Too much accessibility?

I've become increasingly aware lately that in some cases we can go overboard in our attempts to make online information accessible. Much is said about a lack of accessibility, but I also believe it's possible to add too much. What we are striving for is Aristotle's Golden Mean, the middle way, treading a line between something inaccessible and something with so many added features for "the disabled" that they themselves become unusable.
Last week I was looking into a query for a student about a questionnaire she was trying to fill in online. She's profficient in using JAWS (although she's not a huge fan and is looking into trying out Window Eyes), but was having trouble with the drop down menus ("combo boxes" in JAWS speak). So I thought I'd try it out and discovered a few issues:

1. You need to go into Forms mode in JAWS to access the Combo Boxes (that was my error, not theirs!)
2. The way the questionnaire was laid out meant when scrolling through it the screenreader read firstly the text of the question, then the question again because it was repeated in the combo box.
3. Most of the items in the drop down list began with the same letter - D for Dept or F for Faculty or BA in XXX or MA in XXX - not good when you can't see easily and have to listen.
4. The items again were repeated twice, meaning that a lag could occur. If, when I heard the item read the first time and moved onto the next, it would continue to read the previous item because the text is as I said, repeated twice. Now I can tell if what it's reading to me is not what is on the screen, but the student had to get someone to check and go through it again to make sure she'd picked the right options.

Putting in alt text is only worthwhile if it adds to the information you are giving. I've been reading some interesting blogs on too much accessibility. By far the best is a presentation, with slides and accompanying audio by Patrick Lauke at Salford University. Take 40 minutes and listen to it. It will be worth your while. He talks about coding and mentions amongst other things:

1. Alt text - being overexplicit and the pitfalls we end up in (like prefixing images with "photograph of") - see also Mike Cherim's Blog on Alt Text
   
2. Title attributes - how best to use them - and that you don't need to use "link to:" or repeat information
3. Default text in forms - that you don't need it because screenreaders can cope with blank fields
4. Accesskeys - whether or not they are such a good idea (I don't think they are. Along with skip links they are invariably invisible on the page so they can only be used with screenreaders and they often conflict with the keys that technology already uses)
5. Textsize Widgets - those buttons you can use to increase text size on a page, although you can already use your browser for this function - and to quote Patrick "Text size widgets are evil and Patrick hates them..."
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Even if you don't know the coding, it gives you an idea of how assistive technology works in conjunction with online information.

It all reminds me of a mnemonic I use quite a lot: KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid.

All in a Twitter

I've just discovered Twitter. It really is a nifty little thing and quite addictive, although it's rather like the status updates in Facebook which I use more often, and which more of my friends use. Having said that, I'm not going to rule out the obvious advantages this application has for immediacy and ease of access from mobile phones, which at least 90% if not more of the population must have. Before you ask, yes, you can get mobile phones if you're visually impaired (you can also use a mobile for something other than texting or looking up the internet - phones were originally invented to allow voice communications after all). The RNIB has an information sheet on accessible mobile phones which is worth looking at.

So how does Twitter fare with JAWS? Pretty well it has to be said:

1. It's easy to navigate around, with a simple layout, that shouldn't put anyone off using it.
2. There is some repetition of words in JAWS, probably owing to information in the alt text field, so that when you go to sign-in it says "Please sign in, please sign in user name edit" and "Please sign in password, password edit". It's good to have the alt text, but the repetition gets a bit annoying. A case of over accessibilitising (if that's a word?)
3. There are icons you can click on to add tweets to your favourites list as well as delete. These are nice and clear when you look at them on the screen. Rolling the mouse over them also gives nice alt text, but when JAWS reads, all you get is "icon underscore star underscore empty" and "icon underscore trash". Having looked at the underlying source code this is because the title is favourite this update or delete this update while the img_alt is icon_star_empty and icon_trash. I don't know if there's a way to change my JAWS settings to allow it to read the title or if it wouldn't make more sense to change the img_alt to the same as title?
4. Couldn't seem to input my phone number easily when JAWS was on. It kept telling me that there were no heading 4's on the page when all I wanted to type was +44 to start off my phone number. Is this a JAWS setting issue or the application? I know the navigation quick key for heading 4 is the number 4, but even when I went into Forms mode to add the numbers, it didn't switch off.
   

All in all, it's nicely set out and simple. Plus there is the added joy that the graphic alt text for the profile pictures is the same as your user name. You can avoid those annoying numbers that appear in Facebook - just as long as you can remember what snazzy name your friends chose...

Disability in a virtual world

Having been pointed from Brian Kelly's blog to an interesting video on youtube about a mobility impaired Second Life user, I found this news article about a paralysed man walking in second life really fascinating.

Proof that Web 2.0 isn't just about social networking and throwing sheep at your friends in Facebook.

Is disability only an issue in the non-virtual world? About time it wasn't.

Spoke too soon....

.... seems there was a little crash the other day in exams..... wondering if anyone else has issues with JAWS - I've never had anything other than some sluggishness with the internet....

Supporting students in exams - lessons learnt!

I learnt a lot this week. One lesson that I firmly believe in has been reaffirmed. That you can only really learn by doing and that when a thing goes wrong, it's invariably at the most inconvenient time.

Today is day 2 of a student sitting exams with JAWS. So far so good, no phone calls to tell me it's packed in and collapsed and the student has been hauled off with stress. I'm pleased.

Day 1 involved no crash of equipment either, just a few niggles and they would come when I was in the midst of trying to sort out coffees and teas for a meeting. (How the venue could have thought that it was at 5 and not 3, I don't know, when I had it in writing from them that all would be well at 3!!!)

Yesterday I sat for 2 hours and fiddled around with dear old JAWS and fixed it. I'd say I knew a lot more about it now than I did even 2 days ago.

• Always have a back-up computer in exams for students sitting them with assistive software
• Always save work regularly. If you can link it to a server, even better, but transfer to a safe computer and print it out too. You can never be too careful.
• Reassure people, especially student, and non-familiar IT and college staff, that the world won't collapse if JAWS talks in a slightly odd voice.
  
• Work on improving the situation for next year!
  

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?