WebTools for Graphics & Design: Building Web Pages For Disabled Users
webtools.com
By Kevin Savetz
07/20/00
Blind, deaf, and people with other disabilities use the Web for business (and pleasure) along with everyone else. With a little care, webmasters can assure that disabled computer users can effectively utilize any website.
Building sites that work effectively with multiple browsers is a chore that Web designers have come to accept. Designing sites that everyone can access also means keeping disabled users in mind. For instance, blind users may use screen readers (tech-to-speech technology) or Braille displays (hardware that presents on-screen text in Braille) -- do you know if your graphics-rich site is usable on these systems?
What about your site's archive of QuickTime movies -- can hearing-impaired users access the dialog? Perhaps your site's color scheme makes it impossible for color-blind people (who account for about one in 12 white males) to read the text. A variety of documents and software are available to help Web designers address these issues.
What are the most important things busy webmasters can do to make their sites more accessible to disabled people? Geoff Freed, Project Manager of the Web Access Project at the CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media, offers these four suggestions:
- Use ALT text tags with all images, and graphics, as well as with all image maps.
- Use cascading style sheets for layout and style wherever possible.
- Provide captions and audio descriptions with all multimedia.
- Make sure hyperlinks make sense when taken out of context (avoid "click here"-type links.)
Freed recommends Webmasters read the Web Accessibility Initiative's "quick tips" card, which spells out the 10 most important things to remember when designing websites.
The W3C's Content Accessibility Guidelines explain in more detail how to make Web content accessible to people with disabilities. For example, the document suggests developers ensure that text and graphics are understandable when viewed without color, and use markup that facilitates pronunciation or interpretation of foreign text.
The W3C also provides Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines. Its purpose is to assist developers in designing authoring tools that produce accessible Web content.
"Turn off the images and scripting in your browser and see whether or not the pages are still usable and all information is still presented," suggests Gregg C. Vanderheiden, co-editor of the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. "If your page works for all the different mobile technologies," such as a cell phone with text display, "you'll generally find it's very accessible."
A simple way to check your site for accessibility problems is to use an HTML validator. Bobby is a free Java application that analyzes Web pages for accessibility limitations.
For instance, the program will point out a framed page in which some of the frames lack a TITLE attribute. The program can verify an entire website at once, and works on any platform that supports the Java virtual machine. A Web-based version will verify single Web pages without downloading the application.
One basic task for making Web pages more accessible to blind users is to use ALT tags to describe images -- these give users with text-only browsers, screen-readers, and Braille readers full access to the information on the page. ALTifier can make this process easier. This Windows/Unix tool facilitates the job of adding ALTernative descriptive text to image tags. It does this by looking for clues within HTML documents and guessing based on image filenames.
Another application (still in prototype stage), WWW HTML Accessibility Tool, helps page authors review, change, and add to ALT, TITLE, and LONGDESC attributes in their documents.
Java
Java programmers have special tools and techniques at their disposal. Start by reading Sun's tutorial "How To Support Assistive Technologies."
The Java Accessibility API helps programmers create applets that are compatible with screen readers, screen magnifiers, and speech recognition. The Java Accessibility Utilities are a set of utility classes that help assistive technologies provide access to GUI toolkits that implement the Java Accessibility API.
IBM also provides guidelines for writing accessible applications in Java as well as several articles on Java accessibility.
QuickTime movies, Real Media, and other online video providers offer a special hurdle for deaf users.
Although it's common for television shows to include captioning so deaf users can follow dialog, captioning for computer video is not so frequent. One solution is the Media Access Generator, or MAGpie. Content developers can use this Windows-based authoring environment to add captions to QuickTime, Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) and Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange (SAMI) files. In addition to adding captions and subtitles, the program can be used to add audio descriptions to the sound track to assist blind users.
What
about PDF files? Adobe
provides a white paper on the topic of optimizing PDF files
for accessibility. It also offers free
Windows software that will convert Portable Document Format
files to HTML or ASCII text for use with a screen reader. PDF
files can also be converted using a Web-based
form submission tool or via e-mail.
For More Information
Want even more accessibility information? "Designing
More Usable Websites" provides links to software for users and
authors, forums for discussing accessibility issues, and
technologies addressing Web access issues. WebABLE
offers links to authoring tools and guidelines, Web accessibility
news, and more.
After you've made the effort to assure your website is accessible to everyone, you might want to grace your home page with the Web "accessibility symbol," which shows that a site contains features to accommodate the needs of disabled users.
Kevin Savetz is a freelance computer-technology writer.
Copyright 2000 ZD Inc.
