We’re All Disabled!

Part 2: Building Accessible (Web) Services with Universal Design

Cynthia Ng
@TheRealArty
October 1, 2014

http://bit.ly/arty-accessYYC

Sjöblom, N. (2008). Grey seal on Märket. https://www.flickr.com/photos/taivasalla/2830915366 CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Anonymous. (2014). Content little screech owl :). http://imgur.com/gallery/NNTTvEU

What is Accessibility?

Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can use the Web.
- W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)

W3C Web Accessibility Initiative. (2005). What is Web Accessibility. Introduction to Web Accessibility. http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/accessibility.php

Why Should You Care?

Disability > Minority

Policy

Legislation

Getting Buy-in

[It is] well known among web developers that websites that are accessible are also much more usable for everyone.
- Mohammad Eyadat and Jeff Lew

Eyadat, M., & Lew, J. (2011). Web Accessibility Factor a Key Focus for Serving Students. Review of Business Research, 11(2), 80.

Benefits

reflect institutional mission, leadership, and values
serve all users
make sound fiscal policy
add value to the institution

Benefits Simplified

findable
accessible
usable
shareable
efficient
collaborative

Sources: Maler, A. (2013). The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Universal Design. UX Booth. http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/the-complete-beginners-guide-to-universal-design/ and Rowland, C., Mariger, H., Siegel, P. M., & Whiting, J. (2010). Universal Design for the Digital Environment: Transforming the Institution. EDUCAUSE Review*, 45(6). http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/universal-design-digital-environment-transforming-institution

Accessibility at Work

Fettig, S. (2007). Rodin's Thinker. https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevenfettig/1390275600 CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Approach to Accessibility

Avoid the peanut butter approach.
- Sarah Horton & Whitney Quesenbery

Horton, S. & Quesenbery, W. (2014). A Web for Everyone: Designing Accessible User Experiences. Rosenfeld Media.

It just won't work to build a complete system and then, in the final stages of development, spread the interface over it like peanut butter.
- Clayton Lewis & John Rieman

Lewis, C. & Rieman, J. (1994). Task-Centered User Interface Design: A Practical Introduction. http://hcibib.org/tcuid/

squirrel with its head in a peanut butter jar

shrosa814. (2010). Tale of Squirrel and Peanut Butter. https://www.flickr.com/photos/shicksba272214/5159576009 With Permission from Owner.

Accessibility often gets pigeon-holed as simply making sure there are no barriers to access for screen readers or other assistive technology, without regard to usability.
- Whitney Quesenbery @whitneyq

Quesenbery, W. (2009). Usable Accessibility: Making Web Sites Work Well for People with Disabilities. UX Matters. http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2009/02/usable-accessibility-making-web-sites-work-well-for-people-with-disabilities.php

Designing for Assistive Technology

Assistive Technology

screen readers
text-to-speech
screen magnifiers
joysticks
mobile devices
keyboards

Anonymous. (2014). She loves the warm air coming out of the laptop. http://imgur.com/gallery/S3JnsF1

All Technology is Assistive Technology.
- Sara Hendren @ablerism

Hendron, S. (2013). All Technology is Assistive Technology: 6 dispositions for designers on disability. https://medium.com/thoughtful-design/a8b9a581eb62

Universal Design

Universal design is the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.
- Ron Mace

Mace, R. (1998). Universal design in housing. Assistive Technology, 10(1), 21-28.

Whereas [universal design] is a design methodology (similar to user-centered design), [accessibility] is its most commonly associated metric.
- Andrew Maler

Maler, A. (2013). The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Universal Design. UX Booth http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/the-complete-beginners-guide-to-universal-design/

otter laying in water with one paw raised

Minter, A. (2011). Hi There. https://www.flickr.com/photos/ehisforadam/6468933943 CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Building Universal (Web) Services

It is important for designers to formulate and adhere to usable design processes and guidelines throughout the entire cycle of development so that the product or service is accessible and universally usable for all.
- Constantine Stephanidis

Stephanidis, C. (2009). Universal access and design for all in the evolving information society. In C. Stephanidis (ed.), The Universal Access Handbook (1–11). Boca Raton: CRC Press.

ProphetTenebrae. (2012). Red panda face palm. http://imgur.com/gallery/yS8YGZt

Ask Your Users

Challenges

technological variety
user diversity
bridging the knowledge gap

Shneiderman, B., & Hochheiser, H. (2001). Universal usability as a stimulus to advanced interface design. Behaviour & Information Technology, 20(5), 367-376. doi:10.1080/01449290110083602

Getting User Feedback

Personas

University of Washington Libraries. (2008). UW Libraries Personas. http://staffweb.lib.washington.edu/news/units/ITS/ux/2009-q2/persona-construction/final-personas/uw-libraries-personas-overview-of-the-completed-project

Content Inventory

Card Sort

Task Analysis

picture of whiteboard with writing and screenshots

Reidsma, M. (2013). Slide 38. Websites are for People. http://matthew.reidsrow.com/articles/29 CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Developing Your Service

Approaches

Good Practices

well structured code
style guides e.g. Normalize CSS
pattern libraries e.g. UI Pattern Library by GVSU
polyfills and other helper libraries e.g. picturefill
APIs e.g. SFU Library API
testing frameworks or set of evaluation tools e.g. QuailJS
good documentation e.g. Phabricator

Some “Special” Considerations

Keyboard Accessibility

Skip Links


<body>
<a class="hide-text" href="#main">Skip to Main Content</a>

<nav role="navigation">
	// Menu
</nav>

<div id="main" role="main">
	 // Content
</div>

</body>

Schofield, M. (2014). ARIA for the Spec Impaired. http://ns4lib.com/aria-primer/

ARIA

Accessible Rich Internet Applications Suite


<nav role="navigation">
	// Menu
</nav>

Media

Images: alt=""
Audio: transcript
Video: transcript
Video: captions
Video: descriptive audio

Descriptive Video Example

Electrox3d. (2011). Star Wars for Blind People (Blu-ray audio track): description of a Jawa shooting R2!. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCZqKxQME6o

MrShuffleupagus. (2014). This is a picture I took of a friend's dog, Spike, and the face he makes whenever he's confused. http://imgur.com/gallery/9iGSCj7

Top 10 Academic Library Websites

6 / 10 have carousel

5 / 6 autoplay

Singley, E. (2013). Top 10 Academic Library Websites. http://emilysingley.net/top-10-academic-library-websites-2013/

Top 20 Public Library Websites

18 / 20 had carousel

17 / 18 autoplay

Anderson, M. (2013). 20 Great Public Library Websites. http://www.mattanderson.org/blog/2013/02/11/20-great-public-library-websites/

Death to the Carousel

Inspired by shouldiuseacarousel.com

Evaluating Your Service

Simulation

Evaluation

HTML Codesniffer (bookmarklet)
WCAG Contrast Checker (Firefox plugin)
WAVE Toolbar

I mentioned a testing framework earlier, QuailJS, and there are others, sometimes built into software, such as Eclipse. However, if you’re not comfortable with testing frameworks, you could choose a set of assessment tools, of which there are two types.

Simulation tools allow you to simulate certain conditions or environments. For example, VisCheck takes images and simulates colour blindness. (Vischeck also provides a tool called Daltonize, which attempts to correct images.). There are also some screen reader emulators, such as Fangs.

Evaluation tools allow you to check conformance to guidelines. For example,

HTML Codesniffer (bookmarklet) - check against WCAG, including when logged in
WCAG Contrast Checker (Firefox plugin)
WAVE Toolbar - view as text-only, outline only, etc.

(As Jeff covered yesterday,) Passing all of these tests does not mean that your website is actually accessible or usable. Nothing can replace actual user and usability testing throughout development.

Remember when I talked about getting buy-in? Invite staff to watch user testing, and if that’s not possible, playback meaningful clips of what users say and do at a meeting and/or post them on your intranet. When you’re trying to convince staff of certain decisions, user voices are frequently the most powerful evidence. By posting your user results and other deliverables, such as mockups, you get the added bonus of being transparent in your process.

Guidelines for Your Content Creators

Be clear and concise
Use headers and tables properly
Use descriptive links
Describe images if needed
Make and choose videos with captions, and add a link if you embed them

With the rise of the CMS, fewer organizations have a single person writing content for the website. When staff in an organization are restricted within their roles on a CMS, there is no reason that staff members should not be empowered to write and edit the content for the areas they are responsible for, and fix minor errors in other areas.

While you cannot control what other people write, you can encourage best practices by providing a few simple guidelines. By giving staff examples and resources, you can build content best practices into the writing process.

Be clear and concise - because users don’t want to read whole paragraphs to get the answer they want
Use headers and tables properly - I tell them to use headers like they would in a report, and tables should only be for displaying data (not for layout purposes)
Use descriptive links - pretending the only context a user has is what page they’re on
Describe images if needed e.g. alt text decision flow chart
Last but not least, Make and choose videos with captions, and add a link if you embed them

Emphasize that the guidelines are for everyone’s benefit, and that the accessibility and usability of content is a shared responsibility.

Alexander, Dey. (2014). Text alternatives for images: a decision tree.

Accessibility Statement

Take Aways

Until people find themselves in a situation where they are disabled due to their surroundings, they cannot fully appreciate how the built and virtual environments can throw obstacles in their paths – and indeed, profoundly affect their quality of life.
- City of Calgary

City of Calgary. (2010). Universal Design Handbook. http://www.calgary.ca/CSPS/CNS/Pages/Publications-guides-and-directories/Universal-Design-Handbook.aspx

One Thumb, One Eyeball
- Luke Wroblewski @lukew

Wroblewski, L. (2012). Testing One Thumb, One Eyeball Mobile Use. http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1664

We’re all disabled
- Lennard Davis @lendavis

Davis, L. J. (2013). The End of Identity Politics: On Disability as an Unstable Category. In L. J. Davis (ed.), The Disability Studies Reader (263-277). New York : Routledge.

Thanks!

Contact

Cynthia Ng
@TheRealArty
about.me/cynthiang