Today Jan 18, 2007, Dan Comden presented a wealth of information on Accessibility on Web sites and presented a variety of devices to assist disabled people with accessing the Web and networks by either enhancing their disabled sense such as increasing the font size, or using another ability to make up for the disabled sense, such as a screenreader for the blind.
There were a couple of things I took away from his lecture, which reminded me that "getting around" to making my site accessable was never going to happen unless I had more empathy and just took the time to do it. As you can imagine lots of companies large and small approach accessiblity and usability from the same standpoint - someday we'll get around to it.
It seems that only when we are directly affected do we really understand. And we all know that someday never comes. So to this end we had the class count off 1-3 for assigned disabilities. The groups assigned were:
1. Physical Disability (such as missing limbs or being in a wheelchair, or unable to use hands without pain) - this is called motor-impaired as well.
2. Aural Disability
3 Visual Disability
Our goal is to communicate information effectively and to reduce barriers to the presentation and access of information.
Some of the issues Dan presented were -
1. Tab order and labling form fields
2. Alt tags to provide text for screen readers
3. Content skipping - to the main text
(such as the Whitehouse.gov site has hidden in the top left hand side of the main page - so that those visually impared useing screen readers do not have to read or tab through the navigation on each page every time the user hits a new page. Check it out, it's almost unnoticable.)
We already agree that these should be our standard practices from here on out.
Dan also gave us some things to consider as our take aways from his presentation - to me the most compelling one was "Test your sites and applications for accessibility."
When I am being interviewed as a product designer or manager my best way of communicating how strongly I feel about usability and accessability testing can be summed up by "What makes a good designer is insisting upon usability testing."
Often what makes good designers great is their enthusiasm for what they do - enthusiasm for excellent design is contageous! If you wonder should we make this useful and accessable because it will add $more money to the cost - no one cares - not really. But if you take the lead and remember that "Design adds value faster than it adds cost" (Thomas C. Gale) -- consider that usability includes accessability - design your sites and applications with that in mind - you will have useful sites and applications which are open and available to everyone.
The real time to "get around" to making a site usable is the first time - the costs of resources associated with makeovers on sites are too large oftentimes to go back and retrofit. Dan told us stories about how the orginal designers of sites did not take accessability into account and here, months or years later are still arguing over what should be done.
The what or how may be open to discussion but the why is not. Let's make it a point of this humane professional skill, add it to our arsenal of design capability to make things right the first time.
We were very pleased to have the entire class submit papers which reflected their passion for providing usable sites for those with disabilities.
Check out these guidelines:
http://www.w3.org/WAI/
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