Been a while

This Blog has been at the back of my mind since September and I realised with horror that I hadn't posted anything since August 20th! This doesn't mean I've not been thinking about issues relating to Web 2.0, accessibility and assistive technology. Far from it, it just means I've moved jobs! To Leeds University Equality Service - an exciting new job and one with loads of new challenges.

I did wonder at first if I'd have time to do any assistive techie stuff seeing as the job doesn't really have any of that in it's description, but, in my own way, I've made sure I've got access to JAWS (ah, Daniel, I knew you'd come back into my life!) and I've also been drafted onto IT Accessibility meetings with our IT Accessibility Officer. He'sbeen looking at accessibility of University software - anything from the giant HR system to the VLE. There's not much difference between Oxford and Leeds really - the big companies still don't give much thought to accessibility until afterwards.

However, some emails earlier this morning made me wonder if we might get somewhere with the VLE. They've recently moved from a nice accessible in-house created VLE to a bought in service which isn't accessible (probably best for me not to get started on why they did this!) , but the high heid yins in this bought-in service have agreed to meet up and discuss accessibility - maybe I shouldn't be so quick to judge commercial companies?? Let's see how we get on - and once I get JAWS back up and running, I'll have a wee play around with it too..... always like to be prepared!

Making it accessible from the start

I wanted to talk about basic accessibility and maybe point some of you towards good advice on creating accessible learning resources. Slightly off tack with Web 2.0, but not hugely, and if it drops you back to Web 2.0 by a round about route, so much the better!

When you're writing something, your aim is to get your information across as clearly as possible, isn't it? You're making it 'accessible' to your readers, whoever and wherever they are. You want to make sure everyone can read it. So when it comes to writing it and publishing it online you want to think about those who may not be able to read it in standard print and may use screenreaders or other assistive technology. So....

1. Basic text/Word document - Microsoft may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's the Word processing system a vast majority of people use. This is where you can start to build in accessibility. Assistive software like JAWS makes use of the Headings and Styles you get in Word documents. Although I've yet to use OpenOffice, the open source document writer, it also has the ability to implement styles and headings, and should also work with JAWS (something I'll try out later). So when you're writing your document/information you want to get across, have thought about it's layout, you really want to use those Headings and Styles. The best information I've come across so far in creating accessibility in Word docs is the TechDis Accessibility Essentials series. I learnt a lot from these and have taken all of their advice on board. It's simple and easy to add in Headings and Styles from the very beginning and can make a huge difference to people who may just need to adjust the size of the font, to those who use assistive technology. Let's stop using computers as typewriters and make the most of them!
2. PDF documents - If you've already created your document using Word or another Text based document writer, converting it into an Adobe PDF file is easy with Adobe Standard or Adobe Professional. All of your headings will be kept and it will be accessible with screen readers. Adobe have been improving their accessibility in recent years. PDF image files are frowned upon, and although some users of assistive technology can make use of them, if they have OCR conversion software such as Kurzweil, don't make them available publicly on a website unless you want lots of angry complaints!
3. Web pages - In general, if as above, you consider the structure of your information and make sure you have headings defined you will be on the way to improving accessibility. The move these days, I think, is towards XHTML, CSS and XML. These all build on HTML, and whilst not an expert in their use, I can see that XHTML is a cleaner form of mark-up language and that Cascading Style Sheets [CSS] provide an excellent opportunity for adding accessibility and making life easier for the web author. There are a wealth of resources on adding accessibility into your web pages, but don't just think about making sure it gets those little ticks by sticking it through the validator, think as well about the visual impact, how it's laid out, whether you can change the font size and what the font looks like. The RNIB have some nice helpful documents and also will do web accessibility testing for you and run training courses. Their Clearprint information is worthwhile.

There's quite a few good websites dedicated to making websites accessible. Using a search engine and a few search terms, such as 'web accessibility' or 'writing accessible web pages' should yield some interesting results. The ones I discovered:

• Webcredible - user experience, usability, accessibility design services. Seems all eminently sensible.
• Web Accessibility Initiative - from W3C, the place where the web accessibility guidelines get developed. Can be a bit tecchie.
• Zanet - Accessible Web Business - I've stuck this in because the font size is so tiny! If you're going to advocate writing accessible webpages, lead by example!
• Website accessibility and disability discrimination - gives some sound and basic advice on different disabilities. Also mentions the only case so far to mention web accessibility, that of the Sydney Olympic Organising Committee, who were taken to court for not implementing an accessible website.

Web accessibility is surprisingly easy, but it does involve thinking about structure and not just the visual design. Good design though, includes accessibility, giving everyone the same opportunity to find out the same information.

An interesting experiment

Well, I did what I said I was going to do, try out JAWS with various bits of Web 2.0 applications. Was it all a pointless application? Did I learn anything? I certainly think I did.

1. I need to have more patience. If I needed to use this technology tomorrow, it would take me a lot longer to navigate round web pages. I'm so used to quickly looking at the page I'm on and finding my way by sight, it's suddenly a totally different learning experience to using your ears instead.
   
2. There's an awful lot you have to listen too because there's an awful lot of information on web pages and not all of it necessary. I found it frustrating to be greeted by the same navigation list every time I went to another page when all I wanted was to read what was in the main body of text. Happily though, I discovered the wonders of short cut keys to skip between headings and lists of links. They make a huge difference.
3. Alt text, alt text, please add alt text!! I found quite a few pages where graphics had no alt text. It's important, and not only for people who use screenreaders. On days when I'm not, it's still helpful to know what the picture stands for!
4. Some pages I went to (I did flit around other sites in between faffing with Facebook) had 'Skip To' links but these were only accessible with screenreading software. Please don't hide these! Some people who rely on other accessibility software may find it useful. Having said that though, it can be a hindrance when you are using screenreaders as they can sometimes conflict with other shortcut keys the programme uses.

The internet and all web 2.0 applications give everyone the opportunity to socialise, network, interact, find information, learn more and meet others, shouldn't web developers make sure everyone can? Shouldn't we be open to talking to those who use accessibility tools? The internet is an open tool, you cannot decide how someone wants to use it and access the information, shouldn't we develop it accordingly?
The internet is interactive, shouldn't we all interact to improve it?

LibraryThing and JAWS

I like librarything.com. I think it's actually a very useful social cataloguing tool. I wish all cataloguing were quite so simple (remember I'm a librarian in disguise) and easy to follow. I've even got an account and started to catalogue my own collection - that way I may have a chance of finally remembering which Ellis Peters I have when I'm not in the house to check on the shelf.



So as a last test, I'm trying this out with JAWS. On the plus side when I went to the webpage, it instantly took me to the login so I could log in.



Some things about Librarything.com:

1. Columns: Sometimes JAWS doesn't work with columns very well. It often reads from left to right ignoring that the left hand column is a list of navigation links and that the right hand column is filled with information. You can get some interesting sentences that way! Although most of the columns seem to be tables, which makes navgating easier - T in the JAWS Quick Navigation will take you to the next table and tabbing will allow you to move through the lists. Ctrl+Inst+T will give a list of all the tables.


2. Tables: I mentioned Tables a bit above. I think I actually might be getting better at navigating through tables! Hurrah! I find it easier to listen to and navigate through it. There are not as many tables in librarything.com as there are in Facebook which is a definite bonus. It also seems much cleaner and easier to navigate around.


3. Alt text: Again there's no alt text for the book covers so you get a large string of numbers which makes you kind of wonder what on earth you're listening to. Still it reads out the columns well and the stars for reviews come out as "graphic star" which is a bonus.

All in all, perhaps it's a combination of my increasing navigation skills with JAWS, but I didn't find librarything.com too bad with JAWS, which proves that something simple can be beneficial to librarianship.

I've done what I said I would do earlier on in this blog and I'm going to take some time to mull over my experiences and blog some more about my general thoughts later on.

Del.icio.us and JAWS

Today I thought I'd try out that nifty little social bookmarking site known as Del.icio.us with JAWS. I was more pleasantly surprised than irked for a change! I have to say I'm learning a lot about navigating the web without sight and it's helping my JAWS knowledge as well. Whoever would have thought I'd be able to spend so much time using Web 2.0 at work and it be relevant!



OK, some things about Del.icio.us:

1. Navigation - not bad! Not heavy on graphics and quite linear so JAWS read through lists quite happily. I managed to get to the login page and login and read my pathetic three links. Only niggle is the vertical bar which separates the navigation links at the top and occassionally elsewhere on the page- aggggghhhhhh!!!! It reads out as "vertical bar" and is quite annoying!


2. Missing heading number 2 - when I went through the headings list, there seems to be no mention of heading level 2. Heading level 1 and heading level 3 and 4 are all present and correct, but not heading level 2. Seems that they have not considered that they could change the size of the headings so that they could use the heading levels correctly.
3. They do have alt text for the images, but this then unfortunately means that there are a lot of repeated links when JAWS is just running through the page for the first time.

In general I thought it worked OK with JAWS. Nothing is ever going to be perfect and it's certainly easier to navigate around than Facebook and there is not the heavy reliance on tables as others. The real niggle is that vertical bar - is it really necessary? Would anyone notice if it went missing?

Facebook and JAWS

Facebook is one of the giants of social networking. I spent a happy half hour or so attempting not to look at my computer screen and instead listen to the delightful sounds of "Daniel" (he's my favourite voice, not unlike Cary Grant, if he'd been a computer) telling me what I was navigating through. It's interesting not being able to see it and have to rely on other senses instead and it threw up some interesting points:

1. There's an awful lot of tables in Facebook. All those different boxes on the page with friend information, the Wall, the feed list, they're all tables. I'm not terribly au fait with accessing tables with JAWS, but it got quite annoying (I have my verbosity settings high) after a while.



2. I am not a number!! There is, as some of you may be aware, nothing in the way of alt text for the pictures, instead it reads as a very long number. In effect you get a link to a person's profile through the picture, but you don't know who the person is because it's just a number....



3. There's lots in the way of duplicate links on the page, because of the links on the feed, the Wall and Friends list. Hitting Ins+F7 gives a very very very long list indeed (often with many many numbers!)!



4. When I put JAWS in "Say All" mode, it read from left to right across the page from the applications links, skipping out the picture in the middle to read the personal information. On a friend's page this made for very strange reading - going from "Events" to hearing what their religious convictions were!
   

I'm a novice JAWS user and maybe regular users would navigate round it quicker. On the other hand, not all assistive technology users are expert (think about how many people don't know how to use Word correctly but use it every day!) but most websites are easier to navigate because they are less dynamic and tend to have a more linear structure (if they're written correctly!). It wasn't impossible to navigate around the page, but it was quirky.

There's a lot to be said for social networking. I make use of it and I certainly do not wish to halt its progress, but I would like to see it easier to use for those who rely on assistive technology.

There are a some accessibility groups on F'book who are trying to improve the situation:

• The Official Pettition for a more accessible Facebook



• Accessible Web Developers

There are various other reports:

• State of the eNation report on social networking - which points out various accessibility issues.


• AFB Report on CAPTCHA images in social networking sites

The BBC's accessibility blog had an interesting point to make "we all need to consider ourselves as TAB (Temporarily Able Bodied) and then design accordingly. " It's good practice and I'd highly recommend any web developers to have some basic knowledge of screenreaders and take the time to hear how a website or application "sounds".

User friendliness and screenreaders

Anyone creating online information in the form of a web page will run it through an HTML/XHTML/XML/CSS validator, the most ubiquitous being the W3C Validator (I've used it too!) or Bobby (which seems to have been taken over by IBM and is no longer publicly available).

It's a great idea to make sure that the information can be read by those who use assistive technology (although I worry that those XHTML Valid buttons seem to have taken over as a way of saying "Look at me, I'm accessible", when the website looks as if it's been written by Jackson Pollock and anything but "accessible" ... I'll rant about "accessibility" another time).

Can the same be said for Web 2.0 applications? How well do they work with screenreaders? I thought I'd take my knowledge of using JAWS and put it to the test. I'm not visually impaired, but I have had conversations with a JAWS user who spends a lot of time online. She also assured me that she'd never had any trouble using (or buying from!) amazon.co.uk - I'd heard it was something of an accessibility nightmare.

So, where to start. I thought I'd take some Web 2.0 applications and see what I can come up with using JAWS (I'll also trawl around the web to see if anyone else has some info on these). Here's my basic list to start with:

1. Facebook (it'll give me an excuse to play with it at work!)
2. Librarything.com - see above for excuse!
3. Del.icio.us - not too enamoured of this, but it could be useful

So I'll let you know how I get on.