Transcript WCAG 2.0 In The Workplace Supporting people with disabilities and

Web Accessibility for Older Users
Andrew Arch
Web Accessibility and Ageing Specialist
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Overview
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W3C and WAI
A changing world
Web usability and WAI Guidelines
Opportunities
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World Wide Web
Consortium - W3C
Leading the Web to Its Full Potential...
• International vendor-neutral consortium
• Evolution and interoperability of the Web:
for everyone, everywhere on everything
• Operates from: MIT, ERCIM, and Keio
• Develops key Web technologies such as:
HTML, CSS, XML, SVG, SMIL, ...
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Web Accessibility
Initiative - WAI
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Accessibility support in W3C technologies
Guidelines for implementing accessibility
Methods for evaluating accessibility
Conducting education and outreach
Coordinating with R&D world-wide
www.w3.org/WAI/
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WAI-AGE project
EC funded project focused on:
• Better understanding the needs of the
ageing community
• Working with the ageing community
• Developing educational materials
• Pursuing standards harmonisation
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Demographic Changes
The world is getting older
• UN prediction is that by 2050 one out of
every five people will be over 60 years
• Some countries will experience greater
ageing than others
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Demographic Changes
Ageing Populations
Percentage
US
EU
Japan
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
2010
2020
2030
2040
Year
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Abilities Change
• Vision decline
– Affects screen and keyboard use
• Hearing decline
– Affects multimedia use
• Dexterity decline
– Affects mouse and keyboard use
• Cognitive decline
– Affects navigation and comprehension
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Abilities Change
Proportion affected:
• Vision decline
– 16% of 65-74 years; 46% of over 85 years
• Hearing decline
– 19% of 61-80 years; 75% of over 80 years
• Dexterity decline (arthritis)
– 50% of over 65 years
• Cognitive decline (dementia)
– 1.4% of 65-69 years; 25% of over 85 years
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Attitude & aptitude
• Pew Internet’s latest US survey shows a
large increase in over 70s going online
• Older people undertake similar activities
online as younger people
• Experience is important in understanding
older people’s requirements
We need to consider the whole ICT
experience, not just the Web content
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Who’s online?
Presentation included photo of 85 year old
women using a laptop for email
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What age groups?
Australia 2006
Spain 2006
UK 2008
USA 2008 (est)
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15-24
45-54
55-64
65-74
75+
79%
77%
67%
47%
28%
16-24
45-54
55-64
65-74
89%
52%
26%
8%
16-24
45-54
55-64
65+
93%
78%
63%
26%
18-24
45-54
55-64
65-75
76+
89%
79%
66%
49%
27%
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Ageing workforce
With an ageing population, we also have ageing
employees:
• People are choosing to keep working
• Government is encouraging people to work longer
• Lifelong learning is important
Age-related impairments can be experienced while
still employed
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Literature reviewed
Literature review included:
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Discussions of functional limitations
Usability studies of older users
Studies focused on particular limitations
Studies looking at specific aspects of websites
Reports on training older users in Web access
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Web usability
• General usability factors were reported as
particularly important, e.g.
– Too much material present
– Distracting advertisements and other
movement
– Unclear hypertext navigation options
– Changing navigation schemes and page
layouts across the Web
– Presentational aspects
WAI Guidelines help
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Components of
Web Accessibility
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Web content
• Compiled requirements for older users
– Concentrate on usable accessibility
– Largely overlooked technical accessibility
• Analysis showed that most requirements
met by WCAG 2.0
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WCAG 2.0 examples
• Presentation aspects covered
– Large fonts by default
– Left justification
– Spacing (sentences, lines and columns)
– High contrast
– Use proper case
– Link visibility
– Movement on the page
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WCAG 2.0 Examples
continued
• Navigation
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Consistent navigation
Linking to the ‘home page’
Providing ‘breadcrumbs’
Providing a whole-site search function
• Forms
– Providing instructions for form completion
– Accommodating misspellings and common
variations
– Providing clear error messages
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WCAG 2.0 techniques
WCAG 2.0 Success Criteria have:
• Sufficient Techniques
– minimum requirements
• Advisory Techniques
– additional improvements
• Common Failures
– often encountered mistakes
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Web authoring
• Surfers are becoming authors
– User generated content is increasing
– Older people are blogging, sharing photos, writing
reviews, and using social networking sites
• Older employees may need to use CMSs
– Ageing related impairments can be experienced
well before retirement
– Governments are raising retirement age
• ATAG applies to all authoring tools
– including web-based Blogs and Wikis
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Web browsing
• Simplified interfaces help new older users
• Adaptive strategies not adopted
– Hidden deep in the browser
• Accommodation needs to be made easy
• UAAG has a role to play
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Browser importance
• Simplified interfaces help learning
• User Agent Accessibility Guidelines call for
configurability
– Opportunity to contribute to new version
– Ensure older people’s needs are considered
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Assistive technology
• Older people often deny disability
• Supporters don’t know about assistive
technology
• Assistive technology can be very
complicated
• Again, UAAG has an role to play
– Configurability applies to assistive technology too
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Research opportunities
• Impact of hearing loss and multimedia use
• Cognitive decline and page
comprehension
• Text style and decoration preferences
• Navigation and menu style preferences
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Research opportunities
continued
• Noticing and understanding small page
changes
• Use of social networking sites and
applications
• Use of assistive technologies
• Older people with disabilities experiencing
additional ageing-related impairments
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Cognitive Decline
"I wish you were around
here to show this geriatric
how to really use the
computer. Last night I
was trying to get
something I need via
google and it nearly drove
me crazy and I didn't get
it in the end. So many
things happen on it when
i am doing ordinary things
and I never know why it
does them and I can't
always sort it out.“
Andrew’s 83 year old aunt
15 May 2009
Presentation also included a
photo of Terry Pratchet
who recently featured in
a BBC documentary on
Alzheimer's
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Accessibility awareness
… industry
Encouragement to better accommodate older
users
– Organizations need more education about benefits
– Web industry needs to understand the applicability
of WAI Guidelines
– Developers need to understand the requirements
– Older people need to be included in the process
WAI-AGE will develop educational materials
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Accessibility awareness
… users
Older users and their supporting
organizations
– Increasing older users' awareness of the benefits
of Web accessibility
– Support with taking advantage of Web accessibility
– Help with identifying and reporting Web
accessibility problems
– Support for promoting Web accessibility
WAI-AGE will develop supporting materials
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Actions?
Contribute to an ability to age in place
• Promote business case for industry to adopt
Web accessibility
• Contact organisations with poor websites
• Understand older users’ needs by involving older
people in the Web development process
• Provide training and support for older users
• Develop browsers and assistive technology that
can grow with the users’ needs
• Get involved with standards development and
adoption
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Progress is occurring
Presentation included a photo of William
who, in his 70’s is the oldest participant on
the WAI-AGE task force
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Discussion
Contact Details:
– Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
• www.w3.org/WAI/
– WAI-AGE Project
• www.w3.org/WAI/WAI-AGE/
– Email
• [email protected]
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