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Tailslide
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Pragmatic Accessibility - 8/28/2006 11:02:55
Womble and I spent a lovely day yesterday at Geek in the Park in Leamington Spa which was a picnic followed by an evening discussion about accessibility titled “Where the rubber meets the road: pragmatic web accessibility” given by Patick Lauke and Bruce Lawson - both very well known accessibility gurus.
The talk seemed to end up being split into two parts - firstly: the compromises that we sometimes have to make and secondly: UA deficiencies and whether we should be making up for them.
Patrick started the talk by discussing his recent redesign of the University of Salford's website and how he had to make several compromises regarding accessibility due to various Branding, budetary and time factors and whether that means he's a complete failure in the accessibility stakes.
An example would be that in the end he decided to use a fixed width layout which, if you're going to get pedantic about it is not as accessible as a fluid layout. He'd spent 3 days searching for a reliable method of using fluid/elastic layouts but due to the graphics contained in one of the columns he was unable to find a reasonable solution which would have been understandable to those that would in the end have to edit the site. So after 3 days he gave in and went with what he knew would be the more reliable solution - fixed width.
So in the end there were several areas of the design that he knew were "sub-optimal" as far as accessibility went. So does that mean that he failed or that it wasn't worth the effort of thinking about in the first place?
I don't think so. I think that the message that I came away with is that you do your best. If you can make a site 100% accessible (not sure that's possible anyway) then you should do so.
If you are working within limits that would prevent you doing exactly what you'd want to to create this 100% accessible site (as most of us do)- then you need to weigh up what you can do, what you should do and what you are going to have to live without.
An important point was that if you do make compromises you should probably state this in an accessibility statement along with the suggestion that if for some reason the user finds part of the site inaccessible that they should get in touch with you and you will provide the content in a suitable format for them - and you should mean this. This should be pressed home to the client - if they're going to limit you on accessibility then they're going to need to be willing to provide an alternative if it's asked for (PDF, DOC whatever). Otherwise you may well fall foul of accessibility legislation.
What I took from this section was that it's not about what you don't do, it's about what you considered when you make that decision and how you deal with it (be ready to offer an alternative if required, be prepared to review the situation if necessary).
The second theme to the talk turned out to be how we as web designers who are interested in Accessibility are quite often filling in for the deficiencies of User Agents. Things like text resizing should be much easier for users to do in their browsers - there should be big "+" and "-" icons on the toolbar by default not buried away. We all know that most users simply have no idea that they can resize their text.
Apparently Skip Links should also be something that a User Agent does rather than a designer - being something to do with enabling operation of the page rather than anything to do with the actual content. There was the suggestion that users should be able to adjust their own preferences as far as colour schemes and contrast levels etc in a much simpler fashion than currently possible.
The feeling was that by stepping in and providing these alternative we are actually discouraging the UAs manufacturers from doing anything about making users' lives easier.
Likewise, by providing detailed "how tos" on our sites regarding Users resizing their text, for instance we are taking on the job of educating the users regarding their software which is not our jobs.
So it's an awkward balance to achieve. We should try to ensure that our sites are as accessible as possible by using decent semantic markup and accessible markup such as alt attributes and labels but we should perhaps think seriously about not doing UAs jobs for them.
I can see both sides of this argument. I've now personally stopped providing a text-resizer on my site for exactly this reason. I do, however provide a fairly full explanation of how the user can resize their text. I do provide a high contrast stylesheet even though users would technically be able to make my site high contrast, single column themselves if they knew how (most probably don't). I also provide a handheld stylesheet in the vain hope that people using PDAs can see my site even though I know that most UAs don't bother with "media:handheld" stylesheets.
I think it's a difficult thing to weigh up and we all need to decide on a continuous basis where we stand on the issue. As web designers we are in the position to be able to make up for the deficiencies of Browsers and the ignorance of Users - but should we?
Photos here: http://flickr.com/groups/geekinthepark/pool/
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womble
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RE: Pragmatic Accessibility - 8/28/2006 17:18:19
Yep, that's a fairly accurate rendition of events from Tail - I notice she didn't mention the beer though  Nice to see all the pics on Flickr - I would have been back online sooner had I not spent the last hour and a half trying to download my photos - my laptop's refusing to talk to my phone so I can't download the ones I took in the park 
The evening discussion was recorded, and the podcast will be available for download from the Geek in the Park site shortly.
I was really interested in the discussion about how much "accessibility" we as designers should do, because that was something I'd not thought of before. The argument goes that while ever we as designers do the UA's job, there's no incentive for the UA developers to improve the accessibility features up front, by for example giving users the option upfront to resize text, rather than having accessbility options buried in the advanced settings, as Tail mentioned. Another interesting point that was raised was that users themselves should take more responsbility - perhaps there's a responsibility for users to know how the software they're using works. I'm not sure about that last point. Yes, to a certain extent, users do need to know how there software works, but as well all know, not all users are as tech savvy as we are. There are lots of browser extensions, for example the FF web developer toolbar that add a whole host of functionalities, but these are aimed at the developer and not the end user - Andy Higgs argues that developers can be instrumental in developing solutions that can be plugged into the browsers.
A point was also made that there's a difference between accessibility for example for users who have a choice about their browser settings, and those who don't have a choice - disabled users. A site should still be useable with javascript disabled - but there's a difference in that some people make a conscious choice to use the web with javasricpt turned off, and those who use UA's that don't support javascript - users of screenreaders don't have a choice - they don't support javascript. Sometimes it's just not practical to implement every single accessibility guideline, and Patrick's pragmatic accessibility, which I think at one point was termed "unobtrusive accessibility". We don't live in an ideal world, and in the real world, whether because of marketing, budgetary or other factors, we can't always implement everything we'd like to. Client has a corporate branding that breaks the rules as far as contrast and readability are concerned? As designers we can't insist that they change their corporate identity to use Arial 12pt and a colour palatte that meets the requiments for contrast. As the Salford University site demonstrates, sometimes you have to compromise.
I also found the section of the discussion on web standards and semantics interesting and how there are clear links to accessibility, the whole separation of presentation and content argument, and deprecated tags from the html specs that could have in reality made a big difference to standardisation and how page elements are interpreted by UAs - the whole thing's a huge subject area and I'm sure we could have all quite happily carried on debating the issues into the early hours of the morning and beyond.
As a follow-on from the previous evening's discussion, being the geeks that we are, Tail and I spent the car journey back talking geek stuff as well  (unfortunately as Tail's car isn't equipped with sound recording equipment, we won't be releasing the Tail & Womble podcast though ). We came to the conclusion after thinking about the previous evening's discussion that accessibility isn't about ticking every single box, but rather compromising to make accessibility useful in the real world. We likened accessibility to learning (x)html/css and validating your code. Validation isn't an end in itself. As Mike Davidson says, you have to understand the rules and what's going to break a site and what's not before you can safely start bending the rules and missing some out altogether. Accessibility's the same - you need to learn the rules and understand the issues before you can start to make an informed decision about what's required and what would be nice. A prime example's accesskeys - if you follow the accessibility guidelines you should include them, but in reality they can be more of a hindrance as far as accessibility's concerned (there's a whole thread somewhere in the accessibility forum on the issue). When I first discovered accessibility I put accesskeys on everything - now I don't put them on new sites and take them off older sites when I get the chance. I doubt if any of my sites pass all of the WCAG checkpoints (I don't test them now) - I implement only what I've learned is useful and required. It's like learning to drive - you learn the rules and how to pass your driving test - but it's only after you pass your test that you really learn to drive.
(I hope some of my strange ramblings make some sort of sense - still worn out after what was a very full day yesterday - and Tail's snoring last night didn't help (just kidding) - I think I need an early night!)
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Nicole
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RE: Pragmatic Accessibility - 8/28/2006 17:53:41
Thanks for posting about your weekend in the Spa at Leamington Park Tail & Womble. Glad you both had a good time and found it interesting.
Two things come to mind though in reading your posts, firstly re: compromising when accommodating clients needs which may have some effect on accessibility issues. Sure, we do that and I think that unless given total control over a new site by a client, the only site that we will probably ever produce that will totally comply with every accessibility issue we know of at the time of production is our own!
The other thing is about whether we should be doing these things or should the UA developers? I agree with what's been said, but it sounds to me a little like those who argue against adding accessibility features because ebay or other large and popular sites don't.
I watched a tv show on greenhouse gas emissions last night, alarmingly but not surprisingly our Prime Minister's attitude is to do nothing because we're only a small fish compared to China, India etc. This is backward thinking as quite often these larger countries (like the UA developers) need a groundswell of proof from below them before they do anything. Same with these accessibility issues.
Plus, if we don't do them now, and the UA developers don't incorporate them into their new versions for 5 years, and it takes another 5 years for people to upgrade to the new versions, there's 10 more years that these individuals will be needlessly inconvenienced.
My take is that we know how to do this, we incorporate these things into our designs from the start, they don't cost more or look ugly, so why "stop" doing it?
Nicole
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Nicole
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RE: Pragmatic Accessibility - 8/28/2006 18:14:28
I knew that Jaybee, thought I'd try and be funny for once. Glad it worked! Love English town names, like West Ham for instance, does that mean there's a place called "Ham"?
Anyway upon sipping my early morning coffee on the back verandah looking over my extremely pretty new view from this house, I thought I'd better come back inside and clarify what I'd just written, because I KNOW you guys aren't talking about dropping accessibility and leaving it up to the UA developers as it may have sounded from my response.
Funnily from this same tv programme, our PM cites examples of greenhouse gas emission control efforts that have failed as his reasons for not moving ahead in this area. But the commentator quoted many times that many mistakes, over and underestimates are made when first realising there's a problem and trying to fix that problem. Hence some of the corrective methods used have been costly, minute in effect and also time consuming to do, and I liken this exactly to website accessibility.
Things like accesskeys and tabindexes seemed more than reasonable when first written into the guidelines, but upon experimentation in real sites and real users experiences, they are now known to be less effective than first thought and even more confusing or annoying than before. Therefore most web designers who have thought about these issues and not just implemented them to satisfy validators have stopped using them.
But despite the points our PM makes in the example above, the proof is that it may have been costly and made little impact overall, but it didn't add to the problem and therefore worked even if only minutely. Same with these accessibility features. It may not be our responsibility totally, but the changes we've made have made things easier for those who require these accessibility features.
I know what I mean anyway, I hope I'm not confusing too many people, and I'll stop using that comparison now okay!
Nicole
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Tailslide
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RE: Pragmatic Accessibility - 8/30/2006 3:42:13
You could always have a PHP backup system!
Oh and by the way - before I forget and before people start thinking that we've gone soft and that accessibility is back to being an optional add-on "if we can be bothered" - there was a quote given during the talk from Legal & General (very very big UK insurance company) about the results of updating their site to modern principles and making their website truly accessible. I didn't write them down unfortunately but the general gist of it was that they had a sizeable increase in online policies, made a lot of savings as far as site maintenance went (time and money), saved money on hosting etc etc. The important thing I guess is that in the end it made them money and more than paid for itself.
The actual quote is in Lauke & Lawson's new book which I'll probably lay out for. Once I get my hands on it I'll give you the acutal figures if anyone's interested.
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womble
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RE: Pragmatic Accessibility - 9/6/2006 13:59:01
As promised, I finally got round to investigating further the book that Tail mentioned now Mr Amazon's kindly delivered it. It's a rather weighty tome, but it's packed full of useful stuff. For those who want more evidence of the "business case" to justify accessiblity, in addition to it being the right thing to do, this is the info mentioned by Patrick Lauke and Bruce Lawson, from the introduction of the book.
quote:
At a recent conference to launch the UK PAS78, there was a very illuminating presentation by David Rhys Wilton, Internet Marketing Manager at Legal and General, a large UK financial services company. Mr Wilton explained that Legal and General were concerned about their exposure to litigation under disability discrimination laws, and rewrote their customer sites to be more accessible. As a side effect they noticed the following benefits:
- a 30% increase in natural search engine traffic
- a “significant improvement in Google rankings “for all target keywords”
- a 75 percent reduction in time for pages to load
- browser-compatibility (not a single complaint since)
- accessible to mobile devices
- time to manage content “reduced from average of five days to 0.5 days per job”
- savings of £200,000 annual on site maintenance
- a 95 percent increase in visitors getting a life insurance quote
- a 90 percent increase in in life insurance sales online
- a 100 percent investment in less than 12 months
from: “Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance”, 2006, Jim Thatcher, Michael R Burks, Christian Heilmann, Shawn Lawton Henry, Andrew Kirkpatrick, Patrick H Lauke, Bruce Lawson, Bob Regan, Richard Rutter, Mark Urban, and Cynthia D Waddell, Publisher: Friends of ED, ISBN: 1-59059-638-2
That's a pretty impressive business case I'd say.
The book's pretty impressive, with both guidance on accessibility techniques and how to code accessible websites using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash, PDF, and multimedia, legislation and legal requirements, accessibility guidelines, how to test your site for accessibility, and business implications. It's also got chapters on making PDFs, Flash and JavaScript accessible. The Friends of ED site has sample chapters and a full list of the book's contents.
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Mango Himself
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RE: Pragmatic Accessibility - 9/6/2006 15:02:16
womble
thanks again for the info. Looks like you and Helena had fun!
I must ask you a favor: can you put me in touch with Jana (the lass at the italian restaurant?) WOW!
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Tailslide
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RE: Pragmatic Accessibility - 9/6/2006 16:19:54
Sorry old chap - Womble and I ended up in Pizza Hut - not nearly as glam or interesting staff in there!
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Mango Himself
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RE: Pragmatic Accessibility - 9/6/2006 17:11:37
quote:
Sorry old chap - Womble and I ended up in Pizza Hut - not nearly as glam or interesting staff in there!
Pizza Hut huh? No Jana huh? Good pizza huh?
quote:
But it was incredibly yummy! - even though we didn't manage to finish it all cos we'd eaten too many sausages on the picnic.
Ladies, you've got to let me know next time a bunch of geeks will get together. I have two unused tickets for England burning in my pocket
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