What is Web Accessibility?
The web is a means of moving information from point A to point B. Web accessibility means all the differently abled folks at all the different point B's can recieve, use and interact with the information the folks at point A are putting out there. Normally the information is encoded at point A and decoded, by means of a browser, at point B. The challenge comes in large part in what our interpretation of a 'browser' is.
A typical browser such as Netscape renders the coded contents of a web page much as a word processor might render a text document. More recent browsers and their plugin helper programs can also interpret audio, animation, and other elements. This is fine for people who have average sight and hearing and can operate a mouse.
People with disabilities may use atypical browsers and other supplemental programs to access the same information and compensate for hearing, sight, or physical and learning disabilities. Such assistive browsers must 'read' the textual information and interpret. Some users may depend upon devices other than a mouse to navigate hypertext.
Accessibility means the provider of a web page or web site makes sure people with disabilities can access the same information that people without ackowledged disabilities using standard, popular browsers can access. In some cases this means web pages must be designed to work with special browsers or other application programs such as text readers and magnifiers. In other cases it means alternative means of distributing information must be in place. In all cases it means that page designers must consider all of their potential audience and not just those who are able to access via a standard browser with no alternative or supplemental means.
Why should a community college or other public institution consider web accessibility?
Beyond, morally speaking, doing the right thing, and beyond, practically speaking, maximizing our audience, it's likely in the near future that it will be required of us. Federal agencies are required to comply with mandates of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act as of June 21, 2001 (a seemingly odd date but this is 6 months from the issuance of the final ruling on December 21, 2000). State university systems around the country are exploring and adopting standards.
Who made the 'rules' and 'standards' ?
Most of the 'rules and standards' are based on W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Web Access Initiative recommendations. The W3C is an international organization that works to develop and standardize web technology.
Does this mean the end of web design creativity?
It may mean the end of the anything-goes, 'cowboy'-era but the web has been moving toward code standardization since its inception. From the beginning, the web has been a tool-toy alternately fighting and embracing standardization. Popular browsers like Netscape and Internet Explorer floated their own ideas. Plugins came and went. Meanwhile, "HTML," the primary language of the web, was evolving and reflecting what seemed to be catching on.
Broadcasting was wide open in the early part of the 1900's with few rules and little enforcement. Radio pioneers would literally roll their studios and transmitters down the streets of America commandeering bandwidth and offering little in the way of quality programming. Arguably the assignment and enforcement of bandwidth allowed broadcasters to focus on, and invest in, content and opened the doors to what would become radio's golden age. Television, whether over the air or through cable also profitted by being able to focus on content and not worry about how signals move from point A to point B.
What accessibility standardization does is free up the WWW providers to also address content, allow it to stop being a Netscape house, an IE or whatever house, and reach its potential audience without worrying about how its content will be rendered by a dozen different browsers with a dozen different agendas.
What accessibility does NOT mean is that designers cannot use graphics. They do not necessarily have to create alternative, text-only pages. They DO have to employ certain acceptable coding methods to make web pages broadly accessible and it's not that tough. It becomes an issue of knowing what the rules are and being more fastidious about observing them. Largely because of WYSIWYG authoring, form has overshadowed function the last few years and this simply puts form on a shorter leash.
What steps can be taken to ensure Web Accessibility?
Most of the coding options that will make a web page widely accessible have been in place for years. Because amateur designers tend to measure successful design by whether their pages display in a popular browser much as they would had they been designed for a word processor, it has been too easy to ignore those options. In short, accessible web design can largely be achieved by following proper and thorough coding techniques.
For information regarding making Oakton web pages accessible, see Authoring Tips for Accessibility
Some of the major steps to be taken include:
We can break this down to three areas: authoritative information on accessibility, applications that review and/or correct page design problems, and Oakton-centered rules and advice. The Oakton-centered area will be included in forthcoming updates to the webstandards. Links for the other two areas are below.
Authoritative information and advice:
W3C.org - Web Access Initiative (WAI)
WebAble (Information, links to standards
and tutorials)
(more to come soon)
Applications:
Bobby (tests pages for WAI compliance)
Adobe Accessibility tools
(more to come soon)