The regulation only applies to things created/contracted for after June 22, 2001. You do not have to retroactivly alter your entires site. Also note that,
1. Most of the regs, refered to as Section 508 are really just good coding practice (like using alt tags on web sites.)
2. Any disabled person could have sue you since 197X under the ADA and force you to be accessible, you should have been thinking about this all along.
3. This regulation appliies to everything IT related, not just web pages.
Here's a possible solution.
i ng/
s /transcoding/ibmtranscoding/html/proxydemo.htm
The standards don't aim at eliminating graphics and animations, but <quoting> Generally, this means use of text labels or descriptors for graphics and certain format elements. (HTML code already provides an "Alt Text" tag for graphics which can serve as a verbal descriptor for graphics). This section also addresses the usability of multimedia presentations, image maps, style sheets, scripting languages, applets and plug-ins, and electronic forms </quoting>
What if the whole site were transformed into text which could then be read aloud?
IBM's WebSphere Transcoding Publisher was designed as a helper to servers for wireless devices, because it takes normal websites and transforms the *ml into something a wireless devices' browser can handle. It does this on the fly with little or no performance hit, changing sites to text, to voice, resizing and altering images for whatever device you may be browsing from.
In this case, it could transcode a normal website like yours into VoiceML and be read aloud, or into text and be read using the blind users' screen reader. You wouldn't have to redesign anything about your site, except to ensure that disabled users got the properly transcoded site.
It really appears to me as though Transcoding Publisher running on your server would solve your problems.
Look at http://www-4.ibm.com/software/webservers/transcod
and http://www.research.ibm.com/networked_data_system
email me if you want to talk more about it.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close