Author: Dennis

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Involving Users Early in Web Projects

The W3C article Involving Users in Web Projects for Better, Easier Accessibility gives excellent guidelines for developing accessibility in a web project. The article states:

Involving people with disabilities from the beginning of a project helps you better understand accessibility issues and implement more effective accessibility solutions.

In my experience, this couldn’t be more true. Nothing is much worse than having to retro-fit an existing web site or web application for web accessibility, or having to explain what assistive technology is to the author of the specifications document. You must plan from the start, and implement at the end (an old Hijax saying). When the different teams on a project understand accessibility, including the developers, it certainly makes the project run much more smoothly and efficiently.

The article discusses the following items in detail:

  • How Involving Users Early Helps
  • How to Involve Users throughout Your Project
  • Getting a Range of Users
  • Working with Users
  • Combine User Involvement with Standards

These techniques can be applied to more than web sites; also assistive technologies, media players, authoring tools, policies, and technical specifications.

For more, here’s the W3C blog discussing this article: Discover new ways of thinking about accessibility.

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Roundup 2: Accessibility Links on Twitter

There’s so many great web accessibility links in the Twittersphere that I felt compelled to do another roundup of resources.

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Podcast #76: Web Accessibility Disasters

Dennis and Ross review web sites which should be great in web accessibility, but fail badly. The hosts provide a lot of constructive criticism, including many fixes that can be done in a minimal amount of time. Issues are also good to discuss as a reminder for our own work.

Download Web Axe Episode 76 (Web Accessibility Disasters)

[transcript of podcast 76]

Transcription provided by Katherine Lynch, a Drupal, WordPress, and accessibility professional.

Chatter

Articles

Web Site Disasters

Digitalaccessibiliy

Company targeting Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA)

The Good
  • Almost all of the text is marked up in HTML rather than image, flash or other media.
  • Simple, clean design.
The Bad
  • No ALT text on main banner.
  • Font size tool (triple whammy).
  • Underlines not links; links not underlined.
  • Headings not marked up appropriately.
  • Menu missing
    • List not a list (see Compliance page).
    • Inline / intrusive JavaScript.
    Job Accommodation Network (JAN)

    A service provided by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP). JAN’s mission is to facilitate the employment and retention of workers with disabilities by providing employers, employment providers, people with disabilities, and family members with information on job accommodations, entrepreneurship, and related subjects.

    The Good
    • Textual navigation; no Javascript based navigation.
    • Has proper ALT text on pictures and JAN and ODEP logos.
    The Bad
    • No heading tags; some marked up with bold tag.
    • There is a summary on layout table (double whammy).
    • No skip nav or skip to link provided.
    • Inline javascript. Example:
    • Non-breaking spacing used for layout.
    The Rose Project

    Mission is to provide maternal and child healthcare to the economically poor people of Malawi, with particular reference to HIV treatment and care.

    One of nine listed for Most Accessible Website in the Irish Web Awards?

    The Good
    • XHTML; semantic, clean mark-up
    • Using headings
    • Language is defined (xml:lang=”en”)
    • SWFobject.js for unobtrusive flash embedding
    The Bad
    • When JavaScript is unavailable, Flash replacement image has broken links and placeholder text.
    • Skip links – Skip link doesn’t work?
    • ‘Find out about ways to give’ button.
    • logo missing alt text for tag line.
    • H1 headings should be H2 (such as Featured Project).
    • Some links that should be underlined, are not.
    • Use of tags not recommended.
    • Links lack the default focus effect and outline removed!
      DO NOT do this:
    :focus {
    outline-color:-moz-use-text-color;
    outline-style:none;
    outline-width:0;
    }
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Roundup: Accessibility Links on Twitter

Here’s a list of some great links relating to web accessibility going around Twitter last week.