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Beyond Web Accessibility:
Providing A Holistic User
Experience
Brian Kelly
UKOLN
University of Bath
Bath
Lawrie Phipps
JISC TechDis Service
York
Where Are We Now?
Current status on Web accessibility:
• Widespread awareness within institutional
Web management community
• Widespread support for implementation
• Sharing of approaches, discussions, etc.
But:
• Implementation challenges
• Lack of clarity of what exactly we should do
• Still ambiguities (cf DRC report)
• Have things changes since WAI WCAG 1.0
released?
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Accessibility Survey
Survey of UK HEI home pages carried out in August
2002 and repeated in June 2004
Used Bobby – so only objective criteria measured
Findings
2002 2004
WAI AA compliant
3
7
WAI A compliant
70
93
See <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/
workshops/webmaster-2004/talks/phipps-kelly/survey/>
Reminder: this is probably an over-estimate of
compliance. Problems which can only be spotted with
manual detection can reduce these figures.
Also note that this is just the home page – not the
entire Web site!
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What Can We Conclude?
What can we conclude from the lack of WAI WCAG AAA
compliance and small percentage of AA compliance:
• The community doesn't care about Web
accessibility
• WCAG AAA and AA compliance is difficult to
achieve (even on a single, high profile page)
• There are other issues to consider
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WAI WCAG AA and AAA
In order to achieve WAI WCAG AA compliance:
• Avoid deprecated features (e.g. FONT)
• Use W3C technologies when available and
appropriate (no Flash, MS Word or PowerPoint)
• .. use the latest versions [of W3C formats]
• Create documents that validate to published formal
grammars (i.e. HTML must be valid)
In order to achieve WAI WCAG AAA compliance:
• Provide information so that users may receive
documents according to their preferences (i.e.
markup language)
• Specify document collections with the LINK element
and "rel" and "rev"
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Concerns Over WAI WCAG
Guidelines Too Theoretical
• Some WCAG guidelines appear theoretical
• WCAG seeks to promote W3C standards (including
new ones) in addition to addressing mainstream
accessibility issues
• Overall WAI approach is dependent on content,
authoring tools and user agent guidelines – the
latter two are outside the remit of Web authors
Developments Outside Of W3C
• WAI has succeeded in raising awareness of
accessibility – and commercial sector has
responded (cf. accessibility in OS, proprietary
formats, …)
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Standards Or Guidelines
Are WAI's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines:
• Pragmatic and much needed guidelines which can
help authors to make Web pages more accessible
• To be interpreted and applied sensibly
or:
• Mandatory standards which must be implemented
in order to (a) claim WAI compliance and (b) abide
with legislation
• No room for interpretation
Use GIF images or FONT tags? Use HTML 4.0? HTML
validation errors? WAI A is best you can achieve!
11.1 Use W3C technologies when they are available and appropriate for
a task and use the latest versions when supported. [Priority 2]
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WAI WCAG Flaws
Logical Flaws
• On 1 Aug 2002 when XHTML 1.0 released WAI AA
pages became A (unless immediately upgraded)
W3C Web Site
• W3C Web site is not
AA compliant
DRC Web Site
• DRC Web site is not
AA compliant, despite
AAA logo on home page
and report still not HTML
Conclusions
If treating WCAG as rigourous
8 standard is flawed what should we do?
BK LP
Why are we doing what we are
doing now?
• Why are we asking the question “what
standard of accessibility do we design to?”
 The original concept was for guidelines
 This translated to standards (BBSI)
 Many Web teams now talk of
‘compliance’
• Why? Who is driving the evolution from a
guide to a requirement?
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The W3C Web User
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The Student Experience
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So what should that mean?
• Pragmatism is the key
• Education is a holistic experience (it not just
about the web)
• Develop a policy, meet the standards, but
above all, consider all users!
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TechDis – UKOLN Approach
• Recognising external
pressures e.g. funders,
QAA, …
• Recognising local
technical infrastructure
• Recognising material
objective
• Recognising learning
and teaching
Remember legislation expects organisations
to take "reasonable measures
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Conclusions
• Select the guidelines / standards that mean
something to the context of the material
• Work with staff needing to deliver the
material
• Develop strategies that reflect flexibility in
meeting user need
• Test the system against guidelines – but
prioritise users!
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Questions
Any questions, comments, etc?
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