Introducing Web Accessibility

The arrival of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (SENDA) has raised the importance of addressing the learning experience of students with a recognised disability or impairment. A growing element of the student learning experience is the use of the World Wide Web for both information and communication.

A central tenet of web accessibility is that web pages should be accessible for all irrespective of a specific impairment. This ethos is reflected in the following statement by the founder of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

“The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.”
(Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web)

Defining Web Accessibility

“What does "Web accessibility" mean? To me, it means that anyone using any kind of Web browsing technology must be able to visit any site and get a full and complete understanding of the information contained there, as well as have the full and complete ability to interact with the site.”
(Chuck Letourneau, President of Starling Access Services and co-chair of the WAI Page Author Guidelines)

This definition is one of inclusion and particular attention should be paid to the terms ‘anyone’ and ‘any kind of browsing technology’. Web sites should be designed for everybody regardless of a particular impairment and with device independence in mind (i.e. not assuming people are accessing the web using a PC with Internet Explorer but may be using for example an assistive technology such as a Screen Reader).

Advantages of Producing Accessible Websites

Producing accessible websites is not only good practice, but also has many knock-on advantages. These include:

Accessibility contributes to device independence. Accessible websites are more likely to be accessed by people using other technologies such as mobile phones, TV, or non-standard browsers.
Accessible websites are likely to be more usable for everybody.
Accessible websites increase the potential ‘target audience’ of the website and therefore more potential customers.

Examples of how a website could be inaccessible to an individual with a particular disability include:

Not providing textual alternatives to graphics for people with visual impairment
Not providing closed captioning or a textual transcript for the hearing impaired when using audio files
Relying on colour alone as a functional element for people with colour blindness
Not allowing a change of font size or background colour for people with dyslexia

WAI and WCAG

The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) was set up in 1996 and is a Working Group of the W3C. Its mission is to provide technical specifications and guidelines that will prevent barriers to access. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) became a W3C recommendation in May 1999 and it is against these specifications that UCL’s web content should be validated against.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines fall into three categories (see http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/#priorities):

Priority 1 Errors – A Web content developer must satisfy this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it impossible to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint is a basic requirement for some groups to be able to use Web documents.
An example of a Priority 1 error would be not providing a textual alternative to a non-text element such as graphic in the mark-up. This will allow assistive technologies such as screen readers to describe the content.
Priority 2 Errors – A Web content developer should satisfy this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it difficult to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint will remove significant barriers to accessing Web documents.
An example of a Priority 2 error would be not to use a style sheet to control the presentation of a web document. Style sheets allow web developers to separate the structure of a document from the way it is presented. This means that users can apply their own style to a document to have it presented in a way that best suits them.
Priority 3 Errors – A Web content developer may address this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it somewhat difficult to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint will improve access to Web documents.
An example of a Priority 3 error would be not to provide summary of the content of a table in the HTML

Bobby

Bobby is a piece of software originally produced by CAST (Center for Applied Special Technology), but now owned by Watchfire that can be used to test web content against accessibility standards. CAST’s mission is to expand educational opportunities for individuals with disabilities through the development and innovative uses of technology.

A free validation service is available at http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp. Users may validate one page at a time using this service.

Details of a more advanced version which allows validation across a web site at http://www.watchfire.com/products/bobby.asp, however this software must be purchased before downloading.

Cynthia Says

This is a new online validation product that is free to users. It is an excellent new service which can help the user clearly identify problems with their code. See http://www.cynthiasays.com/ for further details.

Useful Links

Those wishing to find out more about web accessibility issues may find the following websites useful:

University College London - Gower Street - London - WC1E 6BT -