A Bi-Monthly Newsletter
Volume 6, Issue 2, March 2003
STC WVC Home> Newsletter Table of Contents>Designing Accessible Web Sites

Designing Accessible Web Sites

By Jodie Gilmore

Can a blind person read the information on your Web site?  Can a person with no hands navigate your Web site easily?  There are compelling reasons why you should care about the answers to these questions.

Web Users with Disabilities Represent a Significant Market Share:

Making your site accessible provides you benefits both in added customers and better public relations. At least sixteen million people in the U.S. have hearing or vision problems, and a growing number of aging people experience significantly limited sight, hearing, and manual dexterity. Consider the following Web users:

• Online shoppers with color blindness – can they see red-colored sales prices?

• Online students who are deaf – can they hear multimedia video?

• Retirees with macular degeneration – if they magnify the screen, is the information still navigable?

• Teenagers with significant loss of both sight and hearing – can they find the restaurants and bus schedules they need? Can they download restaurant menus in Braille format?\

• Online library users with no hands – can they easily search for a book, using voice-recognition software?

Judy Brewer, Director of the Web Accessibility Initiative International Program Office pointed out, “With close to 20% of the U.S. population having disabilities…companies that forgo design for accessibility inadvertently throw away part of their marketplace.”

Accessible Design Benefits Other Audiences, Too:

The same design techniques that make information accessible to people with disabilities offer significant advantages for other audiences. As Tom Morrissey, a Web designer in Colorado (who happens to be also visually impaired), pointed out, accessible Web sites have faster download times and facilitate transmission of Web-based data to cell phones, palm devices, and personal digital assistants (PDAs). An accessible site is more likely to be compatible with a greater number of browsers, as well.

Accessible Web sites are also more easily processed by search engines. For example, a site that captions for audio not only benefits deaf users, but also increases the efficiency of indexing and searching for audio content on the Web.

Finally, designing an accessible Web site requires you to think of your site as a logical entity. According to Morrissey, “glitz is usually just a cover for no content.” A site that is easily accessed by the disabled is also a coherent site that has the right information in the right places.

Americans with Disabilities Act Is Increasingly Relevant to Private Web Sites

The precedents are being set for applying the ADA to private Web sites. By implementing accessibility, you limit your company’s exposure to future legal action.

Consider the following events:

• In 2000, a blind Australian filed a complaint with the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission because he found the Sydney Olympics 2000 Web site inaccessible.

• On February 9, 2000 the Subcommittee on the Constitution convened to hear “The Applicability of the ADA to Private Internet Sites.”

• Also in 2000, the National Federation of the Blind brought suit against AOL for accessibility problems. The case was later dismissed by mutual agreement, but the NFB retained rights to renew their action against AOL, if necessary.

• On June 21, 2001, a report titled “The Accessible Future” was released by the National Council on Disability (NCD). This report cites to the work of Cynthia Waddell, who is on the Advisory Board of the International Center for Disability Resources on the Internet. Waddell is a prominent proponent of applying the ADA to the World Wide Web.

• In 1996, a person with a mental illness (a disability) sued a private on-line bridge club (Hooks vs. OKBridge). In this landmark case, the Dept. of Justice (DOJ) clearly indicated that the ADA applied to Internet transactions. Although Hooks lost the case due to technicalities, the decision that the ADA applies to the Internet as a “place of public accommodation” still stands.

Although the DOJ has yet to follow up on their interpretation by adding specific references to the Internet or e-commerce to its regulations, most people consider it only a matter of time.

Ten Tips for Accessible Web Design

A truly accessible Web site can interact, or at least not interfere, with many of the following assistive technologies:

• screen readers

• screen magnifiers

• voice-recognition software

• alternative keyboards, switches, and mouse devices (such as head mouse, head pointer, or mouth stick)

• scanning software (that announces verbally the information displayed on the screen)

These ten tips will help you design accessible Web sites:

1. Use style sheets to control layout and presentation. Allow users to override the default style sheet so they can configure information to suit their needs. For information on building user-controlled style sheets, see http://www.webmasterbase.com/article.php/1009. This is part of a very useful web site called SitePoint.

2. Use color with common sense. Ensure that all information conveyed with color is also available without color (e.g., from context). Ensure that foreground and background color combinations contrast sufficiently. A useful tool for choosing colors resides at http://www.webtemplates.com/colors/index.html

3. Support keyboard access. Provide keyboard shortcuts to important links, form controls, and hot-spots. Allow users to create their own keyboard shortcuts.

4. Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element by using the ALT or LONGDESC tags. These elements include sounds, audio files, audio tracks of video, and video. Avoid labels that are cryptic when read out of context, like “Click Here!” Consider creating a text-only version of the page and placing a link to it at the top of the graphical version of the Web page.

5. Label information. Use column and row headers in tables. Label frames and form fields. Consider using buttons instead of image maps, or at least provide the links elsewhere on the page to ensure accessibility. Online forms benefit greatly from correct use of the <label> tag. Check out the following link for tips on designing accessible forms: http://www.webmasterbase.com/article/978.

6. Give users control over content. Allow users to slow the presentation rate of audio, video, and animations. Allow users to freeze moving content and scrolling text. Avoid auto-refreshing pages.

7. Ensure that text, navigation mechanisms, and style of presentation are consistent across all pages.

8. Avoid or provide alternative content for scripts, applets, and plug-ins.

9. Avoid potentially annoying text attributes such as blink, or at least allow users to turn these attributes off.

10. Test your design. Perform usability testing with disabled users. If that is not feasible, use the tools available at bobby.cast.org/bobby. The Bobby site analyzes a Web page and provides a report on where accessibility might be improved. You can also see how a text-based browser will display your site by visiting http://www.delorie.com/web/lynxview.html.

If nothing else, provide alternate accessible formats, such as Braille, large print, and/or audio materials. Note the availability of such materials in a text (i.e., screen-readable) format on the Web page, along with instructions for obtaining the materials.

Jodie Gilmore has been an STC member for 15 years. Accessibility is a topic dear to her heart, as she is legally blind. Owner of Fulcrum Communications, a technical writing and web development company, Gilmore can be reached at jgilmor@fulcrumcomm.com. In addition to being a tech writer, she also is the proud Mom of two children (3 and 5 years), and owner/steward of a small organic farm in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains.