accessibility doesn't exist

Accessibilitydoesn’t exist

Tuesday, 8 January 13

‣Open standards advocate and education agitator‣dev.opera.com editor‣W3C web education community group chair‣Loves the Web’s universal nature‣HTML5/CSS3 wrangler‣Heavy metal drummer

Hi! I’m Chris Mills!

cmills@opera.com@chrisdavidmills

http://www.slideshare.net/chrisdavidmillshttp://dev.opera.com

http://www.w3.org/community/webed/

Accessibilitydoesn’t exist?

Of course it does!

‣ Of course it does!

‣ I’m not really saying it doesn’t

‣ I’m certainly not saying we should ignore the requirements of people with disabilities

‣Invisible‣Built in, not bolt on‣Part of your standard toolkit

But it should be

‣HTML‣CSS‣JavaScript‣UX‣User testing‣Responsible attitude!!

Which means

The problem with accessibility

‣ Dirty money

‣ I’m not saying all a11y consultants are bad

‣ A lot of projects need specialist a11y knowledge

‣ But too much dirty money is made out of a11y

‣It’s a bolt on extra‣Expensive‣Fraught with legal issues‣And it is so frequently handled badly

Common attitudes towards accessibility

‣ The common idea is that a11y is a bolt on extra that adds more to the budget, plus there’s legal issues involved.

‣ So no wonder people either say they can’t afford it, or hire expensive a11y consultants to say what is wrong with a project (they are scared of getting sued)

‣ And no wonder many disabled users are put off the idea of engaging with the web, and other related technology

‣Lots of money charged for basic knowledge?‣Clients don’t know, and shouldn’t be expected to‣Basic education?‣Developers should take responsibility, surely...

Lack of basic knowledge

‣ But often loads of money is charged to highlight a simple issue that any web developer should be able to handle anyway, and shouldn’t be an issue if things are just done right in the first place

‣ When we go to the doctor, we don’t then go to a health consultant who will tell us if the doctor did a shit job or not, and then charge us loads of cash for the privilege. (ok, maybe we do sometimes)

‣Can be really hard‣When it has been done badly in the first place‣Often doing it again from scratch would be

better.‣But you should do what you can‣It’s not “all or nothing”

Retrofitting

Common accessibility mistakes

Bullshit HTML

‣ Is it that hard to use headings and paragraphs?

‣ alt text?

‣ Meaningful link text?

‣ form labels and table headings?

‣ Good semantics in general?

‣Highjacked links that don’t work without JS‣Unsemantic nonsense‣Needless Flash content‣Ajax for everything‣http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/stop-using-

ajax/‣Autoplaying videos!!!

Obtrusive content

e.g. if you using Ajax to make user-entered content more responsive, then great, but it would also be great to provide a normal HTML form version for non-Js browsers, or screenreader users, and/or use WAI-ARIA

And if you have an awesome canvas/Flash/Silverlight-powered store locator map, why not also provide a simple form that hooks into the same information, to benefit multiple groups of users, not just disabled?

Overcomplicated communication!

Both visual and languageUIs are getting too complex. There is too much marketing BS on web sites.And horrible colours, and too many icons, and too many fonts.

It should be as simple as possible. John Maeda’s laws of simplicity are a good guide to this.And of course the immortal “Don’t make me think”

Overcomplicated communication!Tah be sure, this is a subject that is perhaps too obvious, therefore we don’t consider it enough. Verily, stout yeomans of the web, the synergies of simple intuitive content are too rarely leveraged to form a lasting relationship between you and your users. Instead you resort to too much , overcomplicated marketing bullshit and colloquialism that make your content hard to understand for everyone, but especially people that have a different first language to you. Oh man, the colours: Jim Morrison, the doors! Oh god, and now I’m using Comic Sans: It almost makes me moist.

Whizzy shit

It’s 100% accessible!

No it isn’t.

things are never 100% accessible - you’ll always get edge cases.

Never say this.

You need to show you care, and not make false promises

My site is accessible because WCAG says so...

aaaaaaargh!It can still easily be an unusable messThese are conformance criteria to follow if you want to employ best practices for making your content accessibleNot a magic bulletYou can still take the finest baking ingredients and make a horrible cake

‣Market share‣Target audience‣Site functionality

I don’t need to worry about disabled people because...

Tuesday, 8 January 13a low number of disabled people use the internet? 1 in 5 people are registered disabled, in US and UK

285 million people are visually impaired worldwide (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs282/en/). that’s about 4%.Interestingly, 41 million people worldwide own an iPhone.

disabled people are not in the site’s target audience/they are not the people we are aiming this functionality at

disabled people shouldn’t be able to use the internet! They’ll be asking for driving license next

You also do need to think about the legal issues, and general moral standing.

Accessibility is just aboutdisabled people

Tuesday, 8 January 13Yeah, what about

Cross deviceCross OSYoung and old peopleDifferent languages and culturesDifferent bandwidth

AccessibilityClub

‣Reframe it is part of the standard process‣Adopt best practices from the beginning

#1: You do not talk aboutaccessibility club

‣HTML‣CSS‣JavaScript‣UX‣User testing‣Responsible attitude!!

‣JS functionality‣CSS layouts

Start with basic HTML, then progressively enhance

wherever possible. Use CSS and JS to enhance, but don’t rely on it.JS - use Ajax for updates, but also provide a more accessible non Ajax version, which can also double as a basic fallback version.CSS - make sure source order makes sense, then tweak layout with CSS as needed.

‣Not identical!‣The business term is “equivalence of service”

Equivalents and alternatives

‣e.g., transcripts, captioning‣Even these aren’t that costly for the most part‣Use WAI-ARIA to make complex functionality

more accessible where possible‣http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/introduction-

to-wai-aria/

Bring up potentially costly tasks

‣Human rights/discrimination‣Morale‣Legal

Other bargaining tools

like mobile users, iPhone users, Windows users,

‣Or WCAG AAA compliance or whatever on the front page‣There’ll always be an edge case...‣Make a sensible statement about what you’ve

done‣And make yourselves easy to talk to

Don’t claim 100% Accessibility

Instead, have an a11y statement saying what steps you’ve taken to make the site accessible, and any conformance guidelines it passed at the time of launchAlso have a very open attitude - make it easy to contact you about such problems, and take reasonable steps to resolve issues

‣If you can afford it, get diverse users in‣Do testing early on in the project

User testing!!

If you can’t afford it, make sure your team members have a good grasp of how diverse users use the internet.

Find a good bank of videos and tutorials.

WCAG — enjoy responsibly

‣It is a useful tool‣But it’s not the be all and end all

I’ve already mentioned this - a site can be WCAG compliant, and still be a pile of crap.

‣A11y is never black and white‣Do as much as you can‣Even in situations involving horrible CMSes‣The small things can make a huge difference

Do what you can!

For example, proper headings and paragraphs, link text.

Try to wrangle those CMS templates as much as you can.

In summary...

Bring the needs of disabled people into the mainstream

But do it invisibly

Don’t patronise themTuesday, 8 January 13

Forget accessibility

Just do good web design

Wheelchair icon - thenounproject.comImmortal picture - http://www.ruthlessreviews.com

Money picture - http://www.flickr.com/photos/aresauburnphotos/2678453389/

Dr Nick Riviera - simpsonstrivia.com.arCowpat - http://www.flickr.com/photos/debbcollins/6191313441/

iPhones - http://www.flickr.com/photos/rickyromero/2672913333/Fight club font - http://www.dafont.com/fight-this.font

Soap picture - http://www.flickr.com/photos/savor_soaps/2206491355/

License credits

cmills@opera.com@chrisdavidmills

http://www.slideshare.net/chrisdavidmillshttp://dev.opera.com

http://www.w3.org/community/webed/

Thanks!

accessibility doesn't exist

simple form

web sites

immortal dont

web developer

dont work

simple issue

clients dont

overcomplicated communication

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