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Web Accessibility:
Beyond WAI
About The Speaker
Brian Kelly
UKOLN
University of Bath
Bath
Email
[email protected]
Brian Kelly is a Web
adviser to UK HE/FE and
MLA communities.
He has attended several
W3C WAI meeting, has
published a survey of the
accessibility of UK University
entry points and organised a
panel session with Judy
Brewer, head of WAI at
WWW 2003 conference.
UKOLN is supported by:
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Web Accessibility
Areas of agreement:
• Accessibility of digital resources greatly benefits
many users and potential users
• Organisations (especially publically-funded
bodies) should seek to maximise the
accessibility of their services
• W3C WAI has been tremendously successful in:
• Raising awareness of accessibility issues for digital
resources
• Developing various guidelines for helping Web
developers, software developers, etc.
But we face some challenges …
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Challenges
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Challenges
We are now finding:
• Awareness of limitations of testing tools
• Awareness of difficulties (and costs) in
implementing accessibility across large Web sites
• Awareness of problems with browsers
• Slow take-up of new W3C formats (SMIL, SVG, ...)
• Better support for accessibility in proprietary
formats (e.g. PDF, Flash) and operating systems
(e.g. Windows XP)
• Concerns over WAI WCAG guidelines
• Concerns over e-learning accessibility
• Uncertainty of the scope of legislation (what are
"reasonable measures"?)
A centre of expertise in digital information management
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Challenges
Challenges – Testing Tools
Accessibility testing tools:
• Bobby is widely-known but has severe limitations
• Organisations can be over-reliant on Bobby
• Dangers of "Bobby-approved" (and other) logos
• Bobby error messages can be confusing
We need:
• Advice on systematic testing processes
• Incorporation of manual testing processes
• Raise awareness of limitations of Bobby, etc.
This is not an insurmountable problem. Advice is available e.g.
advisory bodies such as TechDis, documents such as
<http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/documents/briefings/briefing-12/>
(and briefing-02
, briefing-57
…) etc.management
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Challenges
Challenges – Scope
When:
• Developing policies
• Using testing tools and processes
we are facing with issues of:
• Definition of our Web site:
•
•
•
•
•
Public Web site(s)
Static Web site(s)
Personalised pages
Pages with content from remote services
…
• Extent of our Web site
• Organisational area
• Everything (e.g. entries on bulletin boards, personal pages,
…)
• Integration with backend services (e.g. Library catalogue)
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Challenges
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Challenges – Browsers
Issues:
• When does the "until user agents …" clause apply?
• What is our policy on old / broken browsers?
• Is it reasonable to expect users to make
adjustments?
• Is our policy driven by usage or by compliance with
standards?
• Are we allowed to exploit new technologies?
• What do we do for browsers on special devices
(PDAs, digital TVs, …)?
The (well-designed, accessible) www.accessifyforum.com has usability
problems on my Netgem digital TV box. Is this (a) Accessifyforum’s
problem (b) Netgem’s problem or (c) an inevitable teething problem of new
A centre of expertise in digital information management
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technology?
Challenges
Challenges – New Formats
W3C are developing richer and more accessible
formats such as SMIL and SVG.
But:
• What about support for browsers which don't
support such formats?
• Will we have to support both old and new
formats?
• When will we be in a position to exploit such
formats?
• Will concerns over accessibility legislation hinder
the deployment of more accessible formats!
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Challenges
Challenges – WAI Guidelines
Are the W3C WCAG 1.0 guidelines:
• Too theoretical?
• Possibly conflicting with usability?
• Difficult to understand?
• Ambiguous?
WAI WCAG 2.0 is being developed:
• How does this affect current guidelines?
• How will this affect legal issues?
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Challenges
Challenges – Proprietary Formats
WAI WCAG AAA guidelines requires files in proprietary
formats to be also available in an open W3C format
This seems to affect use of:
• Interactive formats such as Flash
• Popular document formats such as PDF
• Use of Web as a document transfer tool for, say,
MS Office files
Has W3C WAI extended its remit from supporting
accessibility to mandating use of its formats and its
philosophy?
Is this desirable? Should it be embedded in legislation?
“WAI AAA bans use of MS Word”. Is this true?
TheA centre
factofthat
MS Word files can be accessible iswww.ukoln.ac.uk
irrelevant.
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Challenges
The Context
One University Web manager, following publication of
survey of UK University home pages said:
"I too have been struggling with just how rigorously the
WAI guidelines should be implemented … I certainly
aspire to comply as full as I can with the WAI
guidelines but …"
• Some guidelines are too theoretical
• I will have a pragmatic approach:
• Will use tables for positioning
• Will not associate form controls for search
boxes
• Will not necessarily nest headers correctly
• …
These are seen as WAI
requirements.www.ukoln.ac.uk
Are they?
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Challenges
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Too Theoretical?
Are some WAI guidelines too theoretical?
13.2 Provide metadata to add semantic information to
pages and sites. [Priority 2]
For example, use RDF ([RDF]) to indicate the
document's author, the type of content, etc.
• Is this really about accessibility? What practical
benefit will it bring?
• How many use RDF today?
It is
• Isn't RDF an unproven technology
acknowwhich is currently of research interest?
ledged
• Isn't this using WAI as a mechanism
that RDF
to promote a favoured W3C format?
is an
• If I can't / won't do this, will other
example
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Priority 2 requirements be ignored?
Challenges
Too Theoretical?
Have some WAI techniques not being used sufficiently
to expect widespread use?
1.1 Provide a text equivalent for every non-text
element (e.g., via "alt", "longdesc", or …
But
• longdescr not supported in widely used
browsers There is little implementation
experience:
•
•
•
•
Should the file be text, HTML, … (it's not defined)
How will the information be rendered?
Should I provide navigation to the original document?
What about the management of the content?
Should Web accessibility guidelines be based
empirical
or management
an architectural vision?
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Cost Of Web Accessibility
Diveintoaccessibility.org provides
valuable advice on making Web sites
accessible. But look at what it describes:
p {font-size: 12px;}
/*/*/a{}
body p {font-size: x-small;
voice-family: "\"}\"";
voice-family: inherit;
font-size: small;}
html>body p {font-size: small;}
/* */
1. First, we're defining an absolute size
(12px) for every <p>. All browsers apply this style …
2. Then we include the odd-looking comment "/*/*/". Due to bugs in
Netscape 4, everything between this comment and the following
one will be ignored. That's right, all the following styles will only
be applied in non-Netscape-4 browsers.
3. Immediately after the odd-looking comment, we include an empty
rule "a {}". Opera 5 for Mac is buggy and ignores this rule (and
only this rule). It applies everything else.
“My boss spends too much time tinkering with CSS to get it to
work in all browsers”. Is it a sensible use of tax-payers
money Atocentre
address
made
by software vendors?
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management
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Possible Solutions
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Proposed Solutions
In light of problems do we forget Web accessibility and WAI?
No!
Experiences Of NOF-digitise Programme
The NOF-digitise programme:
• Based on open standards & accepted best practices
• Recognised difficulties in some areas e.g. interactive
multimedia
• Developed reporting process for deviations: projects must
document (a) awareness of appropriate standards/ best
practices; (b) reasons why open standards / best practices
not followed; (c) scope of use of proposed solution; (d)
migration strategy to best practices in the future and (e)
indication of costs & funding mechanisms
• See <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/nof/support/help/faqs/
website.htm#migration
> management
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Possible Solutions
A Quality Assurance Model
JISC-funded QA Focus project is building on NOF-digi
support work:
• Developed a quality assurance framework
• Projects should document their policies and
systematic procedures for checking compliance
with their policies
• Initially focussed on technical areas such as
HTML standards, link checking; etc.
• Model being extended to areas such as
accessibility
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Possible Solutions
We Need Policies
There is a clear need for accessibility policies:
• Our Web site complies with A/AA. But …
• We seek to provide Web accessibility through
use of CSS, HTML-compliant templates.
We check this by systematic use of automated
tools and formal usability & accessible testing
• We seek to provide an accessible museum. This
covers both physical & online accessibility.
• We seek to provide an accessible learning
experience. If e-learning is not accessible we will
provide real-world accessible alternatives.
• …
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Conclusions
• Web accessibility is important!
• WAI have done a great job
• But there are concerns over WAI WCAG
guidelines (and most v1.0 of specifications have
flaws, so this isn’t a criticism)
• Accessibility of digital resources is being
addressed outside of WAI (I still think you should
use open standards, but use them because of
their benefits, not because of legal threats)
• There is a need for broader thinking on issues
such as learning accessibility, usability, etc.
Or is such thinking heretical? Will raising such concerns lead
to people
using this as an excuse to ignore accessibility?
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