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Joomla! Accessibility

Chapter 1. Why be Accessible?

To get started, we will first look at what accessibility is. We will look at the benefits of accessibility, as well as some of the drivers behind the scenes, such as legislations around the world.

You may already have an appreciation (and I hope that you do) that making your websites and interfaces accessible is the right thing to do. No one wants to be discriminatory, block users out of their sites, or frustrate them with bad design and poor code. Most websites that are guilty of this are probably not even aware of it. However, even though many of the websites around the world are still inaccessible—this is slowly changing. I hope that this introduction, and the following chapters, will help you become a little more informed of what it is that we are trying to do here and why.

Defining Accessibility

There are several definitions of accessibility. The International Standards Organization (ISO) defines accessibility as:

"The usability of a product, service, environment or facility by people with the widest range of capabilities (ISO TC 16071)."

If we apply this definition to the Web it refers to the design interfaces and applications that can be used by the widest possible audience; ensuring that there are no users who are left out when trying to use them. That's great, however, note that it doesn't specifically mention blind users or other people with disabilities at all, yet it talks about usability.

The W3C in its "Introduction to Web Accessibility", defines it as:

"Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can use the Web. More specifically, Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and that they can contribute to the Web. Web accessibility also benefits others, including older people with changing abilities due to aging."

You can read further at: http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/accessibility.php

So some definitions specifically talk about people with disabilities and others don't. While I believe that access for everyone is a great ideal, I also think that the details are important, and I support the definition that specifically mentions people with disabilities. According to me the first definition, talks about universality, which is great, but I think that web accessibility is a specific part of that universal umbrella that mostly relates to people with disabilities. As you read further you will realize that people with disabilities have specific needs; and in order to meet these needs, you as an author or developer, need some solid techniques and understanding, so that they can use your website easily. This is where I hope this book will be useful.

Understanding Your Users

Whatever definition you prefer, the upshot is that it is important to understand your audience and their different needs. How can you do that? I have been very fortunate as I got some experience as a graphic designer/developer and IT trainer in the private sector before I got to work directly with people with disabilities and assistive technology (AT). So I experienced some really positive effects that simple technologies and good designs can have on people with disabilities.

I am currently working with blind and visually impaired people, but what informs my definition and experience of accessibility, as well as my understanding of the diversity of user requirements, does not stop there. Many people think that web accessibility is mostly about serving the needs of visually impaired users. However, this is not true. The truth is that by serving the needs of the blind and visually impaired users, you will actually improve the accessibility and usability of your website or software for everyone. Again, this can be seen as a happy by-product of good practice and development habits on your part.

Dealing with Change

In many ways accessibility encompasses our ability to deal with change and to cope with diversity. There are changes, such as failing sight and other physical and mental changes that we go through as we get older. Therefore our abilities to perform certain tasks and the equipment we need to do the every day tasks may also change. I may need glasses to read or at least play my music much louder (though that may be why I am going deaf!). Whatever it is we will invariably find that our own abilities change with time.

Understanding accessibility involves stretching our abilities to deal with these changes and user diversity. The success of your efforts, to quite a large degree, depends on how well you can accommodate diverse user requirements in your web projects.

Think Different

Apart from being a well known advertising slogan for some computer manufacturer, the above heading is also a good piece of advice and is helpful in understanding accessibility. Often, there are barriers for users in places that you may never dream of. You will also find that many solutions result from doing things the right way and not cutting corners in your work. The following are some examples, and while they are not all Web related, I hope they will get you thinking about how you could get around some accessibility issues from both the Web and the built environment.

These examples are from the NCBI CFIT website (www.cfit.ie):

1. A bank cash machine presents information and choices using a video screen only, so the blind customers cannot use it.
2. A home alarm system indicates if it is set correctly using sounds only, but an elderly person who finds it difficult to hear cannot tell the sounds apart.
3. A website specifies a small fixed size for text, so a user with low vision cannot use the built-in browser controls to increase it to a size they can read.
4. The input slot on a ticket machine is out of reach for a person sitting in a wheelchair, so they cannot use it.
5. The buttons on a remote control are too close together and fiddly to operate for an older person with arthritis.
6. A web page has too much content and is confusingly laid out, so it takes too long for many people to find the information they want on it.

In short you often have to think outside the box, look at problems from different angles, and analyze the situation, to come up with a workable solution.

Defining Accessibility

There are several definitions of accessibility. The International Standards Organization (ISO) defines accessibility as:

"The usability of a product, service, environment or facility by people with the widest range of capabilities (ISO TC 16071)."

The W3C in its "Introduction to Web Accessibility", defines it as:

"Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can use the Web. More specifically, Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and that they can contribute to the Web. Web accessibility also benefits others, including older people with changing abilities due to aging."

You can read further at: http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/accessibility.php

Understanding Your Users

Dealing with Change

Think Different

These examples are from the NCBI CFIT website (www.cfit.ie):

1. A bank cash machine presents information and choices using a video screen only, so the blind customers cannot use it.
2. A home alarm system indicates if it is set correctly using sounds only, but an elderly person who finds it difficult to hear cannot tell the sounds apart.
3. A website specifies a small fixed size for text, so a user with low vision cannot use the built-in browser controls to increase it to a size they can read.
4. The input slot on a ticket machine is out of reach for a person sitting in a wheelchair, so they cannot use it.
5. The buttons on a remote control are too close together and fiddly to operate for an older person with arthritis.
6. A web page has too much content and is confusingly laid out, so it takes too long for many people to find the information they want on it.

In short you often have to think outside the box, look at problems from different angles, and analyze the situation, to come up with a workable solution.

What Are the Benefits of Accessibility?

There are some substantial benefits of accessible web design and development:

It makes good business sense: Who would want to limit the amount of their product or service that they can sell? Not many, or if that is the case then they will not be in business for long. Building accessible websites can actually increase the amount of business you do by ensuring that no one is excluded from your website. So effectively you allow anyone who is interested to enter, treat them well, and ensure that their stay is a pleasant one.
Enhanced SEO (Search Engine Optimization): SEO can seem to be a black art (and for some it literally is). If you are a little unsure of what to do to get your business-website ranking improved don't fear—make your site accessible and it's ranking will certainly improve. This is because search engines (including Google) can be thought of as blind users. If you structure your content well and make it accessible—then search engines will be able to search your content more quickly, find appropriate keywords, and serve your pages with a higher ranking for relevant keyword searches.

Note

Search engines like Google often change their secret algorithm, and many try to anticipate these changes, and hack their HTML accordingly. This is a waste of time.

You will be much better off creating a nice accessible site rather than performing keyword stuffing, abusing alt tags, and other bad, black hat SEO practices.

Better design: Graphic designers unfortunately, often design for themselves. This is not always the case, but is often true. As a result the Web is littered with sites that use tiny text that can't be resized, illegible fonts, and bad color contrast. This often renders the site content unreadable to many—though in the designer's head it looks great.

So by considering the diverse needs of users, for example, people with vision impairment who need good color contrast and resizable text, the designers should change their styles to accommodate these user's needs. A good design principle is that "form should follow function". This is a simple, but effective mantra. Unfortunately, it is often completely ignored.

Note

Accessibility brings some important design issues back into sharp focus and designers must rethink how they are going present content, their layout techniques and so on.

How you design can have both a powerful positive and negative impact, so don't just follow fashion, think about your users.

"Accessibility is not anti-design". Many of your cool graphic designer friends might believe this. They are laboring under a misconception. Accessibility actually forces them to think about the details and motivation behind what they design, forcing them to not vainly follow trends, or use their design skills only to express themselves.

Tell them if they wish to express themselves they should join a punk band, otherwise they should think about what they are doing and ensure that lazy or shallow fashionable design styles do not dictate how they work.

If you have an awkward client who refuses to see reason when it comes to good design, firstly take a deep breath, and try explaining the reasons for your design decisions. This means with careful use of logic and good reasoning you can usually beat any fuzzy ideas your client has about their perception of what constitutes a good design.

Accessibility Legislation

You might have to ensure that your website is accessible under certain laws. This however depends on which part of the world you are in, the site's purpose, and several other factors.

We will now look in detail at the current state of legislation in the Ireland, after that we will look at the EU, US, and UK. You can visit the link from the WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) site that deals with global legislation, if you do not belong to any of these areas.

Much of the following section on Irish legislation comes from the NCBI CFIT website thanks to its author, my colleague, Mark Magennis.

Irish Legislation

There have been significant positive moves in legislation and public policy relating to IT accessibility in Ireland.

The accessibility of online services is mainly covered by "The Disability Act (2005)" and it contains an explicit requirement for public sector bodies. Section 28 states:

"Where a public body communicates in electronic form with one or more persons, the head of the body shall ensure that as far as practicable, the contents of the communication are accessible to persons with a visual impairment to whom adaptive technology is available."

This is a good step towards meeting the needs of visually impaired people. Though it doesn't explicitly cover the needs of other people with different kinds of disabilities, there have been significant advances made in Ireland recently.

The National Disability Authority (NDA) has also produced a Code of Practice on Accessibility of Public Services, which explains the public sector obligation to provide accessible services. The Code has legal gravitas as it states that public websites should be reviewed to ensure they achieve Double-A conformance rating with WCAG 1.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. We will discuss WCAG in greater detail later in the book.

Accessible Procurement

The NDA also produced a Public Procurement Toolkit, which can be used to provide advice, guidance, and information for those looking for accessible services.

Several other acts have been passed in Ireland, which when viewed as a legislative suite, reflect some positive change. There is "The Equal Status Act (2000)", which requires all service providers to accommodate the needs of people with disabilities by making reasonable changes in what they do and how they do it—without these changes, it would be very difficult or impossible for people with disabilities to obtain these goods or services.

Although not specifically mentioned, this could in theory cover ICT-based services. This follows from the application of similar general disability legislation in Australia and the USA.

However, the Act requires only accommodations that cost a nominal amount. This rules out any but the most trivial efforts. There has never been a test case of this requirement.

The "Employment Equality Act (1998)" covers the provision of accessible technologies to employees. However, like the Equal Status Act, only accommodations that cost a nominal amount are required. There has never been a test case of this requirement.

Key benefits

Understand what accessibility really means and why it's important

Ensure that content editors and writers publish accessible articles

Create accessible Joomla! Templates

Understand Assistive Technology (AT) and the needs of people with disabilities

Description

Understanding how to create accessible websites is an essential skill these days . You may even be obliged by law to create websites that are usable by the widest audience, including people with a range of disabilities.This book looks at what accessibility is and the various reasons, such as legislative or legal, as to why you really need to understand accessibility and then create websites that can be used by everyone. This book therefore examines the diverse range of user requirements that need to be considered for humans to successfully use web technologies.If you have no experience of being around, or working with, people with disabilities then it can be very difficult to successfully design user interfaces that cover their needs. This book will show you how you can both understand some of the various needs of people with disabilities and the technology they use to interact with computers and the Web.

Who is this book for?

This book is a guide to any Joomla! user who wants to make their sites more accessible and the author does assume that you have a basic working knowledge of Joomla!. You don't need to know anything about accessibility -- the author tells you all that you need to know to make your Joomla! sites accessible to the widest audience.While some design skills and technical knowledge of HTML, CSS and PHP will be very useful you will still benefit from reading this book if you wish to understand more about assistive technology and the needs of people with disabilities. The book is distilled from years of hands on experience that the author has as a web developer and also working with people with disabilities.

What you will learn

Get under the hood with Joomla! and learn how to modify Joomla! HTML output in order to make more accessible websites.

Understand how to use WYSIWYG editors like TinyMCE and XStandard to create accessible content.

Create accessible Joomla! templates.

Understand some of the most popular assistive technologies (AT) and how they work.

Gain a deeper understanding of some different disabilities.

Get an overview of the legal requirement to be accessible.

Gain some very practical guidance based on the authors years of practical experience working as a web developer and with people with disabilities.

Chapter 1 looks at the legal situation around the world and other drivers that put accessibility on the web developers map. This chapter also looks at some definitions of accessibility and introduces the concepts of usability and universality. The chapter explores the need to understand your users, accommodate diversity, and dealing with change as well as some of the benefits of accessibility.Chapter 2 considers how both accessibility and usability make up a powerful combination for a holistic approach to web development and a positive user experience for everyone. The chapter looks at other practical ways of determining whether your sites are not only accessible but also usable, such as user testing. The chapter also looks at the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).Chapter 3 looks at various types of disability as well as the variety of assistive technology that is available. You will also learn how to modify your browsing experience in order to try to gain a greater understanding of what it is like for people with disabilities when they go online.Chapter 4 looks at using headings and other HTML elements to provide content structure. How this benefits users of assistive technology and other SEO (Search Engine Optimization) benefits. This chapter examines how to provide simple text alternatives to images and using descriptive link text to assist accessibility, as well as creating accessible tables and how to edit the HTML by hand.Chapter 5 examines the importance of preparation while designing your template and the advantages of using accessible templates. The chapter also explains the importance of good color contrast and making your text resizable for visually impaired users as well as the making your interface keyboard accessible.Chapter 6 looks at getting the most out of XStandard, while throughout most of the book TinyMCE was used.

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