Here are the presentation notes from Marc's presentation.

Why have an accessible web site?

20% of the world’s population has some sort of disability. Not having an accessible website for them means that your website is not seen by at least 20% of the people out there. Sales could increase up to 20% if you sell something online.

It’s becoming the law. Here is a list of complaints against inaccessible websites in the recent and not so recent past:

ADA Complaint against the City of San José, California. In 1995, the city of San José received an ADA complaint against the city for operating an inaccessible website. A City Commissioner, who was blind, complained that she was unable to access City Council documents as part of her City Council advisory role because the documents were posted in an inaccessible format. (Portable Document Format or PDF). Basically, she couldn’t do her job because there was no communication.

In 1999, the US Department of Education reported on the accessibility challenges of posting documents in Adobe Acrobat’s PDF format. For more, see this website: http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/508/report/web.htm#N_20_

Maguire v. Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games In 1999, Mr. Maguire, a blind citizen of Australia tried to request an Olympic Games ticket book in Braille format. He was told that blind people could have access to it if it was available on the internet. Mr. Maguire, a user of refreshable Braille technology, explained that he could access information only if it was presented in accordance with international accessibility guidelines. He also stated that since the Sydney organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) did not comply with those guidelines, a lot of information was not accessible to him. The SOCOG response was that he should seek the assistance from a sighted person. On June 7, 1999, Mr. Maguire filed a complaint with the Australian disability Discrimination Act (DDA) enforcement Agency – the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC). Basically, he said that he was discriminated against in three respects:

·        Failure to Provide Braille copies of the information required to place orders for Olympic Games tickets

·        Failure to provide Braille copies of the Olympic Games souvenir program

·        Failure to provide a website that was accessible to the complainant

The ticket book and souvenir program allegations were dealt with separately and really don’t have much to do with the website, but basically, in August of 2000, the SOCOG was found to have discriminated against Mr. Maguire in breach of Section 24 of the DDA in that the website did not include alt text on all images and image map links, the Index to sports could not be accessed from the Schedule page, and the Results Tables were inaccessible. The SOCOG was ordered to make the website accessible by the start of the Sydney Olympics, but because they were found only partly compliant in November 2000, damages were awarded in the amount of $20,000. Here are the case details: http://www.hreoc.gov.au/disability_rights/decisions/comdec/Maguire%20v%20SOCOG3.htm

here is what the Internet Industry Association wrote about this case (and there are more links on this site about it.)

http://www.independentliving.org/docs5/sydney-olympics-blind-accessibility-decision-press-release.html

Target Stores

There was a case filed against Target.com in February, 2006 and settled in September, 2006. What’s ironic here is that Target was claiming that the ADA laws didn’t apply to their website, just the physical (brick and mortar) stores. They asked the courts to dismiss the case. Basically, they were saying that they were happy with their sales and didn’t necessarily need to sell any more.

The courts disagreed and ruled that a retailer may be sued if its website is inaccessible to the blind. For more information go to http://www.nfb.org/nfb/Target_Sept_Release.asp?SnID=434667

Wouldn’t have been easier (and cheaper) just to make the website accessible instead of fighting it? Attorneys don’t work for free, and they are not cheap! If Target would have just paid the web developer the money to make the website accessible, we would probably not have even seen this case anywhere, and I probably wouldn’t have even brought it up today! Is the reputation of your business really worth fighting this or making your site inaccessible?

Southwest Airlines

The ADA brought a lawsuit against Southwest Airlines in 1999 because a blind person tried to make a reservation for a flight but couldn’t because the website would not account for a screen reader

AOL

AOL 6.0 came out in 1999 because AOL 5.0 was not accessible and a case was brought against them in 1996.

While the ADA wasn’t always successful in these cases, it just goes to show you that these cases are not going to go away. Look at it as target shooting, you may not always hit the target, but sooner or later, if you shoot at it enough, you are going to hit it, maybe not where you wanted to, but you will hit it.

Enough about why you should have an accessible website, let’s move on to the planning of it.

If accessible web design is addressed early in the web development process, the cost will normally be less than 1% of the total effort.

First, know what the accessibility guidelines are. To find this information, you can go to http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCONTENT-19990505/full-checklist.html

If you would like more information on what the difference is between Priority 1, 2 and 3 checkpoints are and how it affects web accessibility, email me at coppins@netmagikpros.com and I can go into further explanation on each of these.

Set up a Web Accessibility Organization (AO)

Don’t take the approach (which is common) to create a project that will add accessibility to existing services or offer accessibility on an ad hoc or as needed basis where you only address accessibility when persons with a disability raise an issue. There are a few reasons you shouldn’t do this:

1.   Adding accessibility to existing products or services is expensive which will require accessibility personnel to understand the product or service, and develop a specific accessibility interface, often this means reinventing or reengineering the product or service in the process.

2.   The law policy and technical aspects of accessibility are often focused into a small team, which can disappear (due to attrition, illness or competition) leaving no resource base for the organizations.

3.   Using an ad hoc or as needed approach will result in barriers for persons with disabilities.

Basically, if you use the ad hoc approach, eventually, there will be so much retrofitting that it will be very expensive.

If you design from the beginning, using good planning, you can avoid the expensive retrofitting of your website accessibility it will be cheaper.

Who should be on the Accessibility Organization?

Qualified people within the company who can manage and and work in accessibility projects rather than overseeing them itself. They should consist of a resource within the enterprise and not a controlling organization. Its management should be carefully structured and its members should have a mix of characteristics directly related to their role in implementing accessible web technology.

Here are some suggestions:

·        Members of stakeholder departments

·        Internal experts

·        Very few of the AO members should be full time workers, most should work in the group only part time having their primary responsibilities in their departments because members of actual design, development, sales, strategy and management will have greater day-to-day feel for the status of accessibility within the organization.

·        Most should be drawn from the departments that will be affected by the implementation of accessibility in web technology

What is the AO’s authority?

They should have the authority to implement change as well as the responsibility to do so. They must also be able to set standards and make decisions on the tools needed, and lay out the process to be followed. Without these things, the AO’s job will be difficult, if not impossible.

The AO must have the authority from the highest levels of an enterprise. It must be able to assist or consult on all related projects. The upper management will need to make a commitment to implementing web accessibility.

Conclusion:

Remember, that even if you do all of these things, there is no website out there that is totally accessible to everyone. It’s almost impossible to make a website that is accessible to every disability out there. The important thing to take into consideration is who your target audience is. For example:

Blindness is not the only disability out there that has issues with accessibility in a website.

Attention Deficit Disorder can also have trouble with your website.

People with Autism can also have trouble. And yet these two different disabilities need the total opposite implementations on your website for it to be accessible to them. It will either be accessible to one or the other, but rarely both. Here is an example to clarify:

Autism is a disorder where basically, they take everything in, and it’s so much information that the brain doesn’t really know what to do with it all, so it basically ignores a lot of things. It’s not exactly the same for every autistic person out there, so I am stereotyping, but for the most part, this is true for them. If you want a person, who is autistic, to really hear what you have to say or sell, on your website then you need to make something really stand out on your website. A blinking .gif item to draw attention will do the trick for most of them, however, if a person with ADD comes to the site, this same blinking .gif item will distract them from reading or interacting with your website at all.

Yes I’m assuming a lot, and this will not always be 100% true.

There are some disabilities that I can speak of with a fair amount of knowledge:

·        Multiple Sclerosis, which my mother has had for over 20 years, and which I have been diagnosed with since 1999

·        Cerebral Palsy which my step brother has had since birth

·        Autism which a very good friend of mine has. I have known him for almost 7 years.

I have some good knowledge about a number of other disabilities as well since I was originally trained in web design in a school that exists for people with disabilities. There are people in this school with disabilities from Deafness to Dyslexia. Basically, what I’m saying is that I’ve been around a lot of people with a variety of disabilities for a long period of time. At the time I went to this school, there were over 400 people, mostly from South West Michigan, that attended this school.

Basically, there are a lot of different disabilities out there that will have trouble if your website is not accessible to them. Here is a list to consider:

·        People who cannot use their arms or hands to type or move a mouse.

·        People with tremors such as older people with diminishing fine motor skills that can use a keyboard but not a mouse.

·        Some people cannot see at all and use a screen reader that reads the information aloud to them, but some people use a screen reader because the can see fine, but have trouble processing written language.

·        People that have blurry vision and cannot read text unless it is very large.

·        People that are colorblind will also have trouble unless the contrast is sufficient on your site. You can download a tool to test this for your website at www.visionaustralia.org.au/info.aspx?page=628

Again, you will never make your website accessible to every disability out there, but if you carefully define your target audience for your website, you can minimize the chance that someone with a disability will raise an accessibility issue with your website.