Constructing Accessible Web Sites 301
| Constructing Accessible Web Sites | |
| author | Jim Thatcher, Paul Bohman, Michael Burks, Shawn Lawton Henry, Bob Regan, Sarah Swierenga, Mark D. Urban, Cynthia D. Waddell |
| pages | 415 |
| publisher | Glasshaus |
| rating | 8 |
| reviewer | actiondan |
| ISBN | 1904151000 |
| summary | The whys and hows of making web sites accessible to all. |
What does the book cover?
Chapter 1 is an introduction to web accessibility. I would guess that most people who pick up this book will already know at least a little bit about accessibility, but this chapter provides a good overview and presents some compelling arguments for providing accessible websites. Interestingly, none of these is based on a moral argument -- they are all sound reasons why it is in the interests of an organization to think about accessibility. For example, one of these sections mentions that people with disabilities in the U.S. are estimated to control a discretionary income of over $175 billion. Making a site accessible to these people gives it access to an additional market that non-accessible sites cannot tap.
This first chapter sets the tone for the whole book. It doesn't preach about accessibility for the sake of people with disabilities but rather seeks to convince the reader that accessibility is in their interests.
Chapter 2 concentrates on one of the major reasons for making web sites accessible - laws that compel us to do so. It presents an overview of the state of the law in different parts of the world and a couple of examples of cases involving web usability. I have to admit I skimmed this chapter, as I wanted to get on to the technical stuff.
In Chapter 3, the book gets on to the mechanics of accessibility -- assistive technologies. It provides a short survey of the screen readers and other technologies that are available. I would have liked to have seen more information here on how widespread these systems are, even if just approximate.
Chapter 4 is where the book starts talking about the actual work involved in creating accessible content. It runs down the basics of accessibility (most of it is good practice such as using ALT text and so on). The blink tag even gets a mention and a "good for them!" is given to Opera for not supporting it :) This chapter will not be news to anyone who has done any accessibility work (or even just best-practices web development). The information on how tables are handled by screen readers is good though.
Chapter 5 looks in more detail at navigation. The advice here is good even outside of an accessibility context and there are some good points about 'gotchas' that could make sites difficult to navigate with assistive technologies.
In Chapter 6, input gets the same treatment that navigation got in the last chapter. I wasn't sure about the stuff on PDF forms (does anyone actually use these for web input?) but the advice on HTML forms was great.
Chapter 7 is about testing for section 508 (of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act) compliance. Initially, this was another chapter that I skimmed, as I am not based in the U.S., but then I realised that the testing advice in this chapter is not just useful for section 508 compliance -- it is useful for general accessibility testing.
Chapter 8 studies the accessibility of web development tools themselves. This doesn't apply to me but it was interesting to see how the tools (Dreamweaver, Frontpage, GoLive, Homesite and BBEdit) compare in terms of usability. This would have been a lot easier if there had been a summary table of the ratings given to the applications.
Chapter 9 seemed a little out of place. It is on "Separating Style from Presentation" and basically looks at CSS. I'm sure most people picking up this book will, like me, not need to be taught CSS basics. I skipped the chapter and very nearly missed an interesting little section on aural stylesheets.
I was surprised that chapter 10 was devoted to Flash, as I expected that Flash coverage in an accessibility book would be limited to a few paragraphs lambasting Macromedia for creating such an inaccessible technology. Well, it turns out that the new version of Flash supports accessibility much better than previous ones. This chapter was a real eye-opener for me. Clearly there is more work to be done but well done to Macromedia for putting accessibility support in!
Chapter 11 didn't really interest me much -- it seems to be more aimed at people who need to implement an accessibility strategy, one to hand over to managers once the technical content of the book is digested.
Chapter 12 is a bit of a heads-up on newer technologies and how they affect accessibility. There is some brief but decent discussion of how technologies such as SVG support accessibility.
The last actual chapter, Chapter 13, is a more in-depth look at U.S. web accessibility law. This was another one that I skimmed but one section did catch my eye. There is a discussion that raises the scary idea that web developers may be held liable for inaccessible web sites, even if their client told them to ignore the issue. If this is true, then it is an important point for every web developer to consider -- could you be held liable?
There are three appendices in the book; a quick reference guide summarises the most important advice given in the book, a glossary of terms and an appendix that details the U.S. Section 508 legislation.
Conclusion
Apart from the basic CSS coverage and the more U.S.-specific sections, I found the vast majority of the information in the book to be very interesting to me. The style was good too -- I was surprised that a book with 8 authors manages to maintain such a consistent and readable tone throughout.
Overall, I found the book a much more interesting read than I was expecting it to be. It gives specific advice about the way web sites should be constructed with accessibility in mind and offers strong arguments for following the advice.
It seems that accessibility is going to be a fact of life in web development. That being the case, every web developer needs to learn at least something about it, if only to use as ammunition in interviews. I would definitely recommend Constructing Accessible Websites as a good source of information on the area.
You can purchase Constructing Accessible Web Sites from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Bookpool cheaper (Score:3, Interesting)
bookpool almost always has the cheapest programming books.
crazy laws (Score:5, Interesting)
These laws are not only scary, they are crazy. If serving people with disabilities is so important, then I'll do it, because it makes financial sense for me to do so. But if these people are largely irrelevant to my target market (say, I run a website for bird-watchers or target-shooting enthusiasts - should I be obligated to put up a version readable by vision-impaired people ?), I should have the right to ignore this segment of the market - at my own peril, of course.
If they're going to legislate me into putting in 'assistive technology' into my websites, why don't they force magazines to put out Braille versions, or make them supply audio-cassettes or CDs with the contents transcribed ? Why don't they widen airplane and car and bus seats so morbidly obese people can sit in them ?
This book will be very good! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Lemme guess... (Score:4, Interesting)
Truthfully, I am surprised that Macromedia hasn't had a lawsuit filed directly against them for Flash files not being parsable by accessability readers. But then again, its all the web developers fault!
Re:crazy laws (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:crazy laws (Score:3, Interesting)
IANAL, but...
I believe that the standard for disability is something like "resonable effort for reasonable access." Things like ramps for stores, and magazines printing out braile versoins if they can afford to do so.
Don't take my word for it, but if you get a complaint about someone wanting to force you to make brail-versions of your bird-watching website, check with a lawyer if you can't come to a compormise; I suspect that you'd be able to tell the angry blind man to go away if it requires unreasonable effort to accomodate their wishes.
Simple Question (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:crazy laws (Score:5, Interesting)
As for learning to fly, partial deafness is a disability that's covered by the ADA. If a learning-to-fly website had a lot of sound effects, it could make the site unusable to potential pilots.
Morals Schmorals, It's the Market You Paraplegic! (Score:5, Interesting)
This first chapter sets the tone for the whole book. It doesn't preach about accessibility for the sake of people with disabilities but rather seeks to convince the reader that accessibility is in their interests.
Actually I think it more relates to ETHICS -- as it is dealing with one's profession -- but all the same. All the analogies other people have posted about how unfair these laws are and "why don't they make magazine publishers publish their magazines in Braile or spoken-word" are completely missing the point. Using a digital medium such as the Internet, it is easy to make your website easily accessible for persons with disabilities. Is it too hard to use the use of both your hands to enter in a few extra tags so that the Internet is "accessible to all!" You Slashdotters spuge yourselves when you think of how cheap it would be to put together free or close to free Linux boxes and ship them down to South America, yet your "creative expression"? is being denied by having to put in a few extra tags explaining the purpose of a picture. Give me a break you capitalistic freaks.
Re:crazy laws (Score:5, Interesting)
Many books and magazines are available on tape. I know, my wife is a reader for college textbooks. I also recall several years ago, someone sued to get Playboy on tape. He was blind and really did "just read it for the articles".
Re:We don't nee more legislation (Score:2, Interesting)
I wholeheartedly agree with the assessment that if all browsers followed standards, this wouldn't be as big an issue. And as for the ADA standards for web pages, I think you may be misinformed. Tables and scripting are not against ADA. The ADA simply lays down how these tools can be effectively used while not hamstringing screen readers and the like. For example, a table can be perfectly readable if you add an 'id' attribute to each tag and to each tag. I know that reworking legacy code could take years, but for new development this shouldn't be too terrible, right? Besides, aren't we moving to XML data and a transforming display layer anyway?
Re:Simple Question (Score:3, Interesting)
That's the issue - there are things that rely on visual cues, which just *can't* make the leap to screen-reading.
There are other problems too - screen-readers aren't the only devices used for accessibility, as the visually-handicapped aren't the only disabled people using computers.
There's a large number of issues to take into account, but frnakly none of them are too daunting to plan for. One can make a lovely and useful website that's fully s508 compliant as long as you're thinking about it in the deisgn phase.
And the DIV tag is your friend.
Some confusion on section 508, etc. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, there seems to be a bit of misunderstanding, and it would've been better had the reviewer mentioned this.
Section508 applies primarily to governmental websites. So if you're a
If you're a federal or state contractor you may have to comply.
If you're not one of those things, do whatever you want.
However, it may still be in your best interests to at least consider accessibility. You may not necessarily comply with all the W3C priority 1,2, and 3 standards but a few of them isn't going to hurt, and are generally common sense. There's a huge market out there for the disabled - if you ran a brick-n-mortar shop you wouldn't turn away $175billion worth of your customers, so why do it on the web?
It's not like *all* of them are blind, deaf quadraplegics. I know people who use expanded fonts just because their eyesight isn't *great* - they're still legal to drive with glasses, but reading fine print on a screen necessitates assistance. Variable font-sizing and alt tags would suddenly open your website up to a lot of people just like that.
Basically, to help make a site more accessible it doesn't require much - start with your alt tags, maybe longdesc if you're feeling generous, try not to deisgn with 7 layers of nested tables, and use relative font sizes. Most sites won't even need to be fully overhauled to accomplish this, just tweaked, and it can open up the availability to hundreds of thousands more people.
It's not about being politically correct, it's not about avoiding lawsuits, it's about doing what's best for your website and delivering your content to the widest audience.
Added benefits (Score:3, Interesting)
Likewise, our major application (initial unemployment registration) can be accessed with an Ipaq IR connected to a nokia cellphone and works well (enough) at 9600 baud.
Re:crazy laws (Score:5, Interesting)
Web-accessibility takes a lot of inspiration from whats called "universal design". (As opposed to "special sollutions" that tries to solve the problems for a specific group). The point of "universial design" is that you with very small means can make the world accessible to a lot more people, in different ages, with different abilities. Examples of "universal design" is wider doors, lower and bigger light switches, electrical doors, ramps, lower busses etc etc). Braille and wheelchair elevators are examples of "special sollutions" since they mainly helps those with that special disability.
The really interesting part about "universal design" is that good designs often seems help a lot more people than originally intended. I saw a report one time (sorry, dont have exact reference) about who used wheelchair ramps. Actually just a few percent were wheelchair users. More than 95 percent were mothers with baby carriages, travellers with big suitcases, people making deliveries, roller scaters etc etc The point is: By making it accessible, you also help a lot of people that you usually does not consider diabled. THAT IS ALSO THE POINT WITH WEB-ACESSIBILITY.
So why should you make your bird-watcher site accessible? (Even if you have the right not to do it). My answer is that you should do it without asking, because it takes you just a few minutes and because "you'll never know".
I guess thats not the answer you are looking for, so Im going to give you some other reasons (Note that this is not a complete list. The point with accessibel design is that you plan for situations you cant predict):
* Mobile users. A real bird watcher site should be availiable from the field. You should anticipate that some of you power users accessing the site using a Nokia 9210 Communicator, or maybe even a 3510i or maybe even a newer model. If you follow the w3c accessibily guidelines your site will be readeable. If you dont think about accessibilty, and choose to design for the most common browser, you fail to serve your customers when they really need you.
* Search engines, robots etc. A very important part of web-accessibility is making all information availiable textual (not using only images for important information). That also ensures that the search enignes can index everything on your site.
* Slow connections. If you have a picture heavy site, some of your users, might choose to turn off images. For instance just turning it on when they have found the image of the bird they are looking for. By making the site accessibel, you have made sure that this is possible.
* Temporarily disabled users. One of your bird watchers might have fallen down from a tree. Spending lots and lots of time in his hospital bed surfing the web using a voice controlled system. Have you made your system generally accessibel, he will be able to do that.
I could come up with lots of examples. The point is: You'll never know.
Of course you should have the right to ignore this segment of the marked. Chances are however that using just a few minutes making the site accessibel will be worth it.
You just don't get it, do you? (Score:3, Interesting)
This does not have the slightest impact on the ability to design a page. There is no page out there which could not be coded in an accessible manner. It's just a matter of getting people to do it.
And incidentally, you may find that coding your page in an accessible manner opens up new possibilities, if you're willing to look at them. Everyone knows, for example, about the visual styling properties of CSS. Not many know about the aural styling properties; you can set voice, tone, speed, even apparent position. And there's even some interesting stuff you can do with Braille in CSS, if you really want to. Or don't; as long as the information gets through that's the important thing, so you don't have to design this part of it if you don't want to. But the possibilities... oh, the possibilities...
Government eating their own dogfood? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Does anyone else have a problem with this???? (Score:3, Interesting)
-- is designed as a place of *public
-- accomadation*, then it must be accessable
-- to all the *public*. That's the key word.
-And what about those people who can't read?
-Should someone care about them too or they
-are less important than blinds?
I understand that you are making a joke here, but you hit upon an important point and the fact that your extreme example is a real concern should be a hint that maybe you can't just dismiss accessibility issues with a reductio ad absurdum.
Many people who cannot read or experience difficulty reading do so because of a learning disability such as dyslexia. The ADA also deals with people with learning disabilities and designing a site to conform to section 508 or the W3Cs Web Accessibility Initiative will ensure that your site is accessible to those people who cannot read as well. How? Through a screen-reader, the exact same device that someone who is blind would use.
Also, making your site accessible will make it available to people who do not speak the language in which it was written because a site that is accessible is a site that can be fed to the Fish.
The point is that many more people than you might think use assistive technology and the minimal effort required to make a website accessibile is rewarded many times over in terms of ease of use.
Re:Lemme guess... (Score:2, Interesting)
In a lot of the database-driven apps I've done, I find the page-to-page paradigm (did I just say that?) really breaks down, and I'd rather just use a Flash interface to keep things consistent.
I point to
Re:crazy laws (Score:2, Interesting)
The fact of the matter is that from a pure dollar-value point of view, it will almost never make sense to make your website accessible, because blind people are such a small proportion of the population. That's the beauty of government. It gives that small minority bargaining power against the invisible hand. Essentially, when Congress passes a website accessibility law, it's the People of the United States telling you that it's important to serve the disadvantaged. (I realize that Congress is increasingly more subservient to corporate interests, but it hardly seems that the Americans with Disabilities Act is in the interest of our corporate masters, which is why I feel confident attributing it to the People of the United States for once).
Re:Why buy the book... (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been reading the book off and on over the last two months. There's a lot of useful material in the book that guidelines don't cover, like legal precedents and tackling some of the myths raised against accessibility. Its practical in some aspects too and complements, not replaces, guidlines such as WCAG and RNIB.
From Someone On Both Sides (Score:3, Interesting)
First, a bit of background on what I've learned over the past few years. I was born with a few visual defects, but I could still get around with a good set of glasses. Over the years, my vision has steadily degenerated, partly from the stiffening of the eye muscles, partly from a bad accident in my younger years. Now I can't see out of one eye, and only see a monochrome image in 20 degrees of vision, where a normal person can see about 120 degrees.
My second year in college, I became friends with someone who was completely blind. He's an excellent writer, and has publications in a few magazines (don't recall which, though). However, when his printer's error light started blinking one night, he called me on the phone and wanted me to fix it. It was out of paper, but because the printer was old, it wasn't telling the computer what the problem was*. He couldn't fix the machine because it wasn't telling him what was wrong. All he knew was that he hit print and nothing was happening.
As for some of the comments about forcing standards on people's creativity, consider many of the real-life standards from the ADA. When you go to a major store such as a shopping mall or a Wal-Mart, how often do you see several handicapped parking spaces or a small ramp on the sidewalk on the sidewalk? Those are the kinds of adaptations the ADA covers. The people who design the blueprints have standards they adhere to to make the building accessible, so they do it in the beginning. It's not like companies make them do it unwillingly, but they just do it.
In a response to someone who said that disabled people shouldn't complain because they get fat disability checks: I'd love to hear how you define "fat". I get a disability check because of my visual problems and Asperger's Syndrome. I get ~$170 a month. My rent is around $650, but is subsidized down to around $200. Given that I also have to pay for utilities, transport, food, Internet access, and other basics, how do you explain how I shouldn't have to worry? I want to work, but the last 10 jobs I interviewed for were turned down for other people. I don't want people to bend over backwards to accomodate for me. I want to live independantly.
Overall, the comments on this article are interesting to read. Some people understand that this about reasonable acomodation. Others feel this is about requiring people to crimp their writing styles for people they may never meet. It's not about that. There's a difference between making Internet portals and information archives accessible and making Sally's "This Is A Picture Of My Cat" page universally accessible. Businesses have handicapped parking spaces and ramps. Your house probably doesn't.
*Before anyone jumps on how the guy should've had a better printer, many of the people I worked with don't have the latest tech because they cannot afford the new computers. Thus, they get help from an agency that trains them in adaptive technology. Most of the computers they give people are whatever people donate to the agency or are found in second-hand sales. They get funding from the government and independant donations. Think of things like this when you complain about paying for taxes
Not just for blind (Score:4, Interesting)
A good example of an accessible site is the one for the School for the Blind. [k12.ma.us]
I don't think Flash should go away, but designers need to decide when is an appropriate time to use it. Games sites like NickJr.com [nickjr.com] and PBS Kids [pbskids.org] make good use of Flash and shockwave(I have kids). But band sites and company sites that are all in Flash do little but get real annoying fast and alienate those who can't use the site.
Wired [wired.com] just recently did a complete redesign of their site to follow Web standards and use XHTML and CSS. More info is here [wired.com].
How to Test? (Score:3, Interesting)
---
A computer without Windows is like a race car without an entertainment system.
Re:Lemme guess... (Score:2, Interesting)
I am web designer for a small Northern California company, and I chose to use highly descriptive ALT tags on everything - even spacer images.
I'm aware that it doesn't help screen readers or people who browse without graphics, and LYNX as well; and I'm not happy about that. My aim has always been accessibility and platform-agnosticism, which is part of the reason I use Opera (Mouse gestures being the other part).
But look at the company's viewpoint - they want to be found in search engines, they want it so bad they can taste it. It's my JOB to do everything I can to get our Google ranking higher. Among other methods I employ to further this pursuit, filling ALT tags with keyword-rich text is one that is theorized as a good way to get this done.
If everybody else stopped doing it, I probably could, because then nobody would have an unfair advantage over me. But if other people do it, I have a choice: A) Don't sink to their level and allow myself to be buried in search results, or B) Do the same thing and maintain an advantage.
So, here I am, betraying a principle I believe in so I can pay my DSL bill every month. I'm not proud of it, but what would you do in my situation?
Re:Accessibity, in a nutshell: do it (Score:3, Interesting)
Web designers have great difficulty in taking responsibility for anything - that's why they are web designers and not artists or authors. They've spent years pretending they have a profession.
Now that people are expecting a professional service (how dare they!), web designers are compelled to avoid doing the right thing as much as possible. So they need to pretend its incredibly difficult, incredibly expensive, doesn't apply, leads to bloat, the browsers can do all the work.
Its about the unwillingness to take responsibility.
And thank you for an excellent post.