Accessibility - how far?

axer · 20-10-2006 7:03pm #1

Hey y'all,

I am redeveloping a website for a town in Ireland to create an online community as such. I would like it to be as accessible as is reasonably possible/expected to everyone.

How far should one go when it comes to accessibility?
It validates as valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional at the moment, is that enough?
Should I have "Skip to Navigation"?
Should I setup up Access keys?
Should I have a text only version? and should a text only version contain no images at all?
Should I have a text only high-contrast version?
Should I have buttons to increase and decrease font size?
Or is there anything else I should have?

Is there a checklist of what makes a site fully accessible?

Thanks for any help/advice,
Noel.

Laslo · 21-10-2006 9:45am

axer wrote:

How far should one go when it comes to accessibility?

As far as possible but balancing commercial viability and accessibility requires you to be well versed in both business and front-end web coding. The better you are at each, the more you can get from both. If you get me?

axer wrote:

It validates as valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional at the moment, is that enough?

No. You need to learn how people, able bodied and those with differing abilities, are going to use your website. A site with slightly off-black text and a black background will validate perfectly but will be completely unreadable to anyone; unless they're using a screen-reader. Likewise, if you write all your page content out using JavaScript the site will be perfectly accessible to people with good sight but incomprehensible to screen readers. These are two simplistic examples though. If you're serious about accessibility, there's a lot to learn. So boil a pot of coffee, fire up your favourite browser and get Googling.

axer wrote:

Should I have "Skip to Navigation"?

Yeah, never hurts. However, don't say 'skip navigation' - a lot of people don't know what navigation is (seriously). I usually use something like this:

<div class="hidden"><a href="#contentwrapper">Skip to main page content</a></div>

axer wrote:

Should I setup up Access keys?

For links that are always on the page (main nav, footer navigation, etc) then yes. It's a good idea.

axer wrote:

Should I have a text only version?

If you code your website properly using XHTML and CSS, you keep your markup semantic, understandable and accessible then there's no need to create a text-only version.

axer wrote:

Should I have a text only high-contrast version?

See above.

axer wrote:

Should I have buttons to increase and decrease font size?

See above. No need to do this. Just make sure you measure font sizes in em's rather than hard-setting them to pixels so that your user can increase font sizes via their browser settings if they need to.

axer wrote:

Is there a checklist of what makes a site fully accessible?

Your best guide is WCAG 1.0. guidelines. Ignore the newer 2.0 guidelines as they're utter nonsense. Have a looks at The Web Standards Project and Accessify too. And remember, Google is your friend.

vito · 21-10-2006 11:04am

Very nice response Laslo and some very good info in there.

axer · 22-10-2006 11:00am

Thanks a million Laslo.

gamblingIRE · 22-10-2006 7:31pm

You should consider adding an Accessibilty Statement to each page, documenting what accessibility features your web-site has, and how to use them (as well as how to activate accessibility features in the most common browsers)

[p.s. don't look for one on the site in my .sig , I am currently way too busy to get this done at the mo, but it is on the to-do list as I do deem it essential]

tricky D · 22-10-2006 8:10pm

could also do css for handheld or aural devices and for Braille readers
Eg something like
http://www.coillte.ie/css/coillte2-aural.css
for aural.
I had stuck a Braille css on there originally a 2/3 years ago when they were a vvvv rare thing. However, it seems to have disappeared from the site along with a few other nice touches and some conformance. Will grab the backup next time I'm back at the parents'. Coillte site also has cookies for sizing, check the accessibility page.

gamblingIRE · 23-10-2006 6:29pm

cookies? I think you want to do this without cookies - perhaps using the post method to tell your pages what size to render stuff?

I have been meaning to read up on this as it is something I want to implement on the sites I develop in future, as well as my own.

tricky D · 24-10-2006 3:49am

gamblingIRE wrote:

cookies? I think you want to do this without cookies - perhaps using the post method to tell your pages what size to render stuff?

Hmm, (how) would that work from session to session? On a short career switch (again) so am a bit rusty on this.

tomED · 26-10-2006 10:00pm

Personally I think it's time we moved away from WCAG 1.0.

I know WCAG 2.0 is still in development, but it seems to be taking an age.

WCAG 2.0 is much more generic and less HTML coder directed, which is a good thing as it makes web developers think about the reasons why they are making the changes to the code as opposed to doing it because WCAG 1.0 says so.......... sorry for the rant!

Really good post Laslo - I personally like this response:

=========================
Quote:
Originally Posted by axer
Should I have a text only version?

If you code your website properly using XHTML and CSS, you keep your markup semantic, understandable and accessible then there's no need to create a text-only version.
=========================

I can't agree more. It's not fair to expect people with disabilities to go to the "back door" so to speak just to get access to your website.

If you were a high street shop and sending people with disabilities to the back door, you'd be breaking the law!!

gamblingIRE · 27-10-2006 2:38pm

tomED wrote:

It's not fair to expect people with disabilities to go to the "back door" so to speak just to get access to your website.

agreed... accessibility is about EQUIVALENT access.

Gordon · 28-10-2006 10:39am

Interesting BBC article here claiming that Flash may be the best way for accessibility issues, which surprised me as I would have considered it the worst!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/6090418.stm

Choice quote on CSS there by the way:

Leonie Watson wrote:

"There's a technology called Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) that allows you to control the way a page is displayed, such as the colour of the text and background.

"However, that's quite a new technology, it's only been around a couple of years"

Yeah, wasn't that just two years ago that css was created?!

Incidentally gamblingIRE, the links in your sig don't work.

gamblingIRE · 31-10-2006 8:38pm

tricky D wrote:

Hmm, (how) would that work from session to session? On a short career switch (again) so am a bit rusty on this.

URL rewriting, including a session ID would work

Gordon wrote:

Incidentally gamblingIRE, the links in your sig don't work.

My webserver was probably down- I am running an o/source forum on one of my domains which consumes all my heap space every few hours and kills tomcat. Very annoying - time to change forum software I think - Pain in the backside :-s

aidan_walsh · 08-01-2007 7:19pm

Yes, this is an old thread but I figured this might be of interest to people working with standards in mind.

Government Guidelines for Web Sites Search Engine

teckoda · 17-06-2007 6:44pm

great info indeed. I myself have a project coming up which will be required to be fully accessible.

Velcrow · 23-07-2007 9:45am

Have a look at our blog re: accessibility

We try to take a balanced view on standards vs/and creativity

www.accessible.ie

30-08-2007 5:54pm

The National Council For The Blind have a website & service which test accessibility. The info is free on their site, but they also do proper commercial accessibility testing with real people which you can pay for if you have the budget.

http://www.cfit.ie/

Hosting · 12-07-2009 4:33am

:cool:Google is blind, it’s a computer, it has no hands and it can walk. YET, it can see my web sites, isn’t that amazing.

That is the way to start thinking when developing an assessable web site.

Step 1 - Pretend you are blind; Have someone read the code in the site to you, which should tell a story in itself.

Step 2 - Pretend you can’t type and try navigating using only a mouse.

Step 3. Disconnect the mouse, and then try navigating.

Step 4 - Put everything in Chinese writing, then would the layout be self explanatory or would it loose meaning without the text. In other words let the pictures and graphics lead users.

Step 5 - Try reading it from a distance, stepping back from the screen and taking a look, are the headings still visible?

Step 6 - Is there a play the text button available, is it alt tabbed well and at the top of the site?
There are more things to do but that should start you doing rather than thinking too much. Look at the practical as must as possible.
TEST and RE-TEST

cormee · 23-11-2010 2:54pm

Skip Navigation links should be visible by the way (or else visible on focus)

davespartix · 27-04-2011 4:07pm

I use Wave toolbar for firefox to give a an impression of how accessible a site is. I find it pretty useful. It shows accessibility warnings and alerts as well as show you a text only version.

Accessibility - how far?

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