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The Usability Principles, Accessibility Style

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Steve Grobschmidt (@AquinasWI) recently blogged a three-part series titled The Usability Principles, Accessibility Style. Using Jakob Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics as a guideline, Steve discusses the principles and then explains how they each relate to accessibility. Great stuff!

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

The 10 principles discussed are:

1. Visibility of system status
2. Match between system and the real world
3. User control and freedom
4. Consistency and standards
5. Error prevention
6. Recognition rather than recall
7. Flexibility and efficiency of use
8. Aesthetic and minimalist design
9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
10. Help and documentation

Labels: usability

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Reflecting on GAAD

Sunday, May 20, 2012

[A guest post by Jennison Asuncion (@Jennison), co-founder of GAAD]

On May 9, people from around the world took part in public events, hands-on experiences, and other activities to mark the first Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). Conceived by Joe Devon, the idea started because Joe, as a developer, and not someone who knew much about accessibility to begin with himself, blogged passionately last November that all devs need to possess basic awareness of and do their part in making the web accessible. He further declared that there needs to be a day to bring focus, and suggested May 9 as a good a day as any.

As someone who is constantly thinking about and actively pursuing ways to make digital accessibility, "accessible", to the mainstream IT and related communities myself, you cannot imagine my excitement when I stumbled upon, purely by accident via Twitter, Joe's blog post, on that random Saturday night when it went live. After reading it, I was immediately in touch with Joe, raising my hand to be his co-pilot for the effort. The rest is now history, and a pretty good testimonial of the power of social media in its own right.

What inspired me most, outside of Joe's genuine interest and enthusiasm, was how willing people were, in stepping forward to either run an event and/or promote GAAD, without much time at all to spare. Thank you everyone. The truth is that Joe and I share a common trait, equally hectic schedules between our day jobs and our other involvements, which meant GAAD crept up on both of us. Thankfully, leaning on our generous networks, social media, and word of mouth, everyone who took part, in what ever way, has much to be proud of. Now that the date is set, and the event is out there, GAAD 2013 and beyond can only keep growing. Check out Joe's post-event recap to see where he plans bringing his energies next.

Involvement with GAAD has only reinforced my belief that we, working in digital accessibility, only benefit when we engage with and support members of the mainstream design, development, and related communities in raising the profile of and addressing digital accessibility.

Get involved- express interest in holding an event for GAAD 2013. Volunteer to translate some of our text into other languages.

• Email globala11yawarenessday at gmail.com
• Follow/tweet @gbla11yday
• Like GAAD's Facebook page

Editor's Note

There were many blogs and press articles written about GAAD. Here are some:

• Web Axe Podcast #95: Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Surveys, more
• Video of GAAD Los Angeles at Yahoo! featuring Todd Kloots and Victor Tsaran, along with Zahir Herz.
• Boston Post-Event Wrap-Up by The Carroll Center for the Blind.
• Global Accessibility Awareness Day Highlights Digital Inclusion by @LFLegal.
• Join the Festivities: Do Something for Global Accessibility Awareness Day by District Dispatch.
• Global Accessibility Awareness Day is Today–but wheress the Sem Tech?
• Global Accessibility Awareness Day: May 9 by Chronicle.com.
• May 9 is Global Accessibility Awareness Day by @GoodWitch.
• New event promotes accessibility: For people with disabilities, the Internet offers a world of challenges, by Canada.com.
• Awareness by @Feather.
• Today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day by How Interactive Design.
• Know Your Web: Making the Web an Accessible Place

Labels: gaad

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Podcast #95: Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Surveys, more

Thursday, May 03, 2012

First, Dennis and Ross discuss a variety of topics including some current surveys and a couple articles about skip-to links. Then Dennis speaks with @JoeDevon and @Jennison about the inaugural Global Accessibility Awareness Day!

Download Web Axe Episode 95 (Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Surveys, more)
[Transcript of podcast 95]

Goings On

• Ross' book update.
• Positive email response to Disability.gov critique.
• Liz Ellcessor Ph.D. candidate in Media & Cultural Studies at U of Wisc interviews Dennis (Malware warning due to hosting issue).
• New! a11yBuzz by @KarlGroves, an "accessibility body of knowledge".
• 2 updates (validation, open in other browsers) to Web Accessibility Toolbar 2012 by The Paciello Group.
• Seeing more accessibility jobs in general lately. Hiring good web developers at PayPal in San Jose, San Francisco, Austin; contact @DennisL.

Surveys

• Blind or low-vision users, complete AFB's Survey on Travel Website Accessibility.
• Short survey by Blind Bargains to improve accessibility to flowcharts on mobile devices (must log in).
• Survey on Books & Accessibility for person with disability, special educators, parents; from @Barrierbreak.
• 4th screen reader survey by WebAIM

Articles

• Skip links on mobile and tablets by @iheni.
• Article by @TerrillThompson "Back to Basics: Skip to Main Content Links".
• The Mobile Website Debate (Jakob Nielson vs Josh Clark vs Ross Johnson).
• Usability Principles, Accessibility Style, a 3-part series by @AquinasWI.
• Good examples of accessible websites by @TerrillThompson.

Upcoming Events

• Accessibility Conference at University of Guelph, Ontario - May 29-30, 2012
• Accessibility Camp Seattle (A11ySEA) - June 2-3, 2012
• NFB National Convention 2012 starts June 30 in Dallas: http://t.co/mSQ59Op5

Global Accessibility Awareness Day

• Wednesday, May 9; first one ever!
• GAAD Website (launched May 2!)
• Facebook page.
• Twitter @GblA11yDay and hashtag #GAAD.
• Event in Los Angeles featuring Yahoo!'s Todd Kloots and Victor Tsaran.
• Melbourne Breakfast Meetup led by Adem Cifcioglu.
• Event in Toronto, Canada, at OCAD University.
• Event in Mumbai, India sponsored by BarrierBreak Technologies.

Labels: event, podcast, survey

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Suggestions for the new Disability.gov

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Last month (March 2012), Disability.gov (@DisabilityGov) relaunched its website; there is an announcement in its newsletter. I discovered this actually by coming across an article posted on Twitter, A Look behind the Scenes – Part I: Making Disability.gov Accessible which discusses considerations made when developing an accessible website.

Naturally, this peaked my curiosity and was compelled to investigate. I found mixed results. Every website, no matter how great the foundation, is a work in progress and could use improvements. Disability.gov is no exception. Here's my review of the home page.

• Heading usage needs improvement. Currently no H1 and only two H2 elements, nothing else. Besides the H1, suggest at least adding headings for the featured/slide content and the Connect section at bottom.
• In very top section, the elements are keyboard accessible which is great, but the visual placement of print button is out of tab order which makes it a little confusing. (On other pages, three added text links in this area compound the problem.)
• The "Skip to Page Content" link is good, but needs a JavaScript enhancement for browsers that don't support the functionality. The fix is explained at end of article Back to Basics: Skip to Main Content Links by @TerrillThompson (which I implemented on Easy Chirp). (Skip-to link is the first of three main features listed on the site's accessibility statement.)
• I like the implementation of the search form (besides the 1 extra span in the markup). It uses a visually hidden label and an HTML5 placeholder attribute.
• High contrast controls are good as the input label and submit button are included. But there are a few issues; the first two mesh with usability. (High contrast is the second of three main features listed on the site's accessibility statement.)
• It seems that "Full Graphics" is a poor choice of words for the default state. After all, both states have the graphics.
• There are only two options, so why have a select dropdown? Unless more options are planned, I suggest using two simple radio options or a single checkbox option.
• While in high contrast mode, text links in the featured/slide content are unreadable (yellow on white).
• About the feedback modal/overlay window:
• After opening, the focus is managed and the feature is keyboard accessible, which is super. But the "Save" button is misleading and confusing. It should simply be "Submit"; the user is not saving the selection for later, but actually submitting his or her response.
• After closing the feedback modal/overlay window, the keyboard focus is lost. When closing, suggest placing focus on control that opened it (the button "Tell us what you think").
• In the non-JavaScript use case:
• The feedback is missing a submit button (and the button "Tell us what you think" should not be present). 
• The featured/slide content doesn't degrade well. Most of the slide sections are still visually hidden with no controls to view.
• There is a visual hover/focus indicator for text links, which is great, but should be more prominent (more obvious, too subtle); it's currently dark blue text which changes to purple text.
• The links under Information by Topic have a lot of content in the title attribute. If the content is that long, and especially if it's important to the user (not "supplementary"), then title attributes are not the best solution.
• Under News and Events, a title attribute is fine for links in new window, but also need visual indication (icon) and/or include "new window" in anchor (and possibly hide off screen).
• It's good practice to declare a language in the HTML element with the lang attribute, in this case, lang="en-us".
• The text-resize widget works, but I see two issues (this is the third of three main features listed on the site's accessibility statement):
• The text-resize widget doesn't resize text specifically; it makes the whole design larger, which is basically the same as browsers' page zoom feature. So why have the widget? Recommend replacing with real text-size functionality since browsers bury this feature or don't provide it at all anymore.
• The hover/focus state of the options in the text-resize widget is so subtle (purple instead of black) that it's very difficult to notice the change.
• The options in the "Add This" flyout provides visual feedback with the mouse hover, but is missing keyboard focus.

After completing this review, I unfortunately wouldn't agree with the claim in the footer that the Disability.gov website adheres to WCAG 2 level AA.

The site's accessibility statement states:

If you experience any technical problems or have issues with accessibility, please contact dgovdeveloper AT devis DOT com with your feedback, and we'll do our best to respond to your concerns.

I have emailed a link to a link to this blog and hope more improvements can be made soon. -Dennis

Labels: gov, review

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Web Accessibility Jobs, April 2012

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Great opportunities in US, UK, and Australia!

• Accessibility gurus at Nomensa seek Django/Python Developer for their Bristol, UK office.
• Intuit seeks a Sr. Accessibility Software Engineer in Mountain View, CA.
• NIH seeks a Section 508 QA. Send resume to Mikhail Seidov at mseidov at ezsc-usa dot com or go to listings.
• Web Accessibility Consultant wanted at Vision Australia in Melbourne.
• The RNIB seeks temporary principal web accessibility consultant in UK.Yammer seeks a Senior Accessibility Engineer in San Francisco.
• Software Developer, Accessibility Services at Research In Motion (Blackberry).

For more, be sure to follow me, accessible_jobs and @a11yjobs on Twitter!

Labels: job

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Response to blog Web Accessibility Initiative

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

This is a response to the blog Web Accessibility Initiative by Nathan Crause. Contrary to the title, the article attempts to disclaim the need for web accessibility, particularly for visual impairments. I submitted a comment but it wasn't posted. So here it is:

A 3.8% population with visual impairment is not minor at all. If your company has 1 million potential customers, you are ignoring 38,000 chances to make money! And if they're already customers, be prepared to receive up to 38,000 complaints.

Keep in mind that accessibility also benefits people who have mobile, hearing, and cognitive impairments. They are potential customers, too, and they themselves add up to much more than 3.8% of the U.S. population. The 2009 stats from DisabilityStatistics.org say about 2% of the U.S. population is visually impaired, while total percentage of people who are disabled is around 12%.

Java Applets...seriously?

Content of SVG can be made accessible. And even the accessibility of HTML5 canvas is being worked out.

In addition, Flash can be made accessible. Adobe has made huge improvements here, although not on the Mac. The problem is that developers have the tools to make web sites/apps accessible, but just hardly ever do it.

JavaScript libraries are usually not an issue either. For example, YUI3 and jQuery UI incorporates ARIA which help screen reader users with the interaction.

Still don't believe me? Check out the W3C's Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization.

If you current with web technologies, an accessible website doesn't have to be "crippling". The bar is now set much higher with modern coding practices available such as progressive enhancement, ARIA, and managing focus. A good example of an accessible web application is Yahoo! email.

The real issue here is ignorance. Ignorance in business, empathy, and proper development technologies and practices. I do agree with you [the author, Nathan] on one point, though; accessibility is a touchy subject.

Labels: review

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CSUN12 Quick Review

Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Another CSUN conference has come and gone and this year was better than ever. I met many great people for the first time including Joe Dolson, who's been on the Web Axe podcast a couple times in the past. The conference included much discussion on Google and accessibility, the announcement of WAVE5 beta by WebAIM, and the Tweetup was a bash! Special thanks to Adobe, Deque, and Accessible Media for being such great hosts. On Saturday morning, I attended the SS12 finals in which @Jennison was one of three judges (I judged last year). Be sure to check out the Great Big List by @mactoph which includes many links to presentations, round-ups, podcasts, and more. Also, here's my Flickr CSUN12 photo album. -Dennis

Labels: csun

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