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Patrick J. Burke
Blindness and Accessibility Analyst
UCLA
Phone: 310-206-6004
Email: burke@ucla.edu
Kevin Price
Adaptive Technology Specialist and Accessibility Analyst
UCLA
Phone: 310-206-7133
Email: pricek@ucla.edu
The unprecedented expansion of the World Wide Web has created
a revolution in information access for persons with and without
disabilities. This expansion has taken place in an atmosphere of
great freedom. However - except for the most basic conventions of
how browser programs should interpret HTML (HyperText Markup
Language) - this freedom often appears more like chaos.
Promulgation of usage standards becomes difficult as HTML editors
try to make it easy for anyone to create a Web page. Novice
designers concentrate on making pages that look good (at least on
their own screen) without regard for the truly universal nature
of the Web. On the other hand, government and other public
entities are also establishing a Web presence. This trend raises
the key issues of creating pages accessible to all users -
including those with disabilities - and of formulating legally
binding standards.
At UCLA's Disabilities and Computing Program (DCP), involvement
in information access solutions pre-dates the dominance of the
Web. However, UCLA's decentralized computing environment presents
a number of challenges and requires a flexible access strategy.
Academic and administrative departments generally have
independent Web services, making standardization of access
solutions difficult. There is no campus-wide policy on Web
accessibility and even if there were, it would be of limited
effectiveness. In this environment we have found cooperation and
collaboration to be the most effective strategies in working to
achieve accessible Web sites.
In this diverse setting, one successful campus-wide project is
Bruin OnLine (BOL), which includes a dialup network, campus
E-mail system, and software CD-ROM. This CD can be purchased by
students or others on campus and contains site-licensed, freeware
and shareware applications for Internet access (such as Netscape,
Microsoft Internet Explorer, Eudora Pro, etc.). This gives
UCLA’s Disabilities and Computing Program a core group of
mainstream applications to support. We can then focus on finding
adaptive solutions that work with these programs and train our
clients to use them effectively. In turn this gives us a
yardstick for Web access by UCLA community members, since they
will almost certainly be using Bruin OnLine applications along
with adaptive technology.
We have sought a strategy that will not inhibit research and
experimentation at UCLA, but that will provide access on the
broadest possible basis. Accordingly we have devised a three-tier
system for prioritizing and evaluating the accessibility of
on-campus Web sites
Experimental sites (in computer science, engineering, etc.) are
encouraged to add accessibility features as soon as technology
makes it feasible; Sites intended for use by UCLA staff, students
and faculty are tested with the Bruin OnLine software packages
and the adaptive technology we support in order to make them
accessible to our clients; UCLA public information sites are
strongly encouraged to meet the highest possible accessibility
standards for maximum participation by a worldwide audience. With
this background, our main focus will be to describe the process
we have developed to provide tailored feedback for groups or
individuals wishing to design accessible Web sites at UCLA.
Collaboration is the key, since even a conscientious Web designer
may not be aware of what will work with adaptive technology, and
the purpose of a page may not be immediately obvious to an
adaptive technology user. We serve as an advanced user-testing
group making sure that the site's purpose is clear and that the
structures it contains are usable, both in general and
specifically with adaptive software. In-person meetings and
demonstrations allow rapid testing of various design options and
give designers a clearer idea of what the adaptive needs are.
Demonstrations using a designer's own pages have proven to be the
most effective tool in gaining cooperation and support.
Collaboration is also essential because many sites are not
simply Web pages but Web systems, using third-party software to
generate HTML automatically from information databases. Our staff
cannot analyze all the possible software or scripting solutions
that may be involved, but we can work with systems programmers to
let them know what is necessary for access. It is also critical
to demonstrate and discuss features of a site that work well, so
that they can be preserved in the next inevitable re-design. The
Bobby accessibility tool (http://www.cast.org/bobby)
helps provide rather dramatic and thorough feedback on what is or
is not accessible on a page.
As a final step in the accessibility analysis process we produce
written reports that summarize the findings of our staff and the
resulting solutions that have been worked out in collaboration
with the site designers. This provides valuable information on
solutions that may be repeatable in future projects, and it gives
each group a quantitative measure of what it has achieved. We
also do follow-up on sites as they continue to evolve.
The primary problems that we have faced have not generally
reflected unwillingness to help or even lack of awareness of what
the W3C Accessibility Guidelines are. Instead we have mainly
encountered difficulties relating to systems considerations. If
crucial early decisions have already been made, such as an
institutional commitment to a particular graphical "look and
feel,” or to a specific method of generating Web pages on
the fly, then the possibilities for making a site accessible may
become limited. While we are committed to the principles of one
universal design being the best solution, text-only or other
alternative means of displaying content may be necessary in these
cases. It is also important to recognize the Web designer's sense
of ownership of a site, as well as to avoid making criticism of
the design into a personal affront. Since designers often fear
that accessibility will mean tampering with the appearance of
their pages, it is critical to show that this is not the case, or
to show the tangible problems caused by the design choice. Once
convinced, these designers can become allies in working for
accessibility.
We also carry on a number of efforts to get more people
interested in Web accessibility. Our most effective (although
most labor-intensive) means of promotion is the live
demonstration of adaptive technology. We make these presentations
to raise awareness of the existence of adaptive technology in
general and Web access issues in particular. We discuss the
adaptive technology revolution of the last decade and invite Web
authors to be part of the continuing information access
revolution, stressing the parallels between adaptive solutions
and emerging mobile or otherwise non-standard Web browsing
technologies.
There are also a number of Web technology and instructional
technology organizations on campus. We raise access issues
whenever possible at the meetings and on the E-mail discussion
lists of these groups, keeping the effect of new technologies on
disability access as an issue on the table. We also participate
in campus technology fairs and other events with Web-related
components, raising the visibility of Web users with
disabilities.
The above activities also serve to educate our campus Web
community, updating them on new developments and keeping them
interested in Web accessibility. In addition, we maintain a Web
accessibility resource page (http://www.dcp.ucla.edu/resources/accessibility.htm).
This page contains links to standard reference documents and
tools, such as the W3C's Web Access Initiative (WAI) Guidelines,
the latest accessibility information from Microsoft, Sun and
other sources, and the Bobby accessibility tool. Since we receive
many requests for information in a simpler form than the WAI
Guidelines, we attempt to highlight specific WAI documents in
areas such as SMIL, and also provide links to other accessibility
tips and tutorials. Another section of this page gathers
information from the area of usability analysis and research
(such as Jakob Nielsen's site at http://www.useit.com).
There is often substantial overlap between usability findings and
accessibility needs, when, for example, animations on a site or
complex page layout turn out to distract and confuse a large
majority of users. Thinking of Web sites in terms of what is
efficient or usable for all frequently benefits users with
disabilities. Finally, we include links on our resource page to
any new tools that can enhance Web accessibility.
While the legal imperative and the right to information access
are becoming well-established, our experience at UCLA’s
Disabilities and Computing Program has shown the power of
involving Webmasters in the process of finding accessible
solutions and collaborating with them to make them work. As
document sharing and on-line collaboration develop as important
uses for Web-based technologies, the ability to cooperate to
solve accessibility problems in ever-changing situations will
also increase in importance. These solutions will not only
benefit persons with disabilities but anyone not using a standard
mouse-monitor-keyboard system at any given time. By fully
participating in this process, persons with disabilities can take
a leadership role in defining the Web of the future.
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