Web Site Accessibility Blog

In a decision by the EU, electronic accessibility is a critical initiative that the online industry must meet. However, in what I feel is a stroke of common sense, the EU is not implementing any immediate legislation to mandate the accessibility concerns. After two years, the progress will be measured and the direction decided from there.

What the EU will do is require three main things:
-Continued accessibility requirements for public contracts
-Exploration of certification for accessible products and services
-Make better use of the existing ‘e-accessibility potential’ in current legislation.

Wow – maybe this is just my take on it from the article, but I am so surprised that a government body is capable of rationally looking at an issue and not jumping all over it as reactionary legislation. Using what you have and improving on it rather than rushing into creating a whole new standard? Bravo!

Additional information and explanations can be found at Eduborse.com

It’s shaping up to be a very busy fall season. I think I have about 12 engagements over the next 8 weeks, which is a lot, but I really enjoy speaking and meeting people. Last week, I was able to present some basic design and accessibility principles to an E-Marketing class at Kent State University. The week prior, I presented on accessibility to an industry gathering of senior care marketing reps.

Next week I’ll be presenting in Columbus, Ohio with Jennifer Laycock of Search Engine Guide. We’ll be co-presenting a full-day seminar on web site marketing. The success of pre-registration to this event has been overwhelming, so we’ve already started scheduling another seminar in Cleveland.

I am looking forward to a return trip to Stockholm, Sweden in October to present at Search Engine Strategies. I’ll present at a session called “My SEM Toolbox�? and moderating a site clinic. The SEM toolbox should be fun, as I will present all of the software and tools that I use in site analysis and marketing.

After that is Jill Whalen’s High Rankings Seminars in November. It is a two-day seminar with a lot of fun, as attendees also learn from 5-6 other presenters, each with their own specialty. It’s a lot of fun as a speaker, as all of the presenters are moderators at the High Rankings forum and close friends. I’ll be speaking on how to read and understand your site statistics the first day, and how to clean up spam on your site (or someone else’s site) on day 2.

After a couple of weeks on the road, I’ll be able to relax with some local engagements in November. An Ohio Small Business seminar and a local chamber of commerce event in the days after I get back will a nice break. However, it looks as though our Cleveland Seminar will be scheduled for a mid-November date.

Maybe I’ll relax in December. Well, after Search Engine Strategies in Chicago, that is. This is one of my favorite cities for this event, as I like to escape to the Chicago Blues Bar – it’s always a great time.

Opera has taken the next step in its evolution by offering the browser for free. Opera 8.5 is now available as a free download without the banners and licensing fee. There is a paid premium service available for assistance and troubleshooting, but this is big news. Opera’s main competition was FireFox, which was free, and I think that helped FireFox grab a big lead.

Opera is also making their browser available for WAP-enabled phones, smart phones and many wireless PDA’s. Be sure to check their extensive list of products that can run the Opera browser’s small screen rendering.

Watching the forums is a good way to catch news before it happens. The forums can be a great leaning experience, once you learn how to sift through what’s is good and what is bad information. I though I would bring attention to a few threads that I’ve been involved in the past few days.

The first is Threadwatch, where the discussion is surrounding the article of “Why clients don’t want to pay for Accessiblity” The discussion surrounds comments of the article, where there are no solutions provided for the problems that are outlined.

The second discussion at the High Rankings Forum surrounds more of a standards-based discussion, but starts with question of what put in the attribute for jpg bullet points.

After posting examples of access-obstructing captcha’s from the major search players Google, Yahoo and MSN, I was very happy to notice that AOL has the right idea.

I went to AOL to register a screen name for pathetic reasons, namely, my fantasy football league is moving to AOL, instead of CBS Sportsline. Why? It’s cheaper, as in “free” cheaper. Now I have to learn to use another website for this futile social custom of playing fantasy football.

Anyway, I had to get an AOL screen name. After all of the typical registration “stuff”, I was happy to see two links on the captcha security measure; “What is this?” and “Can’t see this image?”. Very nice, AOL. Way to go.

In clicking the “Can’t see this Image?” link, the user is then presented with a new window that plays an audio version of the captcha.

The user is able to play the audio version three times before it gives an error message for exceeding the number of plays.

I have to say that this was great, as it is the first alternative I’ve seen in the search space. Granted, AOL is more than a search engine, and people like to kick them around, but I was impressed at the effort.

Now, for the bad news:

It didn’t work for me in FireFox, but I think it was a FireFox issue. The audio uses Apple QuickTime in order to play, however something doesn’t seem to be working correctly in my FireFox extensions. It kept telling me that I needed to download the QuickTime Plug-in. I’ve done that and I can view embedded QT files on other sites, but not here. I’ve noticed this in a few other cases, so anyone who can help me understand why this QT FireFox plug-in doesn’t always work will have my gratitude. Because of the plug-in, I was unable to play the file in FireFox.

Opera was a similar experience, except that it was a Media Player error. I checked through my setup information - my version of Opera isn’t full of additional programs, plug-ins and the like, so I was very surprised that it would not work in the basic Opera set-up.

Using it in IE was just a pain, mainly for their security measures. I was given two POP-up notifications. One that I was leaving a secure connection (the AIM registration), and the other that I was going to view over a secure connection. That doesn’t make sense to me. It’s like telling someone that the door will be open when you open the door - slightly redundant.

Other than those IE security windows clouding my experience, it went well. I would have liked to have known up front that I could only play the file three times, but I suppose you can always make the user go back and do it again (sarcasm added).

Hopefully, this is the start of search engines starting to recognize that accessibility needs to be a consideration of their registrations, as they are not allowing users to access many of their products and applications. It’s not without its bugs, but at least AOL made the effort.

I’m back from a restful vacation. Of course, I had the best of intentions to make an entry or two while on the beach, but, you know how that goes. Anyhow, back to business . . .

While on vacation, I read a book that was sort of for business, but mainly for curiosity, Paco Underhill’s Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping. This was one of the most fascinating books I’ve read in the past few years. While it briefly touches on Web sites and Internet marketing, I felt there were a lot of crossover ideas for both on and off-line retail. It was amazing as methods of signage, store and product layout, dressing room decor, the impact of males shopping with or without females, and other elements that surround our shopping experience.

In one of the chapters, Underhill goes into detail about the aging Baby Boomer generation, and how retailers will be forced to change their marketing, packaging, sales techniques and methods of reaching this economically powerful group. He cites research that shows how vision weakens as we grow older.

“Human eyes begin to falter at about age forty, and even healthy ones are usually impaired by their sixties. With age, three main ocular events take place: The lens becomes more rigid and the muscles holding it weaken, meaning you can’t focus on small type; the cornea yellows, which changes how you perceive color, and less light reaches your retina, meaning the world looks a little dimmer than it once did. The issue of visual acuity, already a major one in the marketplace, will become even more critical-not just in some far-off future, but from this moment on.”

Underhill goes on to show how newspapers have had endless user surveys, all of which have shown that readers are not happy with the small text size used in newspaper print, yet the established news organization refuse to change. Newspaper print uses body text of 9-point type, a typical paperback is in 11.75-point, and most readers prefer 12-point or larger. Any wonder newspaper subscriptions rates have never grown since the late 70’s? Giving users control of the text they see on the web page will become critical. However, I advocate designing pages with larger text from the beginning, rather than forcing people to search or hinder their progress.

The yellowing of the cornea is something that was new to me, yet the implications are critical, as subtle color differences are not easily perceived. The difference between blue and green becomes difficult to perceive and everything tends to look yellow. Contrasting text and images on a web page is an important part of maintaining a friendly relationship with your users. Avoid text and images that cause users to make an effort to see and understand. Clear contrast will help navigation, comprehension and ease of use.

A fifty-year-old’s retinas allow about 1/4 less light than a twenty-year-old’s. This means that sites should not use darker colors if it intends to reach an older audience. A younger audience will be able to distinguish slight variations in color, and may be able to read that blue text on a black background, but forget trying to reach anyone other than that twenty-year-old audience. Older shoppers and web users prefer brighter, lighter sites that allow them to easily see the page and the graphic elements.

I highly recommend this book, Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping. Even if you only focus on the internet, it is a study of human nature. Now I find that I can’t go into a store without evaluating how effective it has placed the signage or allows traffic flow. When you classify how people show, it falls under two categories, needs and wants. Shopping for needs is something that we all have to do. Shopping for wants is a social hobby. Both have the element of impulse buying, which drives our economy. However, I do feel that people shop, ultimately, for discovery. Finding something that you certainly didn’t intend to buy, but you become enraptured with the idea of having it. Buying it is a formality, once you’ve found it – it’s yours.

While on vacation, I went into one of my favorite stores, the Newport Army-Navy Store. It is an old store, and it has been there for along time. You walk in and the first thing you sense is the smell of old wood. The shop is right on the harbor front and wood takes on a unique, rich smell, especially in this old shopping district. I’ve visited this store at least once every year since I was eight - nothing has changed in almost thirty years. The items are crammed into shelves ten feet tall and you have to move, touch and feel your way through the shirts, shoes, canteens, and OD green canvas bags until you discover something you just can’t live without.

Me? I found a great pair of black Chuck Taylor Converse high-tops that are making me re-live my childhood.