Web Site Accessibility Blog

I rarely like to bring politics into the realm of work. It just seems to be one of those things that doesn’t make for good small-talk. People can be very emotional in their support or criticism of parties, candidates or issues, and I can completely understand.

Rather than simply having respectful discourse, it tends to circle the toilet of name-calling and savage attacks, in which the media tends to fall into silent complicity. I long for the days of open debates and statesmanship, when party affiliation wasn’t as important as answering to those who elected you.

What I don’t understand is why this ad was produced by a campaign without first doing some research:

What is lacking is critical research as to WHY John McCain doesn’t use computers or email, such as the Boston Globe provided in a March 4, 2000 article:

“McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain’s severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes.”

Anyone familiar with the history of ecommerce knows the strong part that McCain has played in keeping internet ecommerce free from Federal taxation. To suggest ignorance of these issues based solely on the premise of not using computers or email is irresponsible. It’s not like he pulled a Ted Stevens with his “Internets are not like trucks, they are a series of tubes” gem.

I do not like attack ads from either side, and i don’t like to get political, but this is below the belt, and just plain ignorance. Both sides have been pretty light on issues-based rhetoric, but I’m a little more sensitive to ones that recklessly try to make a point at the expense of a disability. This is what politics has denigrated to?

Webcredible got some press recently with their survey of UK retailer websites. According to their study, 35% of retailers fail to meet the Disability Discrimination Act. In disabled access tests, the average score was 57%, but H Samuel topped the list with a 76% accessibility rating.

Webcredible offers the the details of this December 2007 report as a PDF, “Accessibility for Ecommerce High Street Retailers 2007“, free with email registration.

Courtesy: Good Experience Blog

The number one reason to build an accessible website (or to be accessible, no matter what the subject): You lose money, and potential customers have bad experiences.

Good Experience Blog shows an experience at Bloomingdales when a father with a stroller asks a store clerk if there is an elevator. The clerk replies: “No. There’s an escalator over there.”

Why is this customer experience broken? Let me count the the ways.

• Bloomingdale’s, a major retailer spread across many floors, has only one elevator accessible from its Lexington Avenue entrance.

• The clerk, upon seeing a customer in need, suggests an irrelevant solution and then goes back to work.

• There is no acknowledgment that this is an inconvenience – not the clerk, not even the sign. Customers who can’t climb stairs or stand on an escalator – customers in wheelchairs, parents with strollers – are just out of luck.

This could be humorous, if it weren’t so despicable and thoughtless:

A wheelchair ramp goes to a landing with more stairs at a courthouse in St. Petersburg, Florida. Unfortunately, I have experienced these types of situations with family members who have been in wheelchairs.

How many websites do you know of that provide just enough accessibility to get to the inaccessible features?

Matt Bailey, founder of the AccessibilityBlog.com, will present an Accessibility and Usability training class in London. The four-hour class will take place on February 22nd from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM at the Business Design Center, 52 Upper Street, Islington.

The class will focus on the development of accessible,yet usable websites. Many times, organizations focus on the accessibility of a website or intranets, yet overlook the aspects of usability. In some cases, programming meant to improve usability may be contradictory to user expectations. User testing, practical applications, and case studies will be presented and discussed.

The class is offered in conjunction with the Search Engine Strategies Conference and Training Classes. The Search Conference will be held from the 19th-21st, with intensives offered on the 22nd. Bailey will also be speaking on Search-Friendly Design in the Tuesday session.

Matt Bailey is president and founder of SiteLogic Marketing and an internationally recognized authority on search engine marketing, website analytics, usability, and accessibility. As a consulting and training company, SiteLogic focuses on helping organizations and site owners take control of their websites and their web marketing plans.

With over a decade in the web marketing industry, Matt excels in combining his marketing background with programming know-how to help companies create comprehensive strategies that improve internet presence and profitability.

Sought after worldwide as a seminar presenter and teacher; Matt speaks regularly for The Direct Marketing Association; Search Engine Strategies Conferences and Training; the American Advertising Federation, and private training seminars. Matt is known for his conversational, entertaining speaking style and his ability to make technical topics both understandable and practical.

Matt oversees The Direct Marketing Association’s SEO Training Program and is the trainer for the DMA’s Web Marketing Seminar. He has consulted with hundreds of companies and government agencies.

You can register and find more information at the Search Engine Strategies website.

Target loses an appeal of the class action status of the Lawsuit brought by the National Federation of the Blind. Target had appealed the class-action status of the suit to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The petition was denied and the lawsuit will proceed “on behalf of all Americans.”

This seems to be some of the last challenges to the suite that Target has brought. The actual case has yet to begin, as Target has challenged many of the aspects of the case, the class-action status being the latest. It should be interesting to see when a court date is set, or if this will even get to court.

ON a related note, the NFB and Amazon.com announced that Amazon.com will be accessible to blind users by June 30, 2008.

Source: NFB Press Release

Nielson Group offers research data as a gift for the New Year.

Jacob Nielson, whom I have long admired for his excellent research into web usability, is offering a fantastic PDF report for free on his website. I am not sure if this is a limited time offer, so go download it NOW.

The report addresses factors that are usually overlooked when companies create accessible websites – usability. Having first-hand experience with testing accessible yet unusable designs and programming, this document is a must read. Simply creating a website that is accessible does not make a website easy to use. In some cases it can make it more difficult. Often overlooked, usability is a prime component of accessibility. While most people focus on the physical aspects of accessibility, there are also the cognitive aspects where people need the site to be simple, consistent, and understandable.

Bottom line: Being technically accurate in accessibility is great for machines, but not always good for users.

Beyond ALT Text: Making the Web Easy to Use for Users With Disabilities
75 Best Practices for Design of Websites and Intranets, Based on Usability Studies with People Who Use Assistive Technology

The Accessibility Interoperability Alliance, AIA (http://www.accessinteropalliance.org) has been formed from some of the World’s biggest technology companies: Adobe, BayFirst Solutions, HP, Microsoft, and Novell. Included in the founding of this alliance are a number of specialist assistive technology companies: Claro Software, Dolphin Computer Access, GW Micro, HiSoftware, Mandentec, TextHelp Systems and Qualilife.

The new alliance plans to work together to increase interoperability between new and existing technologies, design new solutions, increase accessibility innovation, and improve developer guidelines. The initial project in this alliance is to create a standard for keyboard shortcuts so that users will have consistent behavior of AT products in any web browser.

This alliance is a key step to building a collaborative base of technologies and guidelines for development. Just this step can help increase the consistency for all users in their web and software experience. Additional development and bringing in of new companies and technologies will only help the assistive technology user, and also create a better experience as a whole.

Hattip to Joe Clark.

The Target v NFB lawsuit seems to be cruising to the netherworld of settlement. Meaning that it will be even longer until there is substantial (or intelligent) legislation or precedent establishing the responsibility of companies in developing an accessible presence online. Who would have thought it would take legal action to make a site easier to use and accessible, thereby increasing the potential reach to customers?

Joe Clark posted extensively about the agreement reach between Amazon.com and the NFB. I can’t begin to recount his excellent survey of the situation, so I’ll only “stand on his shoulders” and deliver some of the highlights.

• The NFB reached an agreement with Amazon.com, as Target uses the Amazon.com engine. The agreement covers third-parties, such as Target.
• Amazon has an Accessibility Committee?
• The agreement is posted as a scanned PDF on the NFB site – Irony abounds . . .
• Apparently, there is a new assistive technology called “screen-access software”. I’ve never heard of it, but apparently this is how a screen-reader is being referred as in the NFB-Amazon agreement.
• Amazon.com promises “full and complete access by the blind”. Is that truly accessible though? What about everyone else that may simply need ZoomText or just larger fonts and not have the code blow up? Why is accessibility only defined by blindness?
• Joe specifically asks whether or not this action will result in the outdated, nested tables, invalid CSS, and abundance of JavaScript will be replaced with valid and semantically correct code that is built using progressive enhancement, or will provide graceful degradation into other devices.

Good questions.

What an amazing opportunity to create a fully CSS compliant site that will be fully accessible and interoperable, regardless of device. I could use Amazon.com on my mobile phone or any other device besides a browser if that were possible. When will these companies realize the business case for accessibility? The more people that can access your site, the more potential customers you will have. Especially as mobile browsing increases, interoperability and degrading gracefully will be critical to success.

Accessibility, in the most liberal definition of the word, is just smart business.

Posting has been light lately at the Accessibility Blog, as things have been very busy. So I thank you for being patient. Because of this, I am making the following request:

The Accessibility Blog is experiencing a higher than normal demand for consulting services. If you are an accessibility consultant in residing in the Northeast United States, and you have more than three years experience in accessibility standards and programming, I would be interested in hearing from you.

Experience in enterprise-level or government accessibility projects is preferred. The ability to write in-depth analysis and reports is critical. Grammar, spelling, research, and concise verbal summaries are important to these projects. Writing skills are essential to these projects and those who have those abilities will be given preference.

Please send your qualifications and references to accessibilityblog@gmail [dot] com.

The World Wide Web is significant because of the boundaries it traverses. The web places the opportunity to buy from, learn from or interact with companies outside your neighborhood, your state, or your country right at your fingertips. This is a fantastic opportunity for everybody, and the nature of the medium means that it can be accessible to people with any range of physical or cognitive impairments.

Laws, of course, are designed to be regional.

It’s inevitable, then, that an accessibility question would eventually cross international boundaries. The question is whether a company with no literal presence within a country can be held liable in that country due to an issue of website access. A tribunal in the United Kingdom has recently ruled just that — determining that a computer-based exam which was not accessible was in violation of the UK’s Disability Discrimination Act.

The summary of the situation is that a blind woman working for Proctor and Gamble in the UK elected to study for a specialized internationally-recognized qualification as a Project Management Professional (PMP.) This qualification is managed by a not-for-profit corporation in the United States, the Project Management Institute (PMI.) This institute made the study materials for the examination and the examination itself marginally accessible, which did allow the woman to complete and even pass the examination, but only by enduring unusual and burdensome challenges.

Sam Latif, the blind woman in question, began proceedings against PMI for discrimination under the Disabilities Discrimination Act.

The crux of the matter is whether the employment interactions took place in Great Britain or in the United States. It’s PMI’s position that the entire process took place in the United States, where they are located. MS. Latif takes the position that the acts which were discriminatory took place in the United Kingdom.

Clearly, it’s a tricky issue – but the core element is extremely significant. Web accessibility may be an issue on which you could be in violation of the laws of any country you do business in.

Struan Robertson, a technology lawyer with Pinsent Masons is quoted in the article at Out-Law.com saying:

“A blind person in the UK could argue a right to sue a US company in a UK court for discrimination if the US company has a website that is not accessible to him and he can show that that US company has taken orders from other UK consumers,” he said. “The Tribunal’s reasoning could be influential on a court, though it won’t be binding.”

No binding legal decision has been made, but the possibilities are tremendous. You may not be able to rest easy having made a website which only meets the standards of your own country: you must consider a much broader range of possibilities.

As it stands, PMI is appealing the ruling with the Employment Appeals Tribunal. Interestingly, they are not appealing the question of jurisdiction — they are instead only appealing the ruling that the adjustments which they did provide were insufficient. On this point, there is some chance they could win their case. If they feel particularly that their chance of winning on this point is strong, it could be that they didn’t consider the jurisdiction question to be worth pursuing.

However you look at the situation, the question is very important. Web business is absolutely and unflinchingly international – and that international market suggests a wide variety of new legal considerations to take into account in your site development.