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Talkr: Letting blogs speak for themselves.
Jan
18
My Opinion of Accessibility is Changing
January 18, 2008 |
Because I want applications to be accessible myself…
I have always been aware that accessibility is important for subsets of users and when developing if it was convenient I would follow some of the guidelines for accessibility within sites/applications that I was working on. However, if when the crunch hit at the top of my list of portions of development to cut was accessibility. Why? I am not sure exactly but for most business related applications this is one that they can be convinced to let slide unless it was a requirement of their business and most user’s expectations of accessibility related issues when it comes to usage, in my mind, was that of acceptance if an incompatibility or issue was found.
While I know this isn’t fair and honestly what I have just said may offend a few people out there but from my perspective it was a reality of the business that I have dealt with to this point in my career.
HOWEVER..
I see that this is changing, and yes this may be a little late in the game but today is the day for me. I have seen the light and will reform. Over the past week I have hit three times where accessibility caused me issue or trouble.
- Browsing the web on my Compact IPaq - which I haven’t used in over a year I was surprised at the number of sites which did not function correctly or as normally intended on the devices which runs IE
- Sending a website for review to a client - they tried to view the site on their crackberry and had serveral questions around this after trying to view the 1024×768 design.
- and this was the kicker - and reason for me writing this is today I hooked my home PC to my TV - this has been on my list for over a year but - even on my 52incher it took several modifications and adjustments to be able to even view simple text - I know this is partially due to the differences between TVs and monitors but it was surprising for me to say the least. BTW - browsing the web on your TV is AWESOME!M
Questions for anyone listening:
- is there a certification you can get for your application or a set of automated testing you can run to check your site against known accessibility standards.
- if this doesn’t exist it should! and after a quick Aftervote lookup have a look for such a thing - i found nothing that jumped out at me… sadface
- Any great resource sites or articles out there on accessibility within applications?
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Comments
2 Comments so far
In my experience accessibility is not a requirement unless a client specifically asks for it, which is very rare. Although for US government public websites (such as a state’s main department of education portal) and rich client applications, the standards are somewhat clear:
“The purpose of this part is to implement section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended (29 U.S.C. 794d). Section 508 requires that when Federal agencies develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology, Federal employees with disabilities have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to the access and use by Federal employees who are not individuals with disabilities, unless an undue burden would be imposed on the agency. Section 508 also requires that individuals with disabilities, who are members of the public seeking information or services from a Federal agency, have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to that provided to the public who are not individuals with disabilities, unless an undue burden would be imposed on the agency.”
“Section 508″, § 1194.1, http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=12
My favorite part is, “unless an undue burden would be imposed”. Lol, like what? time? expense? Anyone could probably justify an “undue” burden to get out of it…
Anyway, I just thought you might find that interesting.
Here’s a good article to start with about accessibility in .NET 2.0 Web applications:
msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/07/04/ASPNET20/
Complete List of Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/complete
Walkthrough: Creating an Accessible Web Application msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/3has1×30(VS.80).aspx
Dave thanks for a thoughtful and complete comment - as always.
Some great links there for anyone who looking to jump into accessible development with .net.
One other major item which is not (from my recent experiences) used in practice enough is making the text content of sizes modifiable by changing text size within your browser too many designers and/or css developers use pt or px sizes when setting font sizes. I personally moved to em and % based size element sizing a while back for this reason. This is one of the most lacking items regarding website accessibility that I have noticed. Humorous note that Windows Live Writer which I use for my blog posts does not allow you to change font size within their editor. I have sent them feedback on this.
Unrelated Dave – I some comments on DocSite which I will be posting in the next week or so for the most part you have a done a great job! But her are a few items which myself and my team have identified as lacking within the current version of DocSite but keep up the great work and I would be willing to give you hand with some changes if you would be interested.