Accessibility Services

What is Website Accessibility?

Approximately 20% of Americans have a disability. Many of these individuals experience barriers when visiting web pages. The four examples below may help demonstrate the types of obstacles that may be encountered by an individual with a disability.

A professor has recorded his voice describing the characteristics of a Frank Lloyd Wright home. This recording is available to students on the web as an audiofile. This is an example of an obstacle for any student that is hard of hearing or deaf as the audio may not be heard.
The same professor places photographs of Frank Lloyd Wright homes on the web page to illustrate visually the characteristics that make Wright's homes unique. These photographs are an obstacle for students that are blind or visually impaired. They are unable to see the unique characteristics in the pictures.
Another example is Frank Lloyd Wright web page written in unnecessarily complicated language, using technical terms, and rare words, that create obstacles to all, and very serious obstacles to people with cognitive disabilities or limited language skills.
A last example is a department that offers four different services.In an effort to provide users of their web site with an overview of these services, the webmaster has designed a graphic with four regions. When the user places the mouse one of these text is displayed that provides details of this service. These services are not described anywhere else on the webpage, and the descriptions can be accessed only through correct placement of the mouse. This graphic represents an obstacle for a user who relies on a mouth wand to press keys on the key board.

The examples in this section represent only a few potential barriers that an individual with a disability may encounter on the web. The purpose of the University's web accessibility policy is to correct the awareness web designers have of such access barriers.

What is the Background of Web Accessibility?

The Federal Government addresses workplace accessibility in both the American's with Disabilities Act and the Federal Rehabilitation Act. Both these documents can be interpreted to apply to the use of technology. The government amended the Federal Rehabilitation Act in 1998 to include Section 508 the basis for the movement towards accessibility on the web .Accessibility has also been addressed by the World Wide Web Consortium(W3C) a group dedicated to the evolution of a more usable World Wide Web. Many of its recommendations have been adopted by governments at the country and state level, as well as academic institutions and private industry.

What web-based tools exist for responding to Section 508 standards?

BOBBY is probably the best-known general evaluation tool. It is a free downloadable service to help web developers identify and repair barriers to technology accessibility.W3C has prepared one of the most comprehensive inventories of assessment and repair tools.

W3C:Evaluation, Repair, and Transformation Tools for Web Content Accessibility http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/existingtools.html
Bobby Accessibility Validator:Center for Applied Special Technology http://www.cast.org/bobby
W3C HTML Validation Service http://validator.w3.org
Jaws Validator http://www.hj.com/
Pennsylvania Initiative on Assistive Technology (PIAT) WAVE Accessibility Validator http://www.temple.edu/inst_disidilities/piat/wave/

What professional organizations, associations, or working groups routinely monitor 508 developments, and how can they be contacted?

Some of the major ones are listed below. For example, the Rehabilitative Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) sponsors an annual conference and exhibits, publishes the journal Assistive Technology, and offers a credentialing program in assistive technology . Within higher education, the EASI program at the Rochester Institute of Technology offers a wide range of professional development programs, especially for faculty.

Web AIM-Web Accessibility in Mind http://www.webaim.org
Rehabilitative Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA)http://www.resna.org
International Center for Disability Resources on the Internet (ICDRI) http://www.icdri.org
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) http://www.w3.org
W3C-Education & Outreach Working Group http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO
Disability Related Organizations http://www.access-board.gov/links/disability.htm
Equal Access to Software and Information (EASI), project of AAHE TLT Group http://www.rit.edu/easi/
Accessible Web Authoring Resources and Education Center (AWARE) http://aware.hwg.org/
Do-It http://www.washington.edu/doit
University of Wisconsin Trade Center http://trace.wisc.edu /world/web/index.html

I design a student organization site.Does this apply to me?

Yes. A student organization that uses the internet to provide information regarding its programs or services must offer those communications through accessible means.

Is there a deadline for becoming compliant?

While there currently is no deadline, we are attempting to make all our pages as accessible as possible using the resources at our disposal.

How difficult is it to make a site compliant?

It depends on how complicated your site is. Generally speaking, designing an accessible website is not difficult. Often it is a matter of applying alternate text to graphic elements, using standard code, and making sure that information that is not accessible is supplied in an alternate accessible format.

Won't accessible websites be less appealing?

On the contrary, pages that are totally accessible can look identical to their non-accessible counterparts. Accessible sites may have other advantages as well. Images that are properly identified and sound and video that are captioned or have transcripts can be indexed and will turn up in searches. With the growth of Personal Digital Assistants (PDA'S) and website content delivered to cell phones, having text-based content is becoming more important because the screens on such devices are so small.

What are some of the problems people with disabilities face with websites?

Ordinary text on a website is the most accessible form of information on a website for persons with any disability. But the web's evolution toward graphics, animation, videos, sound and other nontext displays, has created a barrier to the handicapped because specially adapted equipment does not handle these well. While by no means exhaustive, here is a list of solutions to some common problems.

Provide text equivalents using the Alt attribute for non-text elements (i.e., images, animations, audio, video).
Avoid image maps or provide an alternate textlist.
Provide text equivalents using the Alt attribute for non-text elements(i.e., images, animations, audio, video).
Provide summaries of graphs and charts.
Ensure that all information conveyed with color is also available without color.
Provide text for audio clips and description for video clips.
Organize content logically and clearly.
Provide text for audio clips and description for video clips.
Provide alternative content features(e.g., applets or javaScript )for those that may not be supported.

Who Benefits from Web Accessibility?

An accessible web page will be openly received by those who use modems rather than their company's network to access the web, individuals who use PDA'S , people who are legally blind, folks that speak English as a second language, and numerous other groups.

Individuals with disabilities that may encounter barriers on the web include

hard of hearing or deaf
low vision or blindness
physical/motor disability
cognitive disability
Temporary disability (broken arm, ear infection, eye injury, etc.)