Transcript What is Usability?

Accessible Websites
Removing the Barriers
Anne L. Allen
University of Florida, Academic Technology
Center for Instructional Technology and Training
Accessibility
"The power of the Web is in its
universality.
Access by everyone regardless of
disability is an essential aspect."
Tim Berners-Lee,
W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web
What is accessibility on the web?
 Web sites are accessible when
individuals with disabilities can access
and use them as effectively as people
who do not have disabilities.
Who, me?
 I don’t have any students with disabilities.
 This seems like a lot of trouble for a small
number of people who might possibly use
the material.
What do these have in common?
 Carbon paper
 Typewriter
 Curb cuts
Who benefits?
 Carbon paper
 First developed for blind and partially sighted
clerks who could not tell when their quill pens
ran out of ink.
Who benefits?
 Typewriter
 The first working typewriter was built by
Pellegrino Turri in 1808 for his blind friend
Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzono so she
could write legible love letters.
Who benefits?
Curb Cuts
What kinds of disabilities?
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Blindness
Other visual impairments
Learning disabilities
Mobility impairments
Photosensitive seizure disorders
Hearing impairments
What Kinds of Difficulties?
 Blindness
 Inability to access graphical information
 Solution
 Provide a text equivalent for every non-text
element
What Kinds of Difficulties?
 Visual impairments
 Difficulty reading tables and charts
 Inability to make sense of pages when
magnified
 Solution
 Design sites using relative rather than
absolute values for width and height of rows
and columns and images
What Kinds of Difficulties?
 Learning disabilities
 May have difficulty understanding cluttered
websites and layout changes from screen to
screen
 Solution
 Follow usability and accessibility guidelines
when creating sites – better design for all
What Kinds of Difficulties?
 Mobility impairments
 May not be able to respond that call for a
timed response (such as quizzes)
 Solution
 Allow users to adjust the timing of responses
What Kinds of Difficulties?
 Photosensitive seizure disorders
 Flickering images and text may trigger
seizures
 Solution
 Avoid the use of flickering elements
What Kinds of Difficulties?
 Hearing impairments
 Unable to hear multimedia presentations
using sound, such as recorded lectures or
videos
 Solution
 Multimedia presentations must be captioned
or provided in alternate formats
Assistive Technology
 How do people with disabilities use the
Web?
 How do you use the Web without a
mouse?
Assistive Technology
How does Quick Glance work?
Camera mounted on computer
monitor is focused on user's
eye.
It determines where
user is looking---the gaze point cursor is
placed at the gaze point.
"Mouse clicks" are done with a
slow eye blink, an eye dwell, or
a hardware switch.
Assistive Technology
Sip and Puff
Assistive Technology
Add-on Touch Screen
Foot Mouse
one pedal controls cursor
movement, the other for
mouse clicks
Assistive Technology
 Alternative Keyboards
Assistive Technology
 On Screen
Keyboards
Assistive Technology
Roller Switches
Power Braille
Accessibility
 What are the challenges of using the web
without seeing the page?
 How does a screen reader read images?
Audio files? Video files?
Web Page Reader
 Home Page Reader
 www.ufl.edu
 www.nytimes.com
HPR Exercise
 Find forecast high temperature for today at
www.usatoday.com or www.cnn.com
 Find what the latest hurricane warnings are at
www.weather.com
 What trains go from Los Angeles to Chicago
around 7:00 AM on October 1, 2004
(www.amtrak.com)
 At www.aa.com find the lowest round trip fare
from Los Angeles to Honolulu
Accessibility
 Could you complete your task?
 If not, what were the barriers?
Accessibility is not “in” the Web page
 Accessibility is experiential
 User is able to use data, information, and
services as effectively as someone without a
disability
 Accessibility is environmental
 It depends on the interaction of the
document with user agents, assistive
technologies--and people