Utter the phrase “web accessibility” to a group of web designers and watch eyes immediately glaze over. Thoughts rapidly surface of how alt attributes, relative font sizes, audio transcripts and other technical requirements impede their creativity and add to their workload. However, the thoughts that are slow to surface, if at all, are how web accessibility, these technical requirements, impacts people.
When websites are designed with accessibility in mind, the 54 million Americans with disabilities can use and interact with the websites independently.
To these Americans, web accessibility means:
Web accessibility is more than a checklist of technical requirements; more than a legal obligation. Paul Bohman in his previous position of Director of Training Products and Services at WebAIM, pointed out that web accessibility is not an exact science. It isn’t simply an application of rules, although the rules definitely help in creating accessible web sites. It is more accurate to see web accessibility as “involved in the human aspect; connected with usability and human interface design.” (quoted from Web Accessibility for Community College webcast) Both the technical requirements and the human factor must be considered when creating truly accessible sites.
In her book Access by Design: A Guide to Universal Usability for Web Designers, Sarah Horton reminds us why we build websites:
We build Web sites for many reasons, but one reason trumps all others: We build Web sites so people can use them. They are to be looked at, watched, listened to, skimmed, read, printed, clicked, input into, and operated by different people using different access devices. If the result of design is that someone cannot load a page or activate a link or read a paragraph or interpret an image, then design is no longer a means to an end–design is an impediment.
With 2009 drawing to a close, design does not need to be an impediment any longer. Countless tools, books, courses and consultants are available to guide designers on creating accessible websites, giving web designers and companies no excuse, except for being unprofessional, for creating websites not accessible to citizens with disabilities.
For a society that values independence and freedom, web accessibility is more than Section 508. Creating accessible websites enables and empowers those individuals who otherwise would be dependent on others for assistance with yet another task. Accessible websites at the local, state and federal levels enable American citizens with a variety of disabilities to access, interact, and participate in e-government.
Glenda Watson Hyatt
For ten years Glenda has worked with three levels of government, transit authorities and non-profit organizations to increase the accessibility of their websites for people with disabilities. Glenda blogs about various accessibility-related issues, including web and blog accessibility. She does all this by typing with only her left thumb!
Comments
Coincidently, the wordpress theme on this site has an accessibility issue. The permalink for the article on the full article page is still a link that links to the same page. For visually impared people using a screen reader, this creates a confusing loop of clicking on the title of the article to get to the article, get to the title that links to the article, repeat ad infinitum. To a blind visitor it appears that the site is linking incorrectly.
This is a common flaw with most wordpress themes. It’s not something that most developers will know about because it’s not listed in any accessibility guidelines anywhere. It takes working with a screen reader to realize the problem.
This is one problem with WordPress – the extreme lack of accessible themes. Hopefully, as the blogging community demands more accessibility, the theme designers will join the 21st century and design with accessibility in mind.
Hi kgraeme,
We resigned the dotgov site/blog with accessibility in mind. I hope you like and find the new version better.
Regards,
Michael
This is quite interesting.
Very nice theme. Thanks.