Ask an Expert About Web Site Accessibility

Joe Clark is an expert on handicapped accesibility for movies, TV, the WWW, and other media. The launch party for his new book, Building Accessible Websites , is Dec. 3, which is also the International Day of Disabled Persons, so this a perfect time to ask questions about how to make a Web site -- or a TV show or movie -- accessible. As usual, we'll send 10 of the highest-moderated questions to Joe, and run his answers verbatim when we get them back.

Comments

How far should it go?

[newsdee]

Macromedia Flash has integrated many accessibility features in an effort to promote development of content for special needs.
However, can we realistically try to turn any mutlimedia feature into its accessible equivalent? Is it even feasible other than providing a text-only equivalent?

Re:How far should it go?

[Anonvmous Coward]

"However, can we realistically try to turn any mutlimedia feature into its accessible equivalent? Is it even feasible other than providing a text-only equivalent?"

A few months ago, Slashdot ran a story about a Quake mod that was all sound. The intent was to allow blind people to play.

Somebody in that article posted a link to a site that was made for the vision impaired using Flash. It not only gave you sound cues when to click, but it also let you know if you were close to something clickable.

Can every feature be implemented? Nobody's claiming that. Who says that's necessary though?

Accessibility for the Mentally Handicapped?

[EHUDs_Rhino]

A family friend works with mentally handicapped children and teenagers, and was recently bemoaning the lack of computer equipment and software for her students. Is there any such hardware and/or software available that she doesn't know about? Are we even far enough along in our understanding of mental retardation to adequately solve this problem?

biggest problem

[robbo]

What, in your opinion, is the most common complaint concerning accessibility and web sites? In other words, if in the interests of accessibility you could encourage site owners to change only one thing about how they operate, what would it be?

Multiple versions of sites

[sketerpot]

I know that it isn't very hard to make an accessible web site (I make it my general policy) -- but it is a lot harder to make an accessible site that looks snazzy. And I mean the sort of flashy web sites that you see mostly made for large companies, littered with java and flash and pictures for everything, not just a few pictures here and there.

How would you create a web site that is both? Perhaps make two versions of the site?

Re:Multiple versions of sites

[TheMidget]

but it is a lot harder to make an accessible site that looks snazzy. And I mean the sort of flashy web sites that you see mostly made for large

Then how come that the Websites made for very large companies, such as Yahoo, Msnbc and (to a limited extent) CNN look fine, yet still are very accessible? Heck, even Tommy Hilfiger cleaned their act up (but this may have something to do about snide comments about their site looking bad on blind people's browsers... If they want to pretend that Tommy never made that comment on how his clothes look on certain kinds of people, he cannot afford to make similar claims about his website...).

The general impression I got was that very often it's the sites of medium sized companies that are the worst: large enough to have the money to contract it out to an incompetent web-design shop but too small to know how to judge the product that they paid good money for.

Re:Multiple versions of sites

[Justify]

I second this question. My phrasing goes like this:
"In your opinion, is it better to create a separate handicap-friendly site (100%) off of the original site, or is it better to incorporate more handicap-friendly features (60%) into the original site, but still lean more towards the larger regualar viewing market?"

I can understand that to create a separate site takes more time, patience, and work, but is much more comfortable to use in its entirety. On the other hand, if 60% of the original site was handicap-friendly, then it would be more obvious to use and would be easier to implement.

Thanks.

Accessible Slashdot?

[ictatha]

How does Slashdot stack up? What about blog-type sites in general? What can be done on these types of sites to make them more accessible?

Re:Accessible Slashdot?

[p_trinli]

I noticed they actually went so far as to block the w3c's validator from accessing Slashdot. (When you try to validate it, the validator complains that it received a 403.)

To be fair, I bet Slashdot rejects anything that looks like an unfriendly script/bot that tries to access it. The largest websites, IRC networks, etc., are always ripe targets for DoS and other attacks.

Aside from that, I agree. Slashdot's standards compliance is terrible. About the only good thing they have going for them in terms of accessibility is that their look is consistent.

Recent Airline Issues

[jackb_guppy]

How should an Airline make a website accessable for the handicap? For that matter any "sales" site.

Should a "hidden" fields point to a phone number to blind, so they have same access to "cheap" fares.

legacy browsers

[fleener]

How would you handle the following criticism? For the average web site, there are more users of version 4 browsers than there are disabled users needing the latest accessible code. A table-based site can be accessible, while still accommodating the larger abled audience. Now is not the time to pursue full compliance with W3C specs.

Re:legacy browsers

[superflippy]

First, I would have the owner of the "average site" in question check their site logs. In both my personal and work sites (which serve very different audiences), version 4 browsers became a less than 10% minority over a year ago. IE 5 dominates, IE 6 and Mozilla-based browsers are gaining ground, and the percentage of Netscape 4 users continues to shrink.

By the way, you can have a site that's still "table-based" and yet complies with standards. All the table tags exist in the latest W3C specs. Accessibility can still be achieved with a table-based layout.

If you need more ammo to convince a boss or client that building to standards is wise, go to MACCAWS (Making A Commercial Case for Adopting Web Standards) to get some ammo for your argument.

market for web developers

[ragnar]

I'm considering a starting up a web development firm with a focus on accessibility. I have good relations with the principles of an accesibility testing firm and believe the businesses can compliment each other well. I'm a part owner of a web development firm at the moment that isn't interested in pursuing this market, but I believe there is a significant market.

Can you elaborate on the market for web development firms that focus on accesibility? Aside from the normal perils of launching a new business (which I'm fairly acquainted) can you expound on the market need for firms that endeavor to deliver accessible content.

What of Dynamic Images (charts and graphs)?

[kuwan]

I see that chapter 6 addresses the image problem which you state is "... a core concern in accessibility." My question is, what is your solution to data-intensive sites that display their information using graphs? For sites that have constantly changing data (stock charts for example), what solutions/tools are there to make their graphics accessible?

Alternative (non-computer) Devices

[superflippy]

Increasingly, people are using non-computer devices (cell phones, PDA's) to browse web sites. What alternative devices are disabled people using, and how are they using them in ways web developers might not have considered (e.g. voice browser in cell phone)?

Re:Question The First

[MisterFancypants]

Follow the links, stupid.

Particularly, this one.

What's the worst accessibility example?

[RobertB-DC]

There are a lot of sites out there that look great in the latest Microsoft-issued browser, but decompose badly in alternative browsers such as Opera, and are completely unusable in a text-based browser such as Lynx. Sadly, the formatting that breaks down so badly is often completely unrelated to the content.

Can you give some examples of sites that have excellent content, but are rendered useless for people with disablities by presentation-level bells and whistles?

Slashdot

[stud9920]

What do you think of slashdot's poor implementation of conform code ? Apparently, the w3c validator is not even allowed to have an opinion on the matter.

Is it hopeless?

[gorilla]

When even disabled themed sites such as The Terry Fox Foundation have flash animation and other non-accessable features, I have to wonder if we'll ever win the battle. As you can see when you read stories on sites like slashdot when stories about accessability come up, there are a large number of people who aren't just ambivilant about accessability, they are actively hostile. Will we ever get to a state when accessability is as natural as IE compatability?

Accessable Site, or Accessable Browser?

[vofka]

I am a partially sighted person, and I have to admit that I do frequently have difficulty with accessability issues, particularly with large corporate web sites which all seem to be full-flow multimedia blitzes which require 1600x1200 resolution or higher, and usually override the default browser fonts to make them smaller.

However, there are a number of browsers, such as Mozilla (Just one example, I'm sure there are others!) which allow the user to 'zoom' the text on a page, to override colour settings etc.

Though it is undoubtedly important for Webmasters to pay great thought to the design of their sites in terms of colour, font size and multimedia content; how much relative importance should be placed on browser design, and the browsers ability to override the design decisions of the creator of a site?

Comments about adobe grip on the market.

[imr]

There is a pdf file to download on your site but :
The PDF isn't the accessible kind. Apart from ineffectual text equivalents for each page image, there is no way to make it thus. Further, as a Macintosh user, I cannot add alternate texts using Adobe accessibility tools; all the relevant ones run on Windows only.
Is adobe grip on the market so big that you just couldnt find an alternative ? Or was it just not worth to bother since no one would have downloaded it (which is kind of the same, when I think of it) ?
What features a cross platform alternative to pdf should have from accessibility standpoint?

US Government section 508

[pease1]

US Government websites must now be built to an accessiblity standard called Section 508.

What do you think of the Section 508 standard? A few Govt webmasters sometimes bemoan that it doesn't allow them to use the most sexy stuff. Although if you build to 508, your site will work for just about everyone.

Do you think Section 508 is a good model for private industry to use?

Are there solid numbers about the user base?

[Infonaut]

That is, do we know how many blind Web users there are in the world? Do we know how many visually impaired but not fully blind users there are? What about other conditions that lead to accessibility requirements? The figures on color blindness are fairly well-known, but what are the other big ones?

With solid figures, it might be easier for those of us who are interested in providing more accessible web apps to actually convince the folks with the money to throw down for the extra cost of making sites more accessible.

This would also help prioritize usability issues. For example, is color the issue that affects the largest number of special needs users? Or is it type size or alternate text for text readers? What comes next? As much as I'd love to be able to accomodate every single special need, just as with featureset prioritization on any project, I need to know what issues to tackle first.

Benefits to non-disabled persons

[wapcaplet]

Being a web designer, and generally in favor of W3C compliance and accessibility standards, I have encountered some resistance to the prospect of putting effort towards making sites accessible, probably due to the relatively low percentage of disabled users.

However, I've read a few somewhat-hypothetical cases of technology that was developed for the disabled being of possible benefit to the non-disabled; i.e., that perhaps people in general may want to use website screen-readers to enable them to access and interact with web content in situations where hands-off or eyes-off interaction is required (such as while driving a car).

Such technology is not in widespread use now, but to what degree might it become more prevalent among the general population of web users?

Accessibility for different user levels

[mttlg]

When designing a site to be accessible by someone with a specific disability, certain key features are often obvious from the definition of the disability. However, it would seem to be a greater challenge to look at accessibility for the non-disabled, where there is no obvious starting point. Different people will have different expectations in terms of content and navigation, which can make accessible design difficult without a specific user base to test designs against. For example, the concept of hyperlinking comes naturally to some, but not others - some people wouldn't even think of clicking on something unless the words "CLICK HERE" are nearby, while other people might try to click on anything that is underlined or somehow set apart. How can you balance making things obvious to less web-inclined users and keeping things unobtrusive to more advanced users?

Is it worth it?

[cybergibbons]

This is probably going to offend a lot of people, but then I don't really care.

The proportion of blind/physically handicapped etc. people who use computers and the internet is very low. It seems like a lot of effort to make websites that they can "look" at, so is it really worth it?

My website inherently has a lot of images on it. It isn't the same without them, and I know for a fact that they aren't possible to convey to a blind person. So why should I develop for them?

I also don't support older browsers for the same reasons - if they can't display the site effectively without a lot of effort then I can't be bothered.

A similar situation has occured in London. There was a drive to make public transport more accessible to disabled people. This involved a lot of new buses having lowering decks to allow wheelchairs on. I have never, ever, seen one used by a wheelchair bound person. Some statistics show that each journey by a wheelchair costs several hundred pounds because of the extra costs involved with the design and implementation of disabled friendly facilities.

And surely the use of websites is one of the smaller problems? I can't see Windows being an effective method of working without sight. Maybe it would be better to start from scratch.

CSS layout vs Table layout

[crystall]

I've been to several Section 508 presentations and have seen screen readers demoed, so I know how annoying table layouts can be to sight-impaired folks trying to get the sense of the content of the page.

I also know that many designers are turning more and more to CSS for layout these days.

How do various accessibility technologies handle CSS? Is it a "good thing (tm)"?"

The Americans with Disabilities Act

[zoward]

Do you believe, in whole or in part, that the Americans with Disabilities Act should apply to the internet (or that part of the internet (if any!) that belongs under US jurisdiction)? If so, why? If in part, what part? If not, do you see avenues other than legal ones as the best way to pursue alternative access to the internet, and what would those avenues be?

WAI and Section 508

[ssn]

What's your opinion about the Section 508 laws in that they almost ignore the existence of the work developed by the W3C's WAI group?

Why have the USA created a different set of rules? We all have learned that having several standards is always worst than a single one. Developers don't want to worry about which standard to implement

Why haven't they done the same as other countries that simply adapted WAI standards?

From W3C's comment on Section 508:

In diverging from evolving consensus on Web accessibility, the provisions in the NPRM have the effect of fragmenting the industry standard rather than harmonizing with voluntary consensus industry standards as advised by a U.S. Government directive. Should the proposed provisions go into effect as is, Sec. 508 would not only fail to take advantage of supporting provisions for accessibility in Web-based authoring tools, browsers, accessibility checkers, and existing training materials; but also complicate implementation of accessibility features in these products, potentially increasing the cost of compliance.

Examples, Please!

[tbaggy]

Can you give us examples of good, easy to use, lots of information websites as well as bad, clunky, slow ones?

My first HTML experiences were to see what others did, and use that on my page (with modifications to the data a bit etc..). I don't see why this should be any different. Let the builders build off of sites which are proven to be good.

I'm looking at this from a corportate angle, not so much a "Bob's Homepage" pagetype.

Oh, please don't use crazy terms like XML, Java, DHTML etc, just point me to the sites!! :)

What sites do you like and why?

Lynx and accessibility

[Florian Weimer]

Quite a few people assume that web sites which are unsuable with Lynx (because of frames, JavaScript, Flash, extensive use of tables, image-based navigation etc.) aren't accessible for disabled people. (They usually write complaints to site owners expressing this concern.)

What's your experience? Is Lynx compatibility necessary or sufficient to guarantee accessibility? Or are there fundamental problems for visually impaired people with hypertext documents?

surfing for pr0n?

[Rinikusu]

So, um...

Just how does a blind person surf for pr0n on the internet these days? From my experiments with AALib, I really wouldn't see the point...

Building blocks

[tve]

Do you think the current W3C standards, when used properly, are adequate to create both an appealing and an accessible website? In other words: are the proper building blocks available? If not, what's lacking?

Deaf Blind

[gmhowell]

Text to speech works fine for blind people (mostly). Deaf people can see most web content. What the heck are deaf-blind people supposed to do?

One of the joys of Delphi, GEnie, Compuserve, etc. is that the discussion boards worked fine with simple telnet access, and braille tty's. The various web boards that have supplanted them don't seem like they would work as well (sorry, haven't tried any yet. Those braille tty's ain't cheap:)

Yes, this is a personal question (see .sig).