Vision Impaired Users Make Strides in Ensuring Accessible Sites

In early September, a precedent was set that retailers must make their websites accessible to vision impaired users. Those who fail to comply with the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) by not making their sites accessible, risk the chance of being sued.

This all comes from a recent class-action suit brought on by the National Federation of the Blind against Target Corporation. National Federation challenged that Target's website is inaccessible to the vision impaired and therefore violates ADA. The court denied Target the request to acquit the action claiming that no law required their site to be accessible. The court held that federal and state civil laws apply to a large retailer site like Target's. Because ADA compliant brick-and-mortar Target stores are accessible for those with disabilities to enjoy goods and services, all services they provide must be accessible for those with disabilities, like their website.

According to National Federation of the Blind president Dr. Marc Maurer, this has been a great triumph for vision impaired people throughout the country.

Some particular areas on Target's site that were nearly impossible for vision impaired users to independently navigate were product browsing and purchasing as well as being able to find important information like employment opportunities, investor news, and policies. This is because alt-text that allows users to obtain information vocally was not included and maps and graphical features were very unfriendly for those with accessibility needs. Vision impaired users use screen reading software to navigate websites where on-screen information is vocalized to the user.

This case calls for web site owners to analyze their site for accessibility. Places of public accommodation are not allowed to discriminate, meaning if they provide goods in brick-and-mortar ADA compliant establishments, the website the company uses to enhance and provide those same goods on must be ADA compliant.

SAMSA specializes in web accessibility and can help make your company's website truly accessible to all.

 

Top Search Engines Offer More Accessible Searches

Hundreds of thousands of blind computer users regularly surf the Internet and top Internet companies, including AOL, Google, and Yahoo, are addressing this fact, despite the high prices involved to include such assistive technology.

According to the American Foundation for the Blind, roughly only 200,000 people who cannot see print at all have access to the Internet. This is in addition to the estimated 1.5 million users who have difficulty seeing with glasses that have access to the Web.

With the increasing amount of features on sites and complex programming involved, companies know they have to ensure accessibility if they want to retain and grow their vision impaired customer base. So what are top companies doing?

Google Inc. recently launched Google Accessible Search. This search tool ranks results based on the simplicity of the sites. Pages with numerous headings, appropriate numbers of pictures and text, and factors that make the pages easier to read with a screen reader have the highest ranking. The tool can be found at http://labs.google.com/accessible.

In the near future AOL plans to revise its current AOL Web Mail. The updated version will be more screen reader friendly. It will eliminate the need for screen reader users to switch to a text-only page.

When Yahoo Inc. redesigned their home page a couple of months ago, they made it more accessible by adding a large number of headings that allows low vision users to navigate sections much more smoothly than before.

New tools for developers will continue to have a positive impact on improving a broad range of sites. Microsoft Corporation will be releasing UI Automation with its Vista Operating System in the upcoming future. This new technology makes it simpler for screen readers to translate Web applications. Users will be able to use their screen readers to retrieve information about how many messages are in their inboxes without having to go through each message. They're also able to alert their browser about which links they have already visited on a page.

With technology improving and Internet companies offering new services, the number of blind users with access to the Internet is expected to continue growing. Internet companies' pushing themselves to be more accessible is just the beginning of a larger push to revise federal Web accessibility standards and legal efforts to get the guidelines adopted nationally wide. There are currently no Federal laws requiring all Web sites to be accessible to those with vision or other physical disabilities. SAMSA supports accessibility compliance and can help you make your site more accessible.

 

Newly Released Screen Reader Helps Website Owners & Customers Alike

At the annual Sight Village vision impairment conference in Birmingham, United Kingdom, a new screen reader was launched. The conference, dedicated to addressing blindness issues, released screen reader software, Thunder.

This tool helps site owners detect and promptly fix any problems that might be experienced by low vision and blind website visitors. At the same time, screen readers help give more of the population the means to having true access to technology. Thunder uses audio output to convey the text on the web page to the user. It can be downloaded from the ScreenReader website. For a modest fee, SAMSA can set it up for you and address any other accessibility needs your organization's website may have.

ScreenReader is a non-profit, Community Interest Company from Choice Technology that partnered with United Kingdom international assistive technology company Sensory Software to develop this new innovative accessibility software. Thunder is free to individuals but businesses using this software have to pay for a yearly subscription based on their size. If you prefer, SAMSA can maintain your account for you.

Requirements to run this software effectively include a Windows 2000, XP, or Vista operating system along with working speakers or headphones. This software is easy for vision impaired users who are new or veterans of navigating the web. It also has a very low chance of conflicting with other software running on the family or company computer, making it great screen reading software to use on computers with multiple users unlike competitor software.

So while individuals are able to use screen readers to surf the web, web site owner's can use the software to make sure that their website is accessible and functioning right for potential customers that rely on a screen reader to navigate and conduct business with you.

 

Conflicts with CAPTCHA's

CAPTCHA is an acronym for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. The system is a verification feature that is becoming more widely used on a greater amount of web sites to deter Web robots that produce spam. CAPTCHA's aren't a guarantee against possible adverse effects because spammers can pay technically savvy operators to enter the information that, in turn, defeats the system. These verification systems are common on ticket purchasing sites, personal finance sites, web-based email, poll sites, and message board sites.

The most popular type of system is one in which a user is presented an image of distorted numbers and letters and is prompted to enter them to proceed with their navigation. Some sites offer users an alternate choice of verification in the form of audio and speech recognition. Although there is a logical reason wanting to implement a system that serves to block spam, the social cost of doing so weighs heavily. The problem of limited accessibility is presented to those Internet users who are blind, have learning disabilities, or have other visionary problems. This sector of people accounts for 10 million people in the United Sates alone. Visually impaired users have their privacy taken away when trying to retrieve information from sites that use verification in the form of CAPTCHA because another person must be with them to get them past the roadblock.

As spammers continue to figure out how to bypass and defeat the systems the images become even less legible to recognize which makes accessibility continue to decrease and affect even more people. If people with good vision are beginning to struggle with severely distorted images, CAPTCHA-using is not any closer to heading in a user-friendly direction. Even though some sites using CATPTCHA are offering verification in alternate forms, the problem is not solved for those users who are both deaf and blind.

 

Usability Tools

Here's a great blog post listing some valuable usability and accessibility tools and resources. There are a few more tools and other resources listed here: http://www.samsa.com/internet/accessibilty-resources.htm

 

508 Compliant Calendar

Hello. I am looking for a 508 compliant calendar for my website. Is there one or is it best to just make a list of events for my users.

Thank you.

Debra A. Bell (VHACO)


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ANSWER
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Hello Debra,

We use a PHP-based Calendar and I'm thinking it wouldn't take too much to make it compliant. I know it's usable with lynx text browser, but it would require some tweaks to be fully compliant.
We have a demo here: http://www.samsa.com/calendar1/, which you can administer by logging in here: http://www.samsa.com/calendar1/admin/ . Login with User Id: sample, Password: sample

Here are a few of our clients using the calendar software:

http://www.saginawbar.org/
http://www.baycitycountryclub.com/
http://www.svr4c.org/
http://www.bethel-saginaw.org


We can provide assistance with setting up the software on your server or making it fully 508 compiant.

 

Compliancy Levels

Hillary,

I am researching section 508 and am wondering if there are levels of compliancy or if it is an all or nothing situation.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Chris Robbins

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ANSWER
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For true compliance websites must comply with all guidelines under section 508: http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=12#Web
If you are retro-fitting an existing website I would definately suggest a phased approach. Using the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, it is possible to define 3 levels of priorities. See http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/#priorities. Bringing a website from non-complience to Priority 1compliance can prove very useful to users. Once that level has been achieved the steps to Priority 2 , then 3 can be attacked. These levels will then naturally make it easier to conform to the legal standards.