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- United Nations takes a crack at online accessibility issues
United Nations takes a crack at online accessibility issues
I ran across information on a recent United Nations accessibility review of 100 different Web sites from 20 countries around the world. Their grade? Big Fat F for Failure
Only 3 of those 100 actually made a decent score, which is just pathetic. Specifically:
- German chancellor's site: http://www.bundeskanzlerin.de
- British prime minister's site: http://www.primeminister.gov.uk
- Spanish government site: http://www.la-moncloa.es/default.htm
Online accessibility really hits close to home for me. My younger brother is legally blind (among other physical issues), but an extremely devoted Internet junkie. Email and Google are like Oxygen to him - but he can only access these with the help of screen readers, enlargers and custom-designed computer hardware.
Intellectually, my brother is a genius and the Internet is a fantastic vehicle for him to explore worlds and participate in conversations that he just can't get to with the way his body works. As a sister it infuriates me that Web designers block him from achieving his online goals b/c of laziness or ignorance.
As an Internet professional, it's frustrating for me to see other Web-focused companies go halfway in their Web site efforts. Cutting corners by not doing something as simple (yet amazingly functional) as adding alt-tags or by being careless with their Java Scripting, etc. Argh.
From the UN press release: Websites, according to the Guidelines, must allow users, particularly those who used web readers, to easily adjust text size, to easily navigate through a website, to easily differentiate between colours, to offer an alternative to JavaScript that prevents many people from accessing key information, and by allowing keyboard shortcuts.
“Fully accessible websites are not only good for persons with disabilities, they are good for everyone,” Mr. Schindlmayr said. “Persons with disabilities shop, they travel and they need information just like everyone else. Allowing people to exercise their human rights and play their full part in the economic, social and political lives of their societies just makes good sense all around.”
International efforts like this and national efforts like Knowbility's Accessibility Internet Rally (AIR) competitions will really make a difference for every single online user. I am so appreciative of people that work so hard to make a difference online.
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Latest Comments
- Awesome
8 hours 11 min ago - Many thanks Laura
1 day 16 hours ago - Great list of resources Beth
1 day 16 hours ago
Comments
Not just the designers or developers
I share your frustration over this one Katie. Even though it was a small sample of sites - only 100 - they were supposed to be from organisations leading their sector (in a real world rather than just online sense).
I would suggest though that it's not just a question of the developers or designers, although unfortunately they do play their part. Having worked on a number of public sector sites for central & local government we've been in the position of handing over our accessible work only to see it being broken.
Frequently this is because the tools offered to content providers haven't been looked at from an accessibility angle and appropriate training/advice hasn't been given on how to use them. We've been too excited by the potential of allowing the people who generate the content the ability to manage their pages that we've ignored the problems that can be created.
Right now I have the opportunity to break the Double-A accessibility guidelines because of the WYSIWYG for this comment. It uses TinyMCE and is offering me an indent button. I know if I use it though it'll put a <blockquote> tag into the HTML - something that should be used only for quotes and not for the styling it uses. It would be very easy & completely understandable for someone without HTML knowledge to use it believing it's the right thing to do. So as developers we need to delve a bit deeper into the nooks & crannies of our systems, and make sure that we're not giving these options.
But that won't solve all the problems. The other side is knowledge of using the features available appropriately. One of the most frequent errors we find is using bold to style something that should be marked up as a heading (again breaking the accessibility guidelines). Both options are usually available in a WYSIWYG, so there needs to be an explanation of when to use them.
I'm trying to put some advice together on our company blog for our clients - http://www.redefine.co.uk/blog/category/accessibility/. It seems that most of the current information available elsewhere is aimed at developers or designers (there's a good document at http://www.diveintoaccessibility.org for all bloggers), so it's not really much help for content providers. Hopefully it'll be a useful resource that will help to make the web more accessible.
Beautiful post
Thanks for sharing your brother's story, Katie. It bring to life the importance of "accessibility", and makes it more than just a term that is flung around.
Britt Bravo
Community Builder
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