Jun 22
A response from an accessibility consultant from BlindSurfer
2005 at 12.45 am posted by Veerle
An interesting follow up on our discussion on accessibility is the comment made by Roel Van Gils, an accessibility consultant from BlindSurfer (Belgium).
I’ve been following this discussion with great interest. I work as an accessibility consultant for BlindSurfer, the Belgian (not Flemish; we’re also active in Brussels and the Walloon region of Belgium) organization that you and some of your readers criticized. I would like to set some things straight.
First of all, something about legislation. Here in Belgium, disabled people can rely on the anti-discrimination law if they feel discriminated for any reason. The law is pretty clear: “Every form of direct or indirect discrimination is prohibited when delivering goods or services to the public”. So, what is discrimination? One of several descriptions in that same law says: “The lack of offering reasonable accommodation for disabled people is considered an act of discrimination”. Need to say more? In my opinion, this law can be applied perfectly to a web accessibility lawsuit, since websites are ‘services’ too. There haven’t been any real accusations yet in Belgium, but some large companies and websites that offer public services should be worried. Lately, there have been heated discussions about the inaccessibility of online banking sites, public radio and tv websites etc. On BlindForum (Flanders’ largest mailing list for visually impaired computer users). Luckily, the Flemish government has recently announced a new accessibility initiative (in collaboration with BlindSurfer): http://www.vlaanderen.be/toeweb/ By the end of 2007, all Flemish government websites should be made accessible for all disabled visitors and that’s a good thing.
Now, on to the real discussion: there seems to be some indistinctness about what the practical relation is between respecting web standards and offering an accessible website. I agree with all of you that respecting web standards is an excellent starting point to ensure that a website is accessible to everyone. But despite what we’ve all been forced to believe by numerous articles on the web lately, there’s still a large gap between theory and practice. And a website that validates, is not per definition accessible.
The strange thing is that most web designers who strongly believe in web standards and ‘en passant’ believe to deliver accessible webstes (and sometimes even write very earnest articles about the matter), have never used a screenreader in practice. Neither have they evaluated one of their own sites with a text browser (I’m not talking about disabling CSS in your browser here). In fact, most of them haven’t even seen a screenreader being used by a visually impaired computer user! I invite you to our office where we can give you a demonstration. But make an appointment first ;)
Here’s the real problem: most developers of screenreader software have no clue on how web standards and semantic markup can improve the accessibility of websites, so the support in most modern screenreaders is very, very limited. It may sound odd, but using semantic markup could even have a negative effect on practical web accessibility. Need proof? Most screenreaders (like recent versions of Supernova or Virgo) don’t announce a bulleted list and don’t offer a way to navigate in a nested list structure. In fact, using an old-fashioned table with GIF’s (with alt="bullet") in one column and the list items in the other column, is in many cases better interpretable by screenreaders than using the correct semantic ul/li structure. Same thing goes for headers: did you believe that using the correct headings (H1/H7) helps blind people to understand the structure of a website and allows them to easily navigate? Of course using the correct headers is a good thing, but the benefits for blind users are minimal as long as screenreaders don’t bother about them. This doesn’t mean that I encourage web designers to use non-semantic or ‘old school HTML’. I’m very well aware that using semantic markup has many other benefits and eventually screen readers (and their developers!) will grasp the idea (recent versions of Jaws have already made great improvements).
Veerle, maybe this will make you fall out of your Stokke chair: most screenreaders used today (except for Jaws) try to interpret the rendered webpage as it is displayed in the browser window instead of accessing the source code and making the best out of that. Say, your adding in some ‘skip navigation’ or ‘jump to conent’ links and hide these links by adding a CSS rule like ‘display: none’ in a CSS document with mediatype ‘screen’. Guess what: most blind people won’t notice the links either!
Another example? Some time ago, I reworked the homepage of Vlaanderen.be (that’s the second important government website in Belgium) as a test case. Visually, http://www.vlaanderen.be/ (the original) and http://webtoegankelijkheid.be/vlaanderen/ (my version) look practically the same (I’ve tried my best). But if you look at the code, you’ll notice that my reworked version uses semantic markup, that all styling is handled by CSS and the doctype is XHTML 1.0 strict (it even validates). Does this make any difference for screenreaders users? My tests have proven it: very, very little. Does this make any difference to visitors with poor eyesight? Not at all! The practical accessibility benefits of using webstandards are minimal, believe me. And that’s mainly because of the lack of support by modern screenreaders. And yes, that’s a shame. And yes, BlindSurfer tries to do something about that (on a side note: on my cell phone, the XHTML 1.0 Strict version looked great).
Now, back to Deinze. The HTML code of [url=http://www.deinze.be]http://www.deinze.be[/url] makes me laugh too, but the thing is that our tests prove that the website is well operable by visually impaired visitors (like me, by the way). And that’s (currently) what the BlindSurfer label stands for. In a broader interpretation of ‘web accessibility’ (device independency, backwards compatibility and even things like easy interpretable language), Deinze.be probably won’t do.
Veerle, you won’t like to hear this (and I don’t want to offend you since I’m a big fan of your work), but in terms of accessibility for disabled visitors, the website of your hometown Deinze does a better job than your recently redesigned company website Duoh.com. Yes, I know Deinze.be is ugly and the code sucks and I know that your website validates, uses semantic markup and that most of the (beautiful) layout is handled by CSS. But that’s not all there’s to it: you’re using pixels (which is an ‘absolute’ unit) to specify font sizes. This might sound trivial, but it’s a very important issue: people with poor eyesight cannot change the font size by using the standards controls that Internet Explorer offers (a browser that’s still widely used). Now I hear you mumble that you can’t be held responsible for the quirks of IE developers and that people who have trouble reading the text should use a better browser (read: Firefox). But try to explain that to your grandmother with poor eyesight! Remember that we’re talking about practical web accessibility here, not W3C theory.
Another thing: you’re using bitmapped pixel fonts for the main navigation. I realize how much energy you’ve put in creating a bulleted list with CSS image replacement techniques that degrade gracefully. But low vision visitors are not viewing your site with CSS disabled! They expect every text on your site to be scalable (especially when you’re using tiny pixel fonts). Now, even if they use a modern browser and have the ability to scale text that is specified in pixels, they won’t be able to enlarge the navigation items. So they won’t be able to use your website at all.
I could also discuss the repetitive hyperlinks on the homepage (’read more’) that are not interpretable without reading the context they’re used in (required by the WACG) and the lack of an alternative for Flash movies (which are altogether inaccessible for blind users), but my epistle is already getting quite long here ;) You know what? To prove BlindSurfer’s ‘knowledgeability’ that you seem to doubt, I offer you a free and thorough website audit, performed by me and 2 ‘real’ disabled users for a website of your choice. Just contact me.
Just a quick summary: in real world situations, designing with web standards has verly little advantages for people with physical disabilities. And in some situations, it might even impede accessibility (I refer to the bulleted lists example). In a more general context (device and user agent independency, future compatibility, bandwith savings, easier updating, better indexing by search engines and such), designing with web standards is of much more importance.
Peter also mentioned [url=http://www.zottegem.be]http://www.zottegem.be,[/url] another Flemish municipal website. Here you can read an in depth reaction on this that I wrote a while ago (it’s in Dutch): http://www.internetjournalistiek.be/reactie.php?nieuwsid=426
I would like to end by saying that BlindSurfer is currently in a ‘transitional stage’ and that we’re preparing a lot of new things (you’ll be pleasantly surprised). I also agree with Fr�d�ric that our current logo is not one of the prettiest (or ‘butt-ugly’, as he calls it). Soon, our new logo (and a revamped, standards compliant website) will be unveiled. And yes, it’s true: our current website (http://www.blindsurfer.be) isn’t exactly an act of beauty or an example of modern webdesign. But, and this might surprise you: it’s been developed by a blind web developer (except for the graphics of course)!
That’s all for now.
Roel Van Gils, BlindSurfer Vlaanderen
Update: Read Roger Johansson’s opinion on the matter.
Update 2: On the subject of Accessibility: Good news because we now have the WaSP Accessibility Task Force
49served
1
I think we can all be grateful for this very detailed and honest response which took me by surprise, but at the same time I found it to be a worthy reply in the face of some fairly harsh comments.
It seems to me that what is needed here is a way to test web designs on some kind of screen reader emulator, so that it can be added to our list of testing platforms.
The design could then be tested in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera etc and also tested on a Screen Reader. (Not necessarily in that order)!
I wouldn’t want to go back to older methods of design (I’ve only just got used to the idea of CSS!) so there needs to be a standard of some kind that copes with CSS methods as well as readable on a screen reader.
There must be an on-line screen reader somewhere, surely?
I look forward to seeing some guidance on this (and I can’t wait to see some of the responses)!
2
It is a very enlightening review on the current situation and I can only conclude at this moment that giving a label to sites like Deinze is sending the wrong message. It’s like a bandage on a wound that won’t stop bleeding. It won’t solve problems in the long run. If everybody keeps building websites with crappy code what reason have the software makers to adjust their software? If everybody starts using web standards we send a positive message to them. Besides, there are other impaired people too. So it’s my opinion that an organization like BlindSurfer should put effort in addressing those issues to the screen reader builders instead of focussing on the sites like Deinze. If sites like this get a label with such code, newbies will get the wrong message and things will remain, since they won’t bother the effort because of the lack of advantage and that’s hurtful for the future. OK maybe at this time there may be a negative experience (sometimes) but this doesn’t mean we have to adjust to those crappy requirements of the current screen readers. At least IMHO.
And of course about the Duoh! site, I tried to do my best as possible, but the site in general is based on visual experience I’m afraid. How do you present a portfolio to a blind user? I try to make it degrade as gracefully as possible and I think it does. The Flashes have (image) replacements, but most have no ‘real’ content anyway (in text that is). It’s a bit like making a stock photography website accessible for blind people, it is a bit useless in my opinion. I think www.ms-centrum.be would be a better example to show my efforts on the matter. However, I’m still learning too ;-)
3
Wow. It’s nice to hear the reality behind accessibility (and a vision impaired users reaction to the discussion).
This message follows on quite nicely from Robin Christopherson’s presentation at @media.
In my humble opinion, I’d have to agree with Veerle’s comment on “sending the wrong message”. But perhaps, judging by Roel’s response to the discussion, us supposed Web Standards developers are also sending the wrong message by not appreciating the needs of a screen reader user fully.
There is definate benefit to be gained through screen reader testing but, unfortunately, most of us either can’t afford to purchase a screen reader, or can’t convince our bosses to do it either.
I work for a large multinational corporation as a web developer (as well as doing freelance stuff as Nefarious Designs on the side) and have only just managed to get my bosses to understand the benefits of developing with web standards. Accessibility was part of the method I used.
Here in the UK, corporate employers and clients are already aware of web accessibility simply through current British legislation. As soon as newspaper articles started to appear declaring that “companies may be sued if their websites are not accessible”, corporate affairs were on the line to my boss asking what we were doing about it.
This may sound like we’re on the right lines, but sadly this isn’t the case. You see, apparently our sites being accessible means that we make sure our sites pass the automated Bobby style tests run by the people making annual reports on “the best FTSE100 websites”. And that’s it. No usability testing with disabled users, just make sure it looks good on a checklist.
The main problem with accessibility and the web from my point of view appears to be awareness.
Where’s Joe Clark when you need him?
4
OMG, Veerle got PWNED by Blindsurfer! ;)
To be fair, it seems like the people at Blindsurfer (or at least Roel) know a lot more about web standards than we do about real life accessibility.
And Blindsurfer ‘s not here to be an advocate for web standards, it’s here to help people who are visually impaired. And starting a campaign for better screen readers does little for these people now. These people can’t afford the luxury to wait for another few years to get on the web.
To be honest, my view on BlindSurfer wasn’t too positive before, but all I can say now is ‘Respect’ for the hard work these people put in helping out. We can go to hip conferences and discuss about standards and accessibility all we want, but for now it might be that BlindSurfer’s work means a lot more to the visually impaired than our call for web standards.
5
Short of buying a real screen reader, there are a couple of Firefox extensions that can help:
Fangs Screen Reader Emulator does what it says on the tin: it shows the page as pure text with no visual clues, sort of emulating a screen reader’s output.
FoxyVoice uses text to speach functionality to “say” the content of a page aloud. It only works on Windows though.
6
“The lack of offering reasonable accommodation for disabled people is considered an act of discrimination”
...
“people with poor eyesight cannot change the font size by using the standards controls that Internet Explorer”
Can’t we summon Microsoft for non-discrimination-law violation?
7
Screen readers and bullet lists: Jaws reads them, Home Page reader doesn’t. Windows Eyes, I can’t remember. Point is if different screen readers do differnet things, how can this be addressed? If we go back to tables, then a screen reader built with standards and accessibility will no longer be useful for the user, thus breaking accessibility!!
I think Joe Clark said something like the following at @media2005: if the problem is with the screen reader, we need them to sort it out.
Perhaps just like a browser/web standards campaign in the past, we need 1) screen reader/standards campaign, 2) screen readers to offer cheaper versions somehow, 3) developer trial versions that are actually useful would be nice! Jaws I think has a trial version that only lasts 30 or 60 minutes!
Skip links:
1) Don’t use display:none for css.
2) Ignoring the debate about whether they should be shown or not, if they have to be hidden but read by screen readers, use the off-left (or off top) method to move the text using absolute positioning etc (see webaim.org for more on this I think). This works on all the screen readers I have tested. Have a look at the home page for www.tesco.com (page itself may not validate due to ‘third party content’ problem, but the tabs/menus along the top use this technique).
Lastly: web developers: as well as font sizes in a relative unit that will work with IE, please consider not fixing you designs to 800px width! Define it in EMs so it looks like 800px to start with. Allow users to resize in a way that this will stretch. Maybe use max-width 100% for example if you want/need to avoid horizontal scroll bars. (Use appropriate hack in IE if you need, e.g. an expression!)
Just a few thoughts!
8
@pjtr: And Blindsurfer’s not here to be an advocate for web standards, it’s here to help people who are visually impaired. We can go to hip conferences and discuss about standards and accessibility all we want, but for now it might be that BlindSurfer’s work means a lot more to the visually impaired than our call for web standards.
Yes ok, but by not advocating web standards or awarding sites like Deinze they aren’t helping things in the long run. Your are thinking like a horse that can’t see left or right just straight ahead. There are bigger things at stake here for example accessibility is not something only for the blind. When I can’t access or use a site properly because of the lack of using Web standards that’s also accessibility in my humble opinion. The smart way is to form a united front that things eventually change and with an attitude like you describe we get nowhere. Like Veerle said awarding such a site sends the wrong message. You don’t fix things for a broken device! Also this isn’t about fancy conferences but about getting the message across and if you don’t understand that well that’s your bad luck.
9
This is one of the most interesting articles I’ve read lately, Roel. Apparently there is quite a gap between theory and practice. You’re right when you say that most of them (webdesigners) haven’t even seen a screenreader being used by a visually impaired computer user. I’m one of those webdesigners. I would love to see a screenreader in action though.
Also, it is nice to hear that by the end of 2007 all Flemish government websites should be made accessible for all disabled visitors. However, there will be a lot of work to do. Today I reviewed Tax-on-web. It works great for me, but if you take a look at the form buttons for example: small images with small text, not resizeable of course. At least the small text of the site itself is resizeable in IE, that’s a plus.
Now what concerns web standards. Even if I would forget all the cliché advantages (loading faster, search engine friendly, etc) there remains one big advantage I would call “developer accessibility”. I can’t imagine myself creating sites with a tag soup of nested table cells spread throughout my template files. Using the right markup really helps to keep everything more clearly organized and simplifies the debugging.
10
Hi Geert,
I wasn’t downplaying the importance of web standards. I don’t think anyone here (including BlindSurfer) doubts the fact that web standards will help accessability in the long run. Thats why I said ”for now it might be that BlindSurfer’s work means a lot more to the visually impaired”.
You don’t fix things for a broken device!
I spend quite some time yesterday ‘fixing’ my code for Internet Explorer…
11
That should be ‘spent’… Sorry.
12
@pjtr: I spend quite some time yesterday ‘fixing’ my code for Internet Explorer...
There is a big difference between fixing your code for Internet Explorer that is used by such a large group or not using Web standards because screen readers sometimes don’t understand it. Things will be broken in other devices too if you do that. What I’m saying is that it shouldn’t be used as an excuse for not using Web standards that’s all. It’s up the screen reader makers to fix their broken device. Sometimes you must loose a little to gain in the long run. By just thinking about NOW nobody is better off.
13
@Veerle: I respect your opinion, but I’don’t really agree with you that we’re giving a wrong message. We’re not standards advocates (yet). BlindSurfer never claims that ‘rewarded’ websites are developed with web standards in mind (XHTML/CSS). It’s not even a WCAG 1 requirement.
What we DO ensure to our audience (mainly visually impaired people and elderly) is that they won’t be confronted with insuperable accessibility problems when they’re visiting a BlindSurfer approved website. Common problems are graphical buttons and navigation bars without text alternatives, Flash or DHTML dropdown navigation (ugh) and unscalable text. We try not to judge the overall usability of a website and we don’t criticize the quality of the content or the design (altough it itches sometimes, I can assure you). Besides, most of those issues also affect regulars users like you (and me).
Now, IF we would live in a perfect world where all screenreaders know how to interpret structural markup and all browsers would allow users to scale text that’s specified in whichever unit, then my job would be a lot easier. And yours too.
This doesn’t mean that we don’t examine the HTML and CSS of websites. For instance: using correct headers (TH) for tables that are used to convey tabular data is one of WCAG 1/BlindSurfer requirements. That’s because screenreader support for associating TH tags with table cells is much better than, say, navigating inside nested lists. But (and that’s where practice wins it from theory again): not ALL screenreaders (especially older versions) support this (particularly when TH tags are used in conjunction with IDs). And that’s why BlindSurfer ALSO requires that table cells cannot be empty if this can lead to misinterpretations when a table is linearized and read aloud (or sent to a braille display).
To be continued...
14
Here’s part II :)
If the BlindSurfer label could only be awarded to spotless XHTML/CSS compliant websites, then my job would become quite frustrating. Can you name five major Belgian websites (aimed towards a broad audience) that meet these requirements? What concerns us the most right now, is that blind and visually impaired users have access to the information they need (because they have the right to it). They don’t care about validation.
For website owners, the BlindSurfer label is an acknowledgment for the work they did. And if we would raise our requirements now, many website owners just wouldn’t bother anymore and would do nothing at all (they already complain about the modifications they need to make to obtain the label). For many municipal councils, getting our label is (unfortunately) nothing more than a statement (‘look, we think about the blind people…’). I’m pretty sure that most of the website owners don’t even read the part with ‘not required recommendations’ that’s included with every report we deliver.
In those recommendations, I always put a strong emphasis on the importance of respecting web standards and using semantic markup because, despite the poor support by screenreaders, it’s still the best starting point.
@Geert: Of course, I’m not saying that using web standards will automatically lead to a website that’s less accessible. The bulleted list issue is an exceptional and we won’t disapprove a website because it uses ul-tags Information within a UL still readablee (a screenreader just reads the contents of lists, but doesn’t say ‘this is list and the first item is…’ or something).
Any other questions or remarks? Don’t hesitate… I’m happy glad we’re (finally) this discussion. I think we can learn a lot from you guys (and girls) too.
Roel
15
Interesting discussion. I wrote about my point of view on the matter on my website:
http://www.peterakkies.com/2005/06/22/accessibility-the-hype/
16
In respect to my comment on the previous post, which may have been ‘harsh’: yes, I still believe the logo to be fairly amateuristic. And yes, Blindsurfer used to have vague specifications.
However.
Accessibility is an issue that’s been neglected far too long. I for one care deeply about it, which is why I’m being very critical about it. In a couple of mails Roel and I exchanged, he managed to convince me that Blindsurfer is actually doing a pretty decent job, and that every website that gets the label now really is accessible. Which is what it’s all about.
Secondly, to the standards evangelists—and I consider myself to be one of them: this is not the arena where you should be fighting. You can ask Microsoft to release IE7 before Longhorn. You can even urge them to properly support CSS2 in that release. You have the right to complain if the website of a public instance doesn’t properly support FireFox because it uses proprietary tags. Fight your fight where it matters.
But you can’t expect people who dedicate an important part of their lives to making the lives of disabled people just a littlebit easier to act as an XHTML validator.
That makes as little sense as complaining to a hygiene-inspector that the office you work in was built by obsolete standards from an architectural point of view.
17
@Frederck: I never brought it up for the sake a validating or because I am Web standards zealot. I also never said or claimed that Roel isn’t doing a great job in helping those people. What I said is that BlindSurfer is sending the wrong message here. It my humble opinion since they base their edits on W3C they should at least award sites specially if they use correct code. But even somebody who makes an unbelievable mess is king and it isn’t even mentioned on that site that the code is wrong. A label for the blind cool, but at least tell others that it could be better by mentioning it on the label or by a read more link. Blindsurfer mentions it in the report but nobody sees this. For people that are serious in the sector this a smak in the face, and for people beginning to use standards it won’t make any sense. I can understand the motives to do so because otherwise he doesn’t make any audits since there are so few sites that uses Web Standards. Well with this kind of behaviour Blindsurder is contributing to that effect. His battles are to be fought with the web agencies because they are to blame for that situation. I think that we have to form one united front or otherwise we jeopardize the future of a better Web. If the screenreader makers see that behavior they will adapt. But if everybody still uses crappy code why would they?
18
Managed to post (again) to an already outdated post, here’s the follow up
@Roel: thanks for the great insight. Your arguments are the main reason to hold back with nagging our editors about alt tags etc. Probably not a good attitude either, but I had a feeling that those guidelines are very open for interpretation. When I do the effort I do it for those who will need and use it. I also worry about standards making it even more difficult for people with disabilities. Expect a mail from me one of these days because I’m getting stuck about how best to proceed. I have just send out a message to one of my board members that we should worry about the legal aspects as our organization falls under Belgian law. Thanks for straighten me out. I better send an update and revise my budget :)
@Veerle: as with standards and validation, I think it is something web developers just should learn. Once you have the experience you’ll probably have a better idea how to implement it without having to charge it to your clients. Now that’s a sales pitch. I’m working for an international NGO and about to revamp our main site. Duoh! was on my list after hearing good things about your work. I was already pleased to find a company that supports web standards. I’ve also encountered other companies who don’t care and indeed, laugh about it. I’m probably still an exception for the moment, but I do prefer to work with a company that supports standards -and- accessibility. I hope Roel can teach you some things. I might come around somewhere next year to see if I can benefit from that knowledge.
Alain
19
@frédéric: “But you can’t expect people who dedicate an important part of their lives to making the lives of disabled people just a littlebit easier to act as an XHTML validator. “
No, but neither should they legitimise and perpetuate outdated methods of building websites that make sites less usable and accessible to anybody who does not use a screen reader. You can make it work for everybody, and that is the way forward. Rewarding broken sites is not.
20
Dear Roel, when I read your response and read you were an accessibility-consultant I thought: “Ohmy not again a sighted person thinks he knows what accessible webapges are only using IE.” To my surprise somewhat that was not the case. I most admit that I got this feeling also by Veerle’s critics about your logo being on her hometown’s webpage.
The fact that modern screen readers do not interpret the HTML and/or CSS code maybe not the desirable choice for them, but is understandable. You need a good browser to do that, not an extra program needing to have a full html/javascript parser/interpreter to access webpages. If screen readers would be able to do this, why would you ever need a browser :)
Programming credible webcode which comply to webstandards is the beginning. Now we need a browser that adhirs to these standards and gives a good result and possibly an accessibility-interface for screenreaders to get the required data. As your own posting stated, Firefox is your best choice when you run on windows.
Now a note on your W3C theory. It seams (and I’m not sure if these are released yet) there already is a version II of its web accessibility guidelines. The problem with this document is that too much weird stuff still allowed. The problem is that it i.e. still allows some javascript and also parts of flash as well, as long as the screenreaders can make it accessible. Problem also is that MS is part of this taskforce, as IE has its irritating side-effects so will having such big companies in these kind of taskforces. Note that XP is accccessible according to MS (but only because section508 law in the US), but I tried its narrator once (just to have a bit of fun), but it’s really disgusting.
Now back to the web. IMHO using pure html or xhtml as basis of a webpage is the beginnign of making a site accessible. If you must use javasciprt, only do it as an add-on not as your main way of building your webpages. I see too much pages printing the hole html using [removed](); calls in JS. Take for example 9292ov.’s webpage, this is really the most disgusting site I’ve come across recently in part of non-accessible pages. That in respect to i.e.. thinkgeek.com where I can even use the lynx-browser (yes I’m running on linux with a braille display) hole page even the full order-process to get what I want. Even eBay is full useful(unless you need to pay by Paypal which uses an irritating bit of JS when you pay via the eBay-directlink).
Okay, lynx may seem outdated, but in text-browsing it is nearly the best you can get. You also have a links browser (v2.1pre17 at the moment) which does a bit more of rendering and has a limited set of javascript-support (but lags cookies which is irritating), which works fine in some instances as well.
My opinion is that the web was accessible completely. Yes was, I’m talking about at least 6 years ago when i.e. the 9292ov-page was still over.nl and complete text-based. The lust for more and more graphically hot looking pages, web-developers all using WYSIWYMG programs like Fronpage, Golive and the such (yes the M in that stands for might) and the fact that these site-builders probably can’t even edit there code by hand anymore, made the web inaccessible nearly completely. So what we are doing now is actually trying to re-patch what we already had. Now isn’t that sickening.
The only good way to do accessible web, and accessible computers for that matter, is i.e. what the gnome-accessibilityproject is doing. They are building an accessibility framework right into the core-libs of gnome so that every programmer who wants to use these libs automatically is forced to (with little effort) make its program accessible directly by adding just a wee bit of extra information in a couple of extra parameters. I haven’t tried it yet, but if this works for programs (and Firefox seams to be gtk+ compatible as well) wouldn’t that make it way easier to get the web accessible as well? No screen reader needed that goes parsing the html itself as well which IMO is building a browser into the screen reader where it shouldn’t be.
21
So here I am trying to write XHTML strict, using CSS , marking up my datatables with headers etc.. etc.. and all the while I should have been using Frontpage?
Is life too weird or what?
22
I don’t know if this has been suggested before, but I think the makers of screen readers should provide a free (or very low cost) version without the synthesiser in. The output that would normally be read out to a blind user would just be displayed as text in the ‘Developer’ version. That way, we could test our sites for disabled use in a very practical way, without having to shell out for the full version.
23
@Veerle & Roger: I sympathize, but I still don’t agree :)
The blindsurfer label is exactly what is says: “this website can be used by blind or otherwise visually impaired people.” It’s not a quality label. It doesn’t guarantee nice code, nor a state-of-the art GUI. And no, it doesn’t guarantee accessibility in the broadest sense of the word (in fact: there’s no no website whatsoever that can be used by everybody, which is the true meaning of accessibility.)
I think it’s mostly a perception problem: you and some of your readers seem to think that that the label is some kind of reward. It isn’t. It’s merley an indication that it can be read by nowadays assistive technology, and that in itself is a merit and what’s more: it’s very usefull to the visually impaired.
And as for the future of the web: it is really my conviction that web-agencies who aren’t doing efforts towards web standards compliance now, will eventually face a bigger challenge than those who jumped on the standards train yet. Simply because standards compliance really guarantees a better website: it’s faster, forward compatible, cross-device and cross-platform.
I love competitors who still don’t understand that simple fact: they make my life a bit easier.
@Andor: smart point and it shows a real vision on the subject. But some years from today’s reality still.
24
Roel makes some very interesting points. However there is one thing I’d like to take issue with.
“did you believe that using the correct headings (H1/H7) helps blind people to understand the structure of a website and allows them to easily navigate? Of course using the correct headers is a good thing, but the benefits for blind users are minimal as long as screenreaders don’t bother about them.”
Well actually I did. Jaws has about a 70% share of the screenreader market and allows users to bring up heading lists, navigate through headings and read headings of a specific level. Many screenreader users may not use this facility, but it is there.
25
I agree with frederic. Suppose you were blind veerle, and you’d want to use the web. Now what would interesting you is a list of websites you could actually use. How would you feel if somebody gave you a list of accessible website, and with that he would say: i left out some accessible sites because i don’t agree with the way they are made.
I think you’d be very pissed. It’s not what you asked for, and this person is not helping you but imposing some hidden agenda on you, that is of no interest to you. All you want to do is use some websites.
26
@Frédéric and Andrej: I couldn’t have put it better.
@Andy: You’re right about that. But, unfortunately, only a handful of blind users here in Belgium have access to the latest Jaws version (advanced support for navigating headings is added to Jaws 5, if I’m not mistaken). Updating screen readers is not as easy and evident as getting a new broser (they’re also very expensive and grants for purchasing new technical appliances of the same kind are currently only allowed every 4 years here in Belgium...)
27
In a broader interpretation of ‘web accessibility’ (device independency, backwards compatibility and even things like easy interpretable language), Deinze.be probably won’t do.
I see a consultant as somebody who advices his customers how they could do a better job. No I am not saying that you should re-write the whole code mess. I am only suggesting that you could have talked to Deinze and made them understand that there is little to rave about the fact that it is now only accessible to the visually impaired. Deinze now thinks we have a quality label and we did a great job. So when a next site is launched they will still make the same mistakes over and over. So you are contributing to the fact that there are so few sites that use Web standards.
Only a handful of blind users here in Belgium have access to the latest Jaws version
I wonder shouldn’t the government learn that 4 years isn’t cutting it and that your target now doesn’t use the best tools that are available. Make them understand with a live test that they see the difference with their owns eyes. I still can’t shake the feeling by just forming little groups and only focusing on them is the right approach. What we try do here (and we still have a long way to go and much to learn) is : making the web an enjoyable place for everybody. If everybody works together we have a much bigger chance that someday something will change.
28
@Andrej, I think I probably didn’t express myself very well here, but what I am trying to point out is, that this label is a ‘visual label’ that is misinterpret by people who can see. If this label is only aimed at visual impaired people than yeah of course no problem. I understand why Roel gave this label since he cares about his target group. It is just so sad that people who actually ‘see’ the label logo misinterpret it and totally misuse it.
Well, you should have read the article in the newspaper, then you would understand my reaction. The label brings the wrong communication to us unfortunately. Maybe if there was a click through in the icon with further explanation it would make already a big difference. More guidance on doing an ‘even better’ job is needed also from the consultants who give the label. Education is seriously needed if we want to solve this problem in the long run.
29
@Michael Tunnicliffe - I totally agree with that. If we are going to develop accessible sites it would be nice to be able to test using the market leading screenreaders as a minimum.
I have already written to IBM (makers of homepage reader HPR) and will be doing the same for freedom scientific, the makers of JAWS. Whilst a copy for free is probably not going to happen, a lower cost version for developers would be nice.
@everyone - With regard to the other points, developing sites with standards does have benefits for accessibility. Firefox’s text zoom and Opera’s Zoom feature is useful to partially sighted users and yet there are sites out there that won’t work well in firefox or Opera due to lack of standards compliance.
Surely developing with standards is far more likely to make sites accessible to users and tools that aid accessiblity than not, and that has to be a good thing.
This article from the BBC highlights some sites that fall down on this front.
30
@Stuart: of course desiging with web standards has many accessibility benefits. I never denied that. All I’m saying is that, currenty, it makes very little difference and in some aspects of modern webdesign (fancy image replacement techniques, advanced DOM scripting, hidden items that shouldn’t be hidden to screenreaders), it could even have a negative effect on practical web accessibility for visually impaired users. Because screenreaders that are currently in use just can’t handle that stuff. Meeting the XHTML requirements is not even demanded by the WCAG! Other aspects (that often have nothing to do with code) are far more important (not using colours to convey important information for instance).
31
Interesting to see that WaSP have started a Accessibility Task Force.
32
It’s very friendly and thoughtful of you to adjust your fontsize because of philipe’s (unfriendly) reply on 456bereastreet(?)
However, now I’m just getting agitated by the size because in my opinion it’s just way too big.
Maybe you can use “em” to specify your font size.. I know it’s a bit of a hassle to start adjusting everything again but it’d just make sure everybody’s needs are fulfilled.
(Ik hoop dat ik niet even onvriendelijk over kom als dienen Philipe want hij begon mij echt op mijn zenuwen te werken toen em u zo “aanviel”. Ow, en ik kon je ook geen mail sturen door niet geregistreerd te zijn. :-) sorry for that )
33
@Zero Grav, I saw this one coming ;-) I might do this over the weekend… hm… if I find the time (always my problem!) so I’m not sure, since I way behind my working schedule at the moment and need to work on projects this weekend :-( But thx for mentioning and no you are not unfriendly.
For my part the discussion ends here. I think enough discussion has been made here and we should all try to learn from it. One thing that we ‘all’ share here, despite our differences, is that we all want the same thing and that is we all want to enjoy the web. My conclusion on this is the following:
- Valid code doesn’t always mean that the site is accessible
- The communication in the ‘visual world’ of the BlindSurfer label needs to be improved to avoid misinterpretation
- Minorities should be aware that the knife cuts both ways. Focussing only on their needs (now) isn’t always helping the general cause. We can’t ignore them and they can’t ignore us (Deinze is the example in my opinion).
I also want to set the record straight since there obviously is a miscommunication about this (and previous) post about giving such label to the Deinze website. I questioned the label only for this site, not other sites nor the goal of this label in general (big difference!). This was about the site of Deinze and the fact that BlindSurfer gives them a label. The reason of my heated reaction was also purely based on what I’ve read in the newspaper since they raved about it and took it totally out of proportion. It’s obvious that they see it as a big award for their ‘so called’ efforts. This proofs that they didn’t read the report that BlindSurfer also included which proves that the message isn’t heard that there is still work to do.
34
Last thing I want to add is that I’m glad that we had this discussion. I’m sure that everyone has learned something from it. At least I did.
Well… maybe I just want to add one more thing (bad attitude, I know): In your initial post, you said “If that site is rewarded by the organization that represents the blind people it make me seriously doubt their competence. When I saw this, this organization lost its credibility. A real example that it isn’t easy to find knowledgeable peopleâ€. In your final post, you’re saying that you didn’t question our organisation itself or the goal of the BlindSurfer label and that your reaction was ‘purely based on a newspaper article’ (an article, if you please, that we had absolutely nothing to do with). Actually, I’d rather see some apologies here instead of trying to obscure what you’ve really said. And no, I’m not mad at you, it’s just terribly hot in here ;)
You’ve made some interesting conclusions. Well, here’s mine: prejudgement is a very bad thing.
And now let’s all get back to work! :)
35
@Roel, here are my apologies to you personally. I’m sure I offended BlindSurfer OK, but in fact not you. Duoh! gets offended on a daily basis on lots of forums (bad design, ugly logo, ugly colors etc.). In other words they question my competence also but I never take it personal like you. Again I only questioned the competence of the organization that gives such a site a label, if this offended you directly I wasn’t aware and I’m sorry.
Now this is really my last comment now.
36
Anyone happen to know any papers/references to papers about the problems elderly have with accessing websites and/or other non-digital products? If so, please let me know :) Writing a essay about it for my study Interaction Design :)
37
In answer to your question, above about the elderly, I know that font size is a big issue for them. I visited that web site that Roel mentions, www.vlaanderen.be, and noticed they use this option of font enlargement for the text in the “A” links at the top of the page. One of our sites here which is for elderly Americans, www.aarp.org, did that too, in their last site but they just redesigned it, and I didn’t see the option in the new one. Maybe you could Google the topic, to see if there is more written information out there - I’m sure there must be.
Also, I have heard that it is best to use “point sizes” and not to specify your fonts in pixels, in CSS because apparently they display differently on MACs and PC’s, (but also for accessibility reasons.)
Also, thank you to Roel for opening all of our eyes with his enlightening commentary. I was so surprised to learn all of that, and now am thinking twice about everything I do. I have this pamphlet on accessibility that I got at a workshop I went to here in D.C., and it is all in there! I guess that I really need to start reading it and trying to implement the code.
Examples in the book includes these: pop-up windows using a little bit of javascript aren’t okay, either - you’re supposed to use a <noscript> tag to provide equivalent text, and enclose your link code inside of that which will just open up a new window. Some other pointers: provide text equiv for all images - and use alt and longdesc, as well as text link to a page with a description of your image. Don’t use color to convey information, and choose colors that are high-contrast, and make forms easy to fill out, and sync text with your multimedia presentations.
I thought that the BlindSurfer site was very nice, considering it uses minimal images.
38
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/19845366/
I hope you like my little peace of fan art. :-) I reused a big part of the original design and strangely enough I integrated the same option as mentioned by Jackie, to change font sizes (actually load other style sheets with js) by clicking the “A“‘s
39
@Zero Grav, nice ! :-) To be honest I’m working on a new design for my blog, I’m not planning on doing a huge job of making the current design as perfect as possible right now. I have to choose on how to spend my limited free time. So if I do something it will be a bit of tweaking to make this blog more readable (flexible em instead of px and maybe a Zoom layout with extra high contrast again if time permits).
@Jackie, the examples you gave are indeed things we need to consider in our future projects. It itches to do some tweaking on both my blog and business website.
There is one thing I would like to mention though and that’s the remark about using JavaScript and the <noscript> element. I’ve learned from the @media conference in London that if you have to use this element that it is and I quote Christian Heilmann “It is a sign that the script you use (or did) is bad and should have never been used in the first place”. Makes sense to me :-)
And now that I’m talking JS, also interesting for reading are Six JavaScript features we do not need any longer
40
Thanks Veerle for that info. I guess this Accessibility guide that I have was put out a couple of years ago, so maybe it isn’t completely up to date.
I tried out the <noscript> tag, on a page where I have a pop-up window, and all it does is put in another link to the page, right next to the link for the pop-up. It seems redundant. I guess I don’t know if pop-ups are okay or not now, (not for online advertising) but I was using one to display some information that I didn’t have room for on the main page. What is the consensus on pop-ups? I guess it is hard to do all of this stuff perfectly, so for now, will just do what I can.
41
@Jackie, the global advice is to avoid popup windows (a lot of users block them in their browser because of the popup ads anyway). If you think it is absolutely necessary to use a popup for some reason, then you need to inform the user that the link will open in a popup window either by adding the text next to the link or in a title attribute in the link element. That’s how I would do it (at least from now on ;-)
42
Huh! What an interesting posting and discussion. It is a shame that I dropped in that late but I promise that I read all of the comments and the articles (-:
After all what’s been said here for me it’s clear that I will continue to work with validate markup because as Veerle pointed it out already if we design websites that current screenreaders are able to read (at the moment!) we will never get them to interpret validated code.
43
Veerle,
thanks for the update on the pop-ups. I guess I knew pop-ups were a problem, but didn’t realize we should try to avoid them altogether. What I decided I would do for now, is to state (as you suggested), that the link will open up a pop-up windoe, then I added another link in a second paragraph, below it, that says, for a full-page view, they can click on the “Insurance Providers” link.
I wanted to keep the pop-up because I thought it was a more efficient way of presenting the material on that page, without having a long scroll, and they can see both main page and pop-up at the same time. I think the client I work for likes it too, so I didn’t want to do away with it altogether (as she might start to wonder what’s going on with her web site!) I hope by adding the extra link, though, that it will make it accessible to everyone. I guess this is just my way of doing things, but I think it will work okay. I do have the pop-up blocker on my computer, too, and it just asks you if you want to allow blocked content, or not. If you right-click, it will let you, but if you say now, then they can still get to the information via the second link, I would think - will have to test that out.
So strange, because when I first started taking web classes, everyone was into Flash intros, pop-ups, and javascript rollovers, etc. The idea was to be technically savvy and make your site visually attractive with the latest and greatest. But now, the web seems to be moving in the opposite direction in many ways, as the emphasis is more on accessibility, validated code, CSS, etc. and what was considered user-friendly before, is not necessarily, now.
Gee, it’s a little hard to keep up with it all!
44
I agree with the fact that most web designers and developers really need to see a screen reader in action. Unfortuently most of us will never see it in person.
The following is a link to some videos of Adaptive Technology being used. I showed these to the people I work with in a Accessibility Forum disscussion we had and they found it to be a real eye opener. I hope it helps others out there too.
http://www.doit.wisc.edu/accessibility/video/
45
This is great information! I am bummed, but happy. No longer is accessibility truly a selling point of CSS. :( but the good news is that we can be more informed and learn practical accessibilty.
Okay so keep us informed. I want to hear about the visit to their office and how the audit went. I hope that may happen.
Thanks Veerle for such great reading.
46
I just tripped into this entry very late. It’s a very interesting conversation.
I agree that too few web designers or developers have had the experience of using a screen reader. You can do the next best thing, listen to recordings of text cases done with several recent screen readers.
I’ve published a few of these, and will publish more at a blog called Access Matters where we try out various techniques, looking for modern best practices.
No, web standards aren’t enough, but they don’t do much harm either.
Hope to see you at Access Matters.
47
coming in late on this, and anup already mentioned this early on...but:
“Most screenreaders (like recent versions of Supernova or Virgo) don’t announce a bulleted list”
As mentioned, most screenreaders like JAWS do actually announce bullet lists. I downloaded the demo for Supernova and HAL, and both had no problem announcing “bullet list item” or similar.
48
also: using proper headings does help when using HAL/Supernova; you can get an overview of all headings (CAPS LOCK + 2) and change verbosity/reading settings to announce headings directly while reading the page.
sorry, but the slightly misleading statements made by this accessibility consultant make me a tad dubious…
49
“Now, back to Deinze. The HTML code of www.deinze.be makes me laugh”
“Yes, I know Deinze.be is ugly and the code sucks”
Is this the way to talk about a client? :)