Accessibility: Standards Not Enough

We're all familiar to some extent with accessibility tools. They allow people with disabilities to access the kind of web content (e-book, mobile, or other device) that the rest of us take for granted. Disabilities can range from color blindness to conditions that require full assistive technologies to help people who cannot see, hear, or interact with computers through regular interfaces. Specific assistive technologies include software and hardware tools that help disabled users navigate and use computers, such as screen readers that work with built-in OS accessibility tools, and unconventional mouse controls and software-based keyboards.

Several years ago, the SyberWorks' e-Learning podcast series presented a series called e-Learning Accessibility for Training Managers and Human Resource Professionals. It began with section508 and WCAG rules and guidelines for developing accessible content; explained the World Wide Web Consortium's Level one, two, and three priority checkpoints; discussed Flash-content accessibility features; and described how to do your own web-site accessibility testing.

At the time, web standards were on the rise and a sense of urgency was fostered by Molly Holzschlag of the W3, Jeffrey Zeldman of Happy Cog, and the Web Standards Project. This urgency reached a peak when these groups visited Microsoft and delivered some well-known gripes about Internet Explorer. Manufacturers like Opera, Mozilla, and Apple had been rapidly adapting their browsers to the new accessibility standards and guidelines, but Microsoft wasn't moving as quickly. But, the firm's commanding share of the browser market meant that Microsoft still held a lot of control over accessibility's future.

These visiting standardistas scored some victories too, and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 and 8 began to support the new standards. As of this writing, Internet Explorer 9 is in Beta, and should support all of the new HTML 5 and other missing accessibility features.

Important, but No Full Solution

While standards are still important, web developers shouldn't depend on them alone to ensure accessibility. Yes, most validation tools check to see if web pages meet defined accessibility guidelines. For example, bringing web pages up to compliance involves adding ALT attribute for images, tags for form fields, and other accessibility-based features. And tools like Total Validator do a good job of catching and explaining specific WCAG v2 Accessibility errors. The more web developers use such tools and adhere to accessibility standards, the more their output will work well with assistive technologies.

But accessibility standards don't entirely protect the needs of disabled users. For instance:

· Blind users rely on screen readers to translate web pages. If a page is developed properly, users will have little trouble getting to pertinent information. But that's a big if, because no sighted developer can truly understand what blind users hear through their screen readers. Sighted developers need to experience it for themselves. To do that, just install the Fangs Firefox add-on and apply it to one of your own web pages!

· Standards also don't completely address color blindness. People with thist condition can't accurately see red, green, or (in severe cases) any colors. Adding more contrast to page designs helps a little. But several tools allow developers to see how their pages might appear to color-blind viewers. Colorschemedesigner.com allows you to input a page color scheme, choose a color-blindness condition, and see how someone with that condition will see the colors. And Graybit.com turns any web page into the grayscale version that someone with complete color blindness would see. The results may surprise you.

· Deaf users as well need to have text equivalents added to both audio and video content for their accessibility readers. A text transcript helps, when added to either medium. But this is currently very hard to do for videos. Fortunately, YouTube is testing a tool that creates these captions for uploaded videos. It's still imperfect... but better than nothing. As with visual disabilities, no policy, guideline, or standard currently forces developers to add captions or transcripts to their videos. But they are still very important.

Continued Vigilance Needed

Many new graphic, audio, and video features are coming from the HTML 5 working group. But none fully address related accessibility issues. So web-page developers themselves must continue to watch over their disabled customers' needs.

Also at this writing, Adobe is about to release a new version of Creative Suite (which includes Flash), and Flash content will become more accessible than ever before. Fortunately, the company does a good job of keeping the Flash community aware of its accessibility features and issues.

Yes, web standards can keep accessibility issues in developers' minds and help users with disabilities to access web content. But web-page developers must still ensure that their work is accessible. In the U.S., in fact, educational and government sites must be made accessible by law. But the more we learn about assistive technologies and their users' experiences with our pages, the more we can expand the benefits of these accessibility standards, guidelines, and legal mandates.



About the Author

Al Lemieux is a Senior Designer at SyberWorks, Inc. SyberWorks is a custom e-Learning solutions company that specializes in Learning Management Systems, e-Learning solutions, and custom online course development. Al is also a frequent contributor to the Online Training Content Journal.



About SyberWorks

SyberWorks, Inc. (www.syberworks.com) is a leader in the custom e-Learning Solutions and Learning Management System industries for Fortune 1000 corporations, higher education, and other organizations. Located in Waltham, Massachusetts, the company serves the multi-billion-dollar e-Learning market. Since 1995, SyberWorks has developed and delivered unique and economical solutions to create, manage, measure, and improve e-Learning programs at companies and organizations in the United States, Canada, Europe, and other countries.