1. AccessibilityBetter, Faster, Cheaper Shawn Lawton Henry

2. Were *not* in accessibility session yesterday?

3. W3C WAI • World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) • Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) • www.w3.org/WAI/

4. Screen Magnification

5. Topics • Responsibilities • Business Case • Black, White, Gray • Collaborators with Disabilities • Handouts: Additional URIs

6. Interdependent Components • Myth:Web accessibility is the responsibility of the Web content producer • Fact:Web accessibility depends on several components working together

7. Components of Web Accessibility Web Content(WCAG) Authoring Tool(ATAG) User Agent(UAAG)

8. Make or Break

9. ACTION ! • Actively encourage improvements in authoring tools • WAI resources: • Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) • Selecting and Using Authoring Tools for Web Accessibility

10. Topics • Responsibilities • Business Case • Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization • Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) • Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Usability • Black, White, Gray • Collaborators with Disabilities

11. Access for people with disabilities is it ;however…

12. Business Case • Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization • Social Factors • Technical Factors • Financial Factors • Legal & Policy Factors

13. Examples: Access • Corporate social responsibility (CSR) • Overlap with “digital divide” • Benefits also: • Older people • Low literacy, not fluent in the language • Low-bandwidth connections, older technologies • New and infrequent web users • Employees with disabilities

14. SEO – Accessibility Overlap

15. Google's Webmaster Guidelines www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html “Following these guidelines will help Google find, index, and rank your site.” Netherlands bank

16. SEO – Accessibility Overlap • SEO: “Make sure that your TITLE and ALT tags [sic] are descriptive and accurate.” • Accessibility: TITLE read by screen reader • Accessibility: ALT read by screen reader, text browsers • (Usability: search results, bookmarking, title bar) (By the way, alt is an attribute, not a tag.)

17. SEO – Accessibility Overlap • WCAG: “Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element” • SEO: Text equivalents for multimedia • (Usability e.g., reporter searching for quote in CEO speech)

18. SEO – Accessibility Overlap • SEO: “Check for . . . correct HTML.” • SEO: Headings • WCAG: “Use header elements to convey document structure...” • A: Headings navigation

19. SEO – Accessibility Overlap • SEO: “Make a site with clear . . . text links.” • SEO: “Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).” • WCAG: “Clearly identify the target of each link.” • A: Links list • A: Overview by links (sad, but true)

20. SEO – Accessibility Overlap • SEO: “Offer a site map to your users.” • WCAG: “Provide information about the general layout of a site (e.g., a site map…”

21. SEO – Accessibility Overlap • SEO: “Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images.” • WCAG 1.0: “When an appropriate markup language exists, use markup rather than images to convey information.”

22. SEO – Accessibility Overlap • SEO: “Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site, because most search engine spiders see your site much as Lynx would. If fancy features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site.” • A: same as above, substitute: “…then people with disabilities may have trouble using your site.”

23. Topics • Responsibilities • Business Case • Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization • CSR • Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Usability • Black, White, Gray • Collaborators with Disabilities

24. Good Bad

25. Good Bad

26. Prioritize • Greatest impact on users experience • Impact many pages • Templates • Style sheets • Elements such as navigation bars and scripts

27. Prioritize • Greatest impact on users experience • Impact many pages • Pages • Home page • Main pages & functionality for purpose of site, including: • The path to get there • The path to complete transactions • Frequently-used pages & functionality, including path & transactions

28. Prioritize by Barrier • WCAG 1.0 Priorities (WCAG 2.0 Levels) • Approach: • Priority 1 • Lower priorities • Approach: • High impact & easy • Harder

29. Prioritize by Barrier • Impact on people with disabilities • Depends on context of site • Effort required for repair • Time, cost, and skills • Type of repair, development environment

31. Resources • Improving the Accessibility of Your Web Site (WAI Resource)www.w3.org/WAI/impl/improving • Understanding Web Accessibility(book chapter online)www.uiaccess.com/understanding.html

32. Topics • Responsibilities • Business Case • Black, White, Gray • Collaborators with Disabilities

33. Involving Users: Benefits • Better understand issues • Understand “why” behind guidelines • Implement more effective solutions • More efficient (thus maximize investment) • Powerful motivator • Demo success first, then own • More budget Note: Alone doesn’t cover all issues, WCAG vital role

34. Example • alt="This image is a line art drawing of a dark green magnifying glass. If you click on it, it will take you to the Search page."

35. Involving Users: Scope • Range • Informal, “Hey, try this” • Formal usability testing • Informal early on & throughout • Diverse users • Experience with Web & AT(too low or too high)

36. Involving Users: Scope • Range • Informal, “Hey, try this” • Formal usability testing • Informal early on & throughout • Diverse users • Experience with Web & AT(too low or too high)

37. Tips for Involving Users • First • Preliminary review • Pilot test • Expert evaluator with first-hand experience • Carefully consider feedback • What’s wrong:markup/code, AT, user knowledge

38. Resources • Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design (online book) • The Basics • Accessibility in the User-Centered Design Process • Involving Users in Web Accessibility Evaluation (WAI Web resource) • Understanding Web Accessibility (book chapter online)

39. ACTION ! • Actively encourage authoring tools • Promote business case • Do the high impact & easy stuff now • Involve users with disabilities throughout

40. AccessibilityBetter, Faster, Cheaper Shawn Lawton Henry