Week 8 poll result

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Here is the result for week 8 poll. Week 8 poll question was "Why write accessible websites?" Most of the readers selected the accessible coding does not take extra time which are 57.1% and 42.9% selected It's the right thing to do.

Most of the readers think that making websites accessible coding does not take extra time. If a website is built to accessible standards from the start, it only takes a few seconds more than normal to develop the site. Most of that time comes from adding certain attributes on HTML elements such as tabindex.

Extra testing might be necessary, but for basic accessibility testing, programmer should not have to add more than a few hours to the development time. After enough experience, it becomes a regular part of their workflow and there will be no difference in development time.

Common issues with accessibility statements

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The accessibility link is usually placed on the outside of the main viewing area of the web page such as footer area, this making it difficult to locate. For example, screen reader user would have to listen to more much content before encountering the link and maybe will give up to know more from it.

Additionally, for keyboard only users, the location of the accessibility link can result in excessive key presses in order to select and then activate the link. The Digital Media Access Group carried out much more knowledge , evaluating the Usability of Online Accessibility Information, which reviewed websites from a broad range of sectors.

Most of the accessibility statements has too much detail on conformance and technologies utilized in making the website accessible. This information shows that the website has been designed with accessibility in mind, it does not provide any benefit to general website visitors. As this information is often placed at the beginning of the accessibility statement, it is likely to confuse website visitors before they even have a chance to read about the accessibility features provided.

The example include:

• The website conforms to the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Priority 1 and
• The website complies with the requirements of Section 508.
• The HTML is valid and conforms to XHTML 1.0 Strict.
• All pages on this website validate to CSS2.

With technical information, accessibility statements listed the accessibility features which they provide, rather than how to use them. The following is an example of what can typically be found in an accessibility statement:

1. All text sizes are relative.
2. All images have an alt attribute.
3. Style sheets have been used to separate presentation from content.
4. Headings are semantically marked up.
5. Tables have been correctly marked up with headings.
6. Link text is unique which makes it make sense when taken out of context.

And that is why today's these are people who use websites on a daily basis!

Source :http://www.digital-web.com/articles/are_accessibility_statements_useful/

Benefits of Providing an accessibility statement

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What is an accessibility statement?

An accessibility statement provides website visitors with information on how to utilize any accessibility features implemented on the website. This information usually presented on a dedicated page within the website.

As you all know accessibility is important for a website, but do you know the benefits of providing an accessibility statement? Many people ignore the accessibility statement, they do not bother on how it would be. So here, i will explain the benefits of providing an accessibility statement.

The first benefit of providing an accessibility statement is to demonstrate how to use accessibility features provided. By demonstrating how to use the accessibility features in a website, it empowers the website visitor to improve their browsing tactics. For instance, they may be interested in how to make the text size larger or find out information about making the website speak with a speech output program such as I speech. When explaining how to use accessibility features, it is often useful to reference websites that are provided for explaining the information.

The second benefit is to detail the known barriers in the websites. Despite best efforts, they may be areas of the website which are still inaccessible and this create conflict for people with disability. Therefore, a known barriers section within the accessibility statement will enable this information to be provided in front together with alternative ways of obtaining the information and services. This will most likely benefit people with disability.

Last but not least, the last benefit I will discuss is to provide a point of contact. Website visitors or readers who experience difficulties whilst browsing will benefit from dedicated accessibility contact information. For example, the query will go directly to the team responsible for the accessibility of the website. This will likely result in the query being dealt with quickly, efficiently, and to the satisfaction of the website visitor as well.

When there are benefits, definitely there will be problem. Stay tune with us for the coming post where we will talk about the common issue with accessibility statement.

Source : http://www.digital-web.com/articles/are_accessibility_statements_useful/

Week 7 poll result

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The poll question for week 7 was " If technology cannot be made accessible, does the policy prohibit its use? Most of the readers disagreed on the statement which consists of 66.7% and 33.3% of the readers agreed on the statement.

Why most of the readers disagreed on the statement given? It is because the policy is not intended to prohibit the use of a technology, tool, resource or technique that would contribute to the quality of an activity.

If a technology, tool, resource or technique that cannot be made accessible is adopted for use, the adopter should remember that an equally effective accommodation must be provided to any person involved in the activity who needs an accessibility accommodation.

Choosing to use a technology, tool, resource or technique that cannot be made accessible must be defensible as a true contributor to quality, and not done in order to avoid the need to comply with the accessibility policy.

The remaining 33.3% readers agreed on the statement because they did not know how serious it is when technology is not accessible, policy does not prohibit its use because its must be defensible as a true contributor to quality.

Web Accessibility for the Visually Impaired

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In the beginning of the web, the site were based with largely text. But, things are different now. Today it is possible to navigate entire sites by reading no more than a handful of words. Users have grown tremendously to colorful image.

But when users cannot see these images, navigation is far more difficult where the site may be totally inaccessible and this would be the disadvantage. However, information content is dispersed among words, picture, sounds and video. Good layout makes for inviting reading where the reader can identify the text and it may read words out of sequence since sentences have been chopped up to improve the page layout.

So how is one to get the content and hopefully the context of information on today's sites? In order to get around these issues, we need to design web pages with accessibility in mind from the beginning. And all of the content needs to be accessible through multiple channels.

At the very least the content needs to be text-based, and current web page standards have taken this into consideration. When developers place pictures onto a web page, they may be asked for alternate text for these images. This is not where developers name or comment on the picture; this is where they describe what is in the picture. They must imagine they are trying to describe the image to a friend over the phone.

Other disabilities benefit from this duplication of content across multiple channels. A deaf person can still see the video and now can read a narration. And persons with cognitive disabilities, especially those that limit attention span, can watch a video, see the text, and hear the text all at once. Information is presented with multiple channels and these channels increase the ability to concentrate on that information by blocking out other input.

By following the idea of universe recommendation for one disability, a web site becomes accessible to a broad range people.

Source :http://www.bgsu.edu/cconline/wilferthhart/4.htm

Step to Making a Web Site Accessible

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Everyone wondering why do we need to make our web site accessible? Making our web site accessible would highly benefits people with disabilities and this would make them feel alive again.

So here are the few step of making a web site accessible :

Before you begin, accessible design always starts on the blackboard itself. Think about accessibility implementation during the design process, before you are writing a line of code on it. You need to find out if you web site has to comply with any legislations, standards or regulations. For example, when you design a web base product for the U.S Federal Government, you need to comply with the Section 508 standards according to the country you used.

Firstly, you need to select a suitable accessibility standards or guidelines. Currently, most developers favor Section 508 or the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). If you want to design a web site for the U.S. government at a minimum you have to comply with the Section 508 as i mention earlier. In many other instances, you might have to use the web content accessibility guidelines as second option. Currently, the WCAG is the most thorough set of guidelines, and it is recommended using it regardless of the requirements. Also, WCAG provides numerous explanations and examples to make your work easier, and resources are continuously added.

Secondly, you need to select a third part components which can speed up your work by using the components written by third party. The most common ones are the use of content management systems, widgets, database, interfaces and etc. It is your responsibility to make sure that these components are accessible before you integrate them into your site. It is much harder to make components accessible after the fact, which you must do before accessibility is a requirement. Some providers will post an accessibility notice together with their products which you can use as a starting point for you web site. The other option to select a third party component is to write your own code. It takes longer, but does just what you want it to do, and is as accessible as you make it.

Thirdly, you need to learn about accessibility to create an accessible web site where you must find plenty of free information on the web. Two of the best resources are the official Section 508 site and the Web Accessibility Initiative site. Also, several training programs are available as well. This would enhance your knowledge about accessibility and there will be a big improvement in designing your web site.

Fourthly, let the world know that your web site is accessible. Not for bragging purposes, but to allow people with disabilities know that they will be able to use it. It is especially useful when you have competitors, some people might just make a decision based on how accessible is information to them. It is a common practice to post an accessibility notice on your web page, so others can see it accessible in your web site.

As a conclusion, with this four steps, I believe your web site will be accessible and its benefit people with disabilities in the same time. So, what are you waiting for? Start making your web site accessible now! :)

Source : http://www.evengrounds.com/articles/steps-to-making-a-web-site-accessible

Week 6 poll result

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Here come the week 6 poll result. The question for week 6 poll was : Will making site accessible mean making it bland and boring? As the poll result which has shown that there are mostly 62.5% readers were disagree with making site accessible mean making it bland and boring , and there were 12.5% for don't know, yes and depends.

Making site accessible is to provide convenient for all the people who can get their sources and use this applications as fast as they can and it will not be boring and bland if compare with some site which you have to take long time to process it , it might make your patient become worst and also, you will feel boring on it.

Lastly, making site accessible doesn't mean making the site bland and boring, it's because making fair to everyone included people with disability to surf the website.

The problem with automated accessibility tools

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Do you all know what is an automated accessibility tool? Automated accessibility tool is a piece of software which can evaluate a web page, or even an entire website for accessibility purpose. Furthermore, automated accessibility tools are useful because they can save a huge amount of time.

But are these tools a little too good to be true?? Can you really assess a website for accessibility so easily? Unfortunately the answer is NO. There are a number of underlying problems associated with using just automated tools to check for accessibility.

The problem are as below :

1) Can't check many coding issues
The vast number of accessibility guidelines tend to be related to how the site is coded. Automated accessibility tools are unfortunately unable to check for many of the coding too. For example, HTML-related accessibility considerations which these tool's can't check for the coding as well.

2) Outdated guidelines are used
Automated accessibility tools generally uses the W3C accessibility guidelines, which by now are over five years old. As such, a number of guidelines were outdated and do not apply on it anymore. In fact, some of them are now thought to hinder accessibility rather than help, so it is better to totally ignore these outdated guidelines.

3) Most guidelines aren't properly checked
Automated accessibility tools can check for a number of guidelines, and can tell you when a guideline is not being adhered too. However, when the tool claims that a guideline is being fulfilled this may in fact be a false truth as automated accessibility tools were hardly recognize outdated guidelines.

4) Warnings may be misinterpreted
The reports generated by the automated accessibility tools provide warnings, as well as errors. These warnings are basically guidelines that the automated tool can't check for, but which may be errors. Often they are not, and in fact they are often not even relevant to it. However, some people reading a report may try to get rid of these warnings message by making an appropriate changes to their site for precaution. By doing this, they may be implementing guidelines that needn't be implemented and inadvertently lowering the website's accessibility.

As a conclusion, automated accessibility tools can be useful sometime as they can save a large amount of time in performing some very basic check for accessibility. However, they must be used with caution and they cannot be used as a stand-alone guide for accessibility checking. Indeed, some expert accessibility knowledge should always be applied in evaluating a site's accessibility not only replying on an automated accessibility tool itself.

Source: http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-accessibility/automated-tools.shtml

Accessibility tips

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Do you all know what are the best tips for making the web accessible? Most of you will think by making the text larger will be accessible for people with disability. But there are more tips for making a web site accessible. The tips as below :

1) Web Accessibility is designed to promote access by individuals with limited environments.

Following are things that keep in mind about potential users from W3C web content accessibility guideline :

• They may not be able to see, hear, move or understand easily
• They may have difficulty reading or comprehending text.
• They may not have or be able to use a keyboard or a mouse.
• They may not have an early version of a browser.
• They may have a slow connection, a small screen, a text-only screen.
• They may not speak or understand fluently the language in the document written.

2) Use the markup and style sheets properly

Avoid from using the structural markup for the visual result given by popular browsers. Documents that contain orderly and appropriate structural markup can be transfer to almost any type of user agent or display device and stand still on their own easily.

3) Ensure user control of time-sensitive content changes

Not everyone can read information at the same pace. If you have scrolling or changing information, be sure there is a mechanism available for the user to pause or stop the flow of data so that it can be more easy for the user to get what the information within their time.

4) Ensure direct accessibility of embedded user interfaces

If an embedded object such as ActiveX control is used, the interface for that object must also be accessible so that other user with different browser can also see the object that posted by the writer.

5) Design for device independence

Not everyone has a mouse, and not everyone has a keyboard at home. Keyboard shortcuts, tabbing order, and event handlers all contribute to the accessibility of forms and elements. Keep in mind that people with a variety of input devices may interact with your documents.

6) Use the W3C technologies and guidelines

Adhere to W3C recommendations for markup and content development guidelines ; this provides greater security that the writer documents degrade gracefully to software that may not fully implement the most recent technologies.

7) Provide a clear navigation mechanisms

The most frequently used feature of any web site is the navigation system. No matter on a site a user may be, there should be a way to return to the home page with only one or two steps. This will create conveniences for various of users.

This are the 7 tips of making a web site accessible for various of users and I believe that, there are more tips on making a web site accessible as the technology now is getting more and more modern which would soon becoming the generation Z!

Source : http://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/tips.htm

Policy Relating to Web Accessibility

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The web's emergence as a pivotal form of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) raises interesting questions about application of existing laws and policies to the new medium, and the importance of all members in the society, including people with disabilities.

There is a growing body of national laws and policies which address accessibility of ICT which include the internet and the web as well. There is also a great variety of approaches among these laws and policies : some take the approach of establishing a human right to ICT ; others to approach that any ICT purchased by government must be accessible ; others that any ICT sold in a given market must be accessible and there are still other to be approach.

A separate document, addresses issues which frequently arise when establishing policies on web accessibility. There include, for instance, simple and comprehensive sample policy statements ; conformance levels for web sites as well as web related software ; defining the scope, milestones, and monitoring processes for web accessibility.

Source : http://www.w3.org/