Transcript Slide 1

Arts, Media and Technology at the MCA

9 August 2012

Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney

Roger Hudson Web Usability

How many?

18.5% of all Australians (4 million people)

Age related

8.6% of 25-34 year olds 18% of 45-54 year olds 40% of 65-69 year olds

Source:

“2009 Disability, Ageing and Careers survey” Australian Bureau of Statistics

MYTH

People with disabilities

won ’t

/

can ’t

/

don ’t

use the Internet

Internet Usage

53% of all people with reported disability 23% of people with ‘profound’ limitations

Social Inclusion

WHAT?

Content of web pages should be accessible with:

• Different input devices; mouse, keyboard, switches, etc.

• Different output devices, browsers, screen readers, magnifiers, etc.

Device independence

Source: “Refreshable Braille and the Web”

Killing Bambi

Screen readers and Flash

Looking inside Flash Eclipse ACTF aDesigner

http://www.eclipse.org/actf/downloads/tools/aDesigner/

MYTHS

Accessibility = expensive Accessibility = difficult Accessibility = boring

Rules and regulations

Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act 1992

(Australian Human Rights Commission Advisory Note) • All new websites should be WCAG 2 AA compliant. • Existing non-government sites should be WCAG 2 AA by end of 2013

Commonwealth (AGIMO) and state government web guidelines

• Government websites should be WCAG 2 AA by end of 2014

UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Ratified by Australia in August 2009

WCAG 2 Structure – POUR Principles Four key principles of accessibility

1. Content must be

P

erceivable 2. Interface components in the content must be

O

perable 3. Content and controls must be

U

nderstandable 4. Content should be

R

obust enough to work with current and future user agents (including AT)

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0

http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/

WCAG 2.0 Recommendations “WCAG 2.0 W3C Recommendation” contains:

4 Principles

12 Guidelines

61 Success Criteria

that specify what is required to comply with the guidelines.

Three levels of conformance are defined for the Success Criteria (A, AA and AAA)

Testable

Success Criteria are statements that can be applied to different technologies and are testable by machines and/or humans.

WCAG 2.0 Techniques

Advice about how to satisfy the Success Criteria is provided in the W3C “Techniques” document •

Sufficient Techniques:

Ways of meeting the Success Criteria.

Advisory Techniques:

Goes beyond what is required to help authors better address the Guideline.

Failures:

Known failures to comply with the Success Criteria

How do you know if something is accessible?

A few simple accessibility questions

• Can you use the page without images?

• Can you use the page with the keyboard?

• When using a keyboard, do you know where you are?

• Do headings use heading elements ?

• How are form inputs identified?

• Is the colour contrast sufficient?

Accessibility testing tools can help a lot

(Demonstration of the Web Accessibility Toolbar) http://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/wat-ie-about.html

http://www.aarts.net.au/audience-development/youth-arts-access/

But, tools can ’t tell you everything

Quick introduction to screen readers

Screen readers output the content of accessible pages as either synthetic speech or refreshable Braille.

Many different screen readers, including: • JAWS • Window Eyes • NVDA (Great Australian technology that is FREE)

NVDA in action: Reading a web page

NVDA download: http://www.nvda-project.org/wiki/Download http://www.aarts.net.au/audience-development/youth-arts-access/

Rapidly advancing web Same old problems

Common problems 1 - 3 1. Failure to include text alternatives for images

The need to provide equivalent text alternatives for all non-text content is the first accessibility requirement of WCAG 2.

2. Use of CAPTCHA

The most common example of CAPTCHA is distorted images of text used as part of a login or registration process.

3. Failure to use HTML Header elements appropriately

Header element should be used to identify and present different sections and sub-sections of the page.

Common problems 4 - 6 4. Failure to identify form inputs adequately

All form inputs should have explicitly associated labels or use the input title attribute for identification.

5. Failure to ensure sites can be used without the mouse

Not all web users are able to use a mouse so it is important to ensure site pages can also be used with the keyboard.

6. Failure to mark-up data tables correctly

With all data tables, users need to be able to associate the information presented in each data cell with the relevant row and column headers.

Don ’t forget older web users In Australia 2005:

24% of 65 -74 year olds are online

2007:

38% of 65 -74 year olds are online

2011:

71% of 55 – 64 year olds (age group with the greatest increase in use)

Mature age ICT users survey 2011 48%

- text size is a problem at least sometime

23%

- use of colour is a problem at least sometime

‘web sites are designed by young people with good vision ’

(Participant comment)

Where next?

Making exciting things accessible is exciting

Thank you Any questions

Roger Hudson Email:

[email protected]

Web:

www.usability.com.au

Blog:

www.dingoaccess.com