/Culture/ Site Accessibility
07/08/2006 | Filed under Develop > Culture
Designing a great site is only half the job: People need to be able to access it, too. We delve into the latest guidlines on accessible site building.
In the UK around two million people are registered blind or visually impaired and a further four million have arm or hand difficulties. For these people, using non-standards compliant sites is sometimes an insurmountable challenge. Not yet a legal requirement, PAS 78 was created by the BSI to clarify what needs to be done to make sites accessible. Christian Hall speaks to the experts to find out how best to implement the new guidelines
The internet is an information mecca for anyone with a computer of any kind – unless you’re colour blind, lefthanded, partially sighted, have a reading disability, or any one of a long list of other conditions. Not exactly the all-inclusive paradise Berners-Lee had in mind.
In 2004 the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) undertook a study that revealed 81 per cent of sites were failing to meet basic requirements, and 45 per cent of the problems encountered by disabled users could not be attributed to explicit violations of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) checkpoints. This year, accessibility technologist Nomensa (www.nomensa.com) found that 75 per cent of the FTSE 100 sites failed to meet minimum accessibility requirements – despite their vast budgets.
It became clear to the DRC that although existing web accessibility guidelines were good, they weren’t having the impact that was hoped for. The remedy was the PAS 78: Guide to Good Practice in Commissioning Accessible Websites – essentially a compilation of new guidelines that make existing principles crystal clear.
The DRC estimates that there are around 6.8 million disabled people in the UK (19 per cent of the population), and when you consider most will be web users, that’s a huge amount of visitors who’ll be turned off by a poorly accessible site. Making accessible sites isn’t just about catering for disabled visitors, though, it’s about tweaking your site to make it as easy as possible for everyone to get the information they want. Accessibility isn’t just about catering to the vision-impaired either; some users may also have movement problems, navigating sites using only the keyboard.
Designing web sites for those with disabilities shouldn’t be seen as a restriction of your creative development plans. “In fact, limitations should allow you to become more creative, stretching the imagination to cover more aspects,” says Iain Scott, creative director at digital agency Indigo New Media (www.indigonewmedia.net). “This ultimately creates a site that looks fantastic, whilst also working perfectly.”
There are lots of added benefits to making your web site more accessibile. It also helps people who have older browsers (which possibly won’t have JavaScript installed or Fl ash installed), by including simpler, more compressed and efficient code, and thus enabling different technologies to interpret HTML better, as well as making it much faster to download.
Designing sites with disabled people in mind can enable developers to be more creative, innovative and it can inspire new ideas about ways to get content from the web to the user. A good example is Rightjob4you.co.uk, a site that’s dedicated to getting disabled people back into work. The layout, keyboard navigation and real human dictation all contribute to accessibility.
So why are so many sites still inaccessible for disabled users? “First, a lot of people’s attitude to disability sucks,” says designer Richard Quick (www.richardquickdesign.com). “People have a preconception that accessible sites need to look rubbish. Because of this, a lot of businesses are put off because they want something beautiful.”
Then there’s the time issue. Making a site accessible isn’t a five minute job, but the perception that it’s a huge pain is largely a result of the corporate world being out of touch. It’s time to do it right, and the latest guidelines do the best job, yet, of spelling out exactly what you need to do.
Guiding principles
PAS 78 is the new buzzword in web accessibility, but fundamentally, there’s nothing revolutionary about the guidelines. They’re a combination of existing best practices that ensure accessibility is easier to implement.
Julie Howell, digital policy development manager at the RNIB (www.rnib.org.uk) and technical author of PAS 78, says that when the web was conceived it was supposed to be accessible to everyone, and now it’s time to enforce that vision.
“Tim Berners-Lee’s vision was that the web would remain accessible, [with] access for everyone regardless of disability. However, lack of regulation and the speed of innovation meant this ideal was all but forgotten by the design community.” PAS 78 recommends that web designers uphold the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) and other W3C recommendations. It also encourages designers to adhere to accessibility guidelines published by the relevant software developers when using non- W3C technologies, such as PDF and Fl ash. In fact, it’s the most complete guide to producing an accessible web site ever produced.
Getting clarity
PAS 78 is useful for web site commissioners and developers alike. It doesn’t explain how to build accessible sites (which is something dealt with in detail by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). Instead, it explains how to assure quality in the development of accessible web sites. “As WCAGs move to version 2.0, they’re becoming less proscriptive in how to build accessible sites,” says Gerred Blyth, head of usability consulting at Amberlight (www.amber-light.co.uk). “The world of accessibility suffers from a lot of poor understanding and misguidance,” adds Blyth. “PAS 78 is about as consensual as a document comes in this field. It simply lays out the steps to guarantee quality, rather than the code it takes to make an accessible build. For this reason, it’s more timeless than any other accessibility guidance.”
So why is PAS 78 so helpful? The WAI published a set of WCAG guidelines in 1999 (with a number of updates since), that aim to tell designers how best to build accessible sites, but they can be difficult to interpret – PAS 78 bridges the gap. It shows readers how disabled people use web sites, how to define an accessibility policy and how to make engaging designs.
PAS 78 consists of six key areas: accessibility guidance on building, commissioning, developing and maintaining a site; accessibility policy; Web Accessibility Initiative guidance; how to involve disabled people in development; conformance checking; and additional accessibility provision, which can help your site go beyond the accessible standard.
Breaking barriers
Although not yet law, PAS 78 goes the furthest in terms of acting as an agenda by which legal requirements may one day be set, and could be used in court cases. Struan Robertson, editor of legal site Out-law.com, says courts will attach weight to formal guidance to PAS 78 as it’s backed by the DRC. “It will be used as evidence of best practice and, from now on, anyone commissioning a site without following PAS 78 runs a higher risk of a discrimination finding against them if their resulting site does not accommodate disabled users.”
Challenges for designers
Getting the message of accessibility across to the hard-nosed corporate types you’re designing for can be very difficult. “Although they’ll focus on the financial side of implementation, they need to be aware of the impact of even a slightly higher audience,” says Chris Rourke, managing director of User Vision (www.uservision.co.uk). “There is also the technological case that accessible sites tend to do better in search engines and will almost certainly look better on other platforms such as PDAs or Smartphones.” Many organisations don’t understand that a more accessible site is actually a better web site. It’s your job to help upsell the benefits across the board – and don’t let worries about jeopardising design get in the way.
It’s certainly possible to create a rich design with a bit of extra effort, but there are some challenges. “From a purely visual design point of view, motion graphics form probably the hardest challenge,” says Andy Budd, creative director at Clearleft (www.clearleft.com). “From a broader development point of view, the biggest headache is poor documentation and inconsistent support by the various screen readers. AJAX is big at the moment, yet few people know exactly how the screen readers interact with the browser and handle updated page content.”
To use PAS 78 correctly, though, you’ll also have to look at the WAI’s checkpoints (www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/full-checklist.html) and follow some simple rules regarding accessible design. Alternative text is a given standard in accessible design, and this involves text giving descriptions of images. Screen readers can reproduce what the text says (describing the image to a blind person), but unless the wording is accurate, alternative text is of little use. Using an asterisk or empty quotation marks for images that have no content value will tell screen reader software that the image should be ignored.
When it comes to page structure, a screen reader may use the tags to work out the structure of your page. As a result, it’s necessary to label headers, paragraphs and data tables correctly. Images can be used as headers and labelled with header tags so that they’re read as such. “Using different colours for links already visited will also prevent users following the same links repeatedly and benefit users with memory problems,” says Jules Taplin, technical director at Intercea (www.intercea.co.uk). “Similarly, a variety of colours distinguishing between sections and types of content may improve accessibility. Then again, part of your audience is colour blind, so you shouldn’t rely solely on colour association to differentiate in this way.” When combining colours, you also need to think about the contrast between text and background and whether this has an effect on legibility. And when it comes to font sizes, small is common and acceptable as long as alternatives are available.
Navigation’s what you need
Navigation is fundamental to accessibility. A link to more addresses at the end of text is unhelpful when read by a screen reader, as it gives no indication of where the link takes the user, so make them more descriptive. Additional information about a text link can be provided with a title attribute. This is useful when it isn’t clear where a link will take you or if it only appears when the mouse hovers over it. It’s also important for your users to be able to get straight to the content. In order for screen readers to skip navigation bars, ‘anchor’ images should be positioned at the start of content. Don’t forget that keyboard shortcuts provide an alternative form of navigation by adding the accesskey attribute to links. Make sure you don’t overwrite ordinary browser shortcuts by using them, though. Tabbing is a further navigation essential. Web pages can be navigated by tabbing through page links, but if poorly positioned, they can be confusing.
“As well as the WCAG, authors need to be aware of usability issues and should test their site with a wide variety of users – this is something PAS 78 takes great pains to point out,” says Clearleft’s Andy Budd. A site can never be properly accessible if it hasn’t been thoroughly tested. PAS 78 spells out the importance of testing, especially testing with real users. Section eight deals specifically with accessibility testing and maintenance: it states that all organisations, regardless of size, should ensure that those testing the site are different from those developing it, and site commissioners should test for accessibility compliance throughout the web site’s design cycle – not just at the end.
Use guinea pigs
What also makes PAS 78 so useful in testing is that it tells designers and commissioners how to create a test plan to discover the accessibility issues that might not be immediately obvious. It also tells you how to make a plan without breaking the budget.
For the site commissioner, testing is important as it reveals how content will impact upon accessibility. “If you’ve used PAS 78 and hired a developer who understands it, then you’ll probably get an accessible site, but you still need to create accessible content,” says Gordon Plant, usability consultant at User Analytics (www.useranalytics.co.uk). “Our research has shown time and time again that the way you write your text content has a huge impact on accessibility, and you get a really big return from teaching everyone who contributes how to write clearly and in an appropriate language.” WCAG 1.0 makes this point very early on: “Use the clearest and simplest language appropriate for a site’s content”. However, this simple rule is all too often completely ignored by developers and clients.
Even if you develop a site that’s accessible, clients can poorly edit them with their CMS and potentially introduce inaccessible code, says Nick Mann, managing director of Interdirect (www.interdirect.co.uk). “As a result, it’s vital [for designers] to check their sites regularly in case problems have been introduced.” For the developer, the challenge is more about knowing when to follow the spirit, rather than the letter, of the guidelines if doing so will improve accessibility.
However you design and test, you shouldn’t be afraid of accessibility rules. They’re not there to dampen your spirits or creative freedoms, they’re there to help you make better sites. PAS 78 isn’t the be all and end all of accessibility guidance as you still need to keep up to date with new developments, but at £30 there’s never been a better set of guidelines to help you on your way to building a site that can really be used by everyone.
Comments
Borys Wawryn / 01/09/2006 / 16:13
If you provide a document on accessibility, you should at least code your fonts to be resizable in IE
Mathew / 25/07/2007 / 23:41 / http://www.mbwebdesign.co.uk
Miaow! Claws away, Borys.
jewellery / 28/08/2007 / 09:34 / http://www.factoryfast.com.au
Iain Scott's quote about accessibility and people with disabilities is right on. In fact, let's be honest, most web designers don't really test their accessibility for disabled / impaired people, but rather do their sites based on the supposed 'rules' of how it's done. But whether or not is actually TESTED is another story, and this has led to many a site that is actually falling very short of accessibility. It shouldn't be seen as a stifle on creativity, but rather a way to make a website more accessible for EVERYONE and a very positive thing.
Alex / 02/02/2008 / 20:04 / http://www.amgblue.co.uk
Is it just me the hates reading pages on the .net site? I have to use the zoom function in IE7 to be able to read it properly. Good article though, not sure about the testing, It's hard to justify to some clients the extra time and therfore cost involved for this sort of testing. Any ideas of how to get real people to test a site (budget version if possible)
