As public institutions we all have legal statements (sometimes called justice statements) that in some part say that we cannot discriminate. Public institutions have taken great strides to ensure that their facilities, publications, and other information is accessible in accordance with the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. The web, up to now, has been overlooked when accessibility issues have been considered. By designing a page that is built according to the World Wide Consortium Guidelines, your pages will be more ADA compliant, but they will also be more universally accessible to all browsers, now and in the future.
Consider these facts:
1996 Chartbook on Disability in the United States estimates that "19.4%
of noninstitutionalized civilians in the United States, totaling 48.9 million
people, have a disability. Almost half of these people (an estimated 24.1 million
people) can be considered to have a severe disability." -- Source www.infouse.com/disabilitydata/p4.textgfx.html
According to Georgia Tech's GVU WWW Survey (April 1998), approximately eight
percent of web users have a disability. Nearly half of those users are blind
or visually impaired. For more details check out the GVU WWW site at: www.gvu.gatech.edu/user_surveys/.
An article in WebReview by Joseph Lazzaro entitled, "Making the Internet
accessible for persons of all abilities," (September 4, 1998) states "According
to the United States government statistics, there are about 35 million persons
in the country with physical, sensory, or cognitive disabilities. The World
Health Organization puts the figures for worldwide disability numbers much higher
-- at around 750 million." --Source www.webreview.com/1998/09_04/index.shtml
An article by the Washington Post on August 24, 2000 discusses what changes
may be ahead since all federal agencies will begin making their Web sites accessible.
(washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13415-2000Aug23.html). Thanks to Daphne
Earley of the National 4-H Council for this information.
Legal issues
Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act and the 1990 Americans with Disabilities
Act state that "No otherwise qualified individual with a disability shall,
solely by reason of his/her disability, be excluded from the participation in,
be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program
or activity of a public entity."
Section 508 (Information Technology and People with Disabilities) amendment
to the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 "requires that Federal agencies'
electronic and information technology is accessible to people with disabilities,
including employees and members of the public." Originally, this change
was to be effective August 7, 2000, however, a change was announced moving the
date for making Federal Web sites accessible to six months after the guidelines
are released. The Access Board released it's guidelines on December 21, 2000.
Therefore the guidelines must be met by June 21, 2001. More information on Section
508 can be found www.access-board.gov. News reports outlining the changes are
located at www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/12/22/federal.access.rules.idg/index.html.
An article in WebReview states that "Americans with Disabilities Act and
other federal regulations require public entities to provide an accessible environment
for their consumers and patrons. This can include Web sites of public institutions
such as schools, libraries, government agencies; any public entity receiving
state or federal funds; and the list is growing." -- Source www.webreview.com/1998/09_04/index.shtml
BitLaw - www.bitlaw.com/internet/ is a good resource for legal internet information.
The Sydney Olympic Committee has lost a ruling regarding the accessibility of
the www.olympics.com site that was created by IBM for them. The article originally
appeared on MSNBC's web site. Information on the case can be found at www.contenu.nu/socog.html
or at www.zdnet.com/zdnn/special/olympics2000.html Thanks to Carol Nathan at
the U.S. Department of Agriculture for sharing this information.
Accessibility in the Evolving Information Environment from the federal government
- www.itpolicy.gsa.gov/cita/sect1_2.htm
Laws and Legislation information from the National Federation of the Blind -
www.nfb.org/law/legslatn.htm
NetLitigation - www.netlitigation.com/netlitigation
The John Marshall Law School - Cyberspace law site at www.jmls.edu/cyber/index/index.html
Barriers for audiences using your web pages
Visual barriers
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), in 1996 over eight million Americans had a visual impairment . (www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/disable.htm). Blindness is not the only vision concern. An aging population that is wearing bifocals, trifocals and experiencing cataracts, glaucoma and other site related problems are increasingly using the Web to get information. Color blindness and partial or low vision also limit the color ranges and contrasts that a person can see. It is important that we don't forget that some web designs may make it harder for our audiences/clients to read. Some examples include using small text, using white text on dark backgrounds, and using images that have hard to read text or no text at all or using a background image that overwhelms your page like a site at Washington State University (www.mme.wsu.edu/asme/index.html).
Solutions include using light backgrounds (without patterns), standard size and type of fonts, and clear and obvious images. It is also important to use appropriate layout and design pages that will be accessibile.
Audio barriers
The CDC says in 1996 approximately 22 million Americans had hearing (Source - www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/disable.htm ). Audio files on the web are inaccessible to the deaf or hearing impaired. Other barriers may include the lack of plug-ins, the need for a sound card and speakers. Another barrier is the lack of quality when recording audio for the web. No matter how good your speakers are, if the recorded quality is not good, your product will not be acceptable to your audience.
Solutions include putting audio files into text format (using out takes if necessary) and using text descriptions for the audio portions of a video clip.
Learning or cognitive barriers
The inability to read text and especially the inability to "click" on a link is a problem for those with learning or cognitive barriers. Problems also exist when a person cannot tell what is a link and what is not a link (examples would include underlined text that is not a link or image maps).
Possible solutions include using a graphic icon (in addition to a text link) and using default colored links. Other options include using the underline option only for links. In the Activity section of this lesson, you will do an exercise to see how your web site works if you have a cognitive barrier.
Economic barriers
Economic barriers may be the hardest barrier to overcome. While many internet users do have excellent computers, our audiences or clients do not always have the most up-to-date equipment. The rural poor are the least connected to the Internet; they are also more likely to have older computers and slower access.
Keep in mind the following when designing your web pages
Older computers - not everyone has a Pentium III.
Older versions of browsers. It has been noted that one of the most irritating
things about web pages is the "Best View with XXX Browser" comment.
There should be a very good reason before you start designing pages that are
best viewed in only one version of a browser.
Slower modems. While the most common speed is now 28.8 and is starting to move
up, many people are still connecting with 14.4 modems. Even if your ISP offers
56K connections, many rural phone lines have not been upgraded to handle the
higher speeds. The average person is willing to wait for up to 15 seconds for
a page to load.
Long Distance phone calls. A couple of years ago, making a long distance call
to your ISP was not uncommon (especially in rural areas of many states). Many
rural areas still are without local access.
You may believe that your audience doesn't have these type of problems, but
if your audience includes:
Schools
Libraries
Public labs
Extension offices
Rural areas
International users
Economically challenged
Then your audience/clients do have barriers that may limit their access to your information.
Management
Management (or university adminstrations) may not feel that the disabled are their "target market." This belief is very disappointing, but it does exist. An article on ZDNet states that between 95 and 99 percent of sites are inaccessible to the visually, hearing and/or mobility-impaired. Analysts saying ignoring the disabled user is not only unnecessary, but it's bad business.
Solution - sell management on having a web site that will reach the largest number of people (or potential audience).
Designers
Many times web or graphic designers feel that by making a web site accessible it will be boring, have no graphics and not allow for any creativity. Nothing could be further from the truth! A well-designed accessible web site can be effective to the client or audience, visually pleasing and still meet accessibility guidelines. It may take a little more knowledge and effort, but it is time well spent.
Special technologies
There are many ways for the disabled to get around many of the barriers on the web. There are technologies that the disabled can use to navigate. But, the authors of the pages need to take these users into account when they create pages. Some of the special technologies can make the web accessible come in the form of free downloadable plug-ins, software that has to be purchased and even hardware that is added on to your computer. Each type of special technology brings its own set of issues related to web page design.
Screen readers
A screen reader is a software program that allows a blind person to listen to text on the screen and identify some graphics like buttons on a toolbar or icons on the Desktop. A person hears the information from a speech synthesizer or the computer's sound card.
For more information on how a screen reader works, check out the Iowa Department for the Blind web site at www.blind.state.ia.us/access/how.htm
Braille display
Some people use a refreshable Braille display rather than listening to the information. A Braille display is not like a computer screen. Usually, it is placed near or under the keyboard. The screen reader sends the information on the screen to the Braille display. A Braille display is helpful to persons who are deaf and blind or to those who work at jobs that require them to talk on the phone to customers. -- Source Iowa Department for the Blind.
Plug-Ins, Freeware and Shareware
The Acrobat Access plug-in converts PDF files on a user's local system into
plain text, which can then be read by screen reading programs.
The CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) has developed such
a tool, the Media Access Generator (MAGpie), for distribution in SDKs, on the
Web, CD-ROM and other methods. Funding for MAGpie comes from the Trace Research
and Development Center at the University of Wisconsin, as part of its Information
Technology Access Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center which itself is
funded by the U.S. Department of Education's National Institute on Disability
and Rehabilitation Research.
Using MAGpie, authors can add captions to three multimedia formats: Apple's
QuickTime, the World Wide WebConsortium's Synchronized Multimedia Integration
Language (SMIL) and Microsoft's Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange (SAMI)
format. MAGpie can also integrate audio descriptions into SMIL presentations.
The following information was found at the Virtual Assistive Technology Center's web page. It lists freeware/shareware downloads for assistive technology.