Accessiblity solutions
Applying the core concepts of accessibility is nothing new; it
is simply an extension of good usability. Making a site accessible
to visually impaired readers, dyslexic users or those who find it
difficult to use a mouse is an extension of making the site
accessible to everyone.
For example, did you know that dyslexic people find it difficult
to read longer pieces of text and that the wider the column of text
the more difficult it is to read? Also that serif fonts (such as
Times New Roman) are more difficult for dyslexic people to read, as
are words in italics? However, research has shown that, when it
comes to reading from the screen, most people actually respond in a
dyslexic way. So in addressing the needs of this audience you are
improving the experience for many more.
But the process of content management and content management
systems themselves can help in a number of ways to create websites
that are more accessible.
Clearly, the whole concept of devolving content management
responsibilities to ever wider groups of users is potentially
hazardous in terms of providing a consistent and easily navigated
site.
So, starting on a simplistic level, having a system that offers
a high level of control over the creation and implementation of
templates and styles is a good starting point.
Although it is clearly crucial that these styles and templates
incorporate the best practice guidelines with regard to
accessibility a number of which are listed here...
- Avoid relying on colour alone
- Good crisp contrast
- Use relative text sizes
- Structural markup of content
- Clear and consistent navigation
Having a system that provides what we at Immediacy call a
'mandatory accessibility switch' helps to ensure that those
contributing and managing content undertake those easily forgotton
and overlooked functions such as filling in the 'alt tags on a site
with something meaningful.
For both visually impaired and mobility impaired visitors the
way in which menus and form elements work can be vitally important
to their experience on the site. And if you're using things like
drop-down menus or creating forms on your site, then having the
capability within your system to provide suitably accessible key
commands and short-cuts automatically, clearly gives you confidence
that your site is going to satisfy the main accessibility
guidelines.
Also, having a system that automatically creates a 'text only'
view of the website is clearly timesaving and efficient, although
the RNIB would certainly advise that a 'text only' option is a poor
substitute for addressing the wider accessibility issues on a
website and is often used in the misguided belief that this is
sufficient to tick the accessibility box.
It's worth considering that while a poorly sighted person may
well benefit from larger font sizes and higher contrast colours,
why should they be penalised by not having the pictures at all?
Additionally allowing a user to select the presentation of content
such as font styles and colours will assist but not necessarily
overcome the navigational issues in a site.
While taking some of the steps outlined so far may help achieve
levels of compliance are you actually providing what a disabled
person may need?
In many respects, the only way you can really start to address
the Perse needs of disabled people is by creating multiple sites
that are fit for the purpose they are intended for.
In our offline world, an architect or designer creating a
living space for somone who is blind, would approach that challenge
from a completely different perspective, where it wouldn't be the
look, light and space of the environment that was the top priority
but the way in which the space could be navigated, the ease with
which items could be located, the sound surfaces made or the way
they feel.
The same applies to the online world. Good web design relies
as much on visual clues as anything else to help sighted people
navigate their way around but a site designed on these principles
is unlikely to perform well with a hearing based browser.
The best hearing navigator-focused sites for example take a
very different approach to linking, titling, and content
organisation. They also incorporate some simple tricks to greatly
speed navigation. A special link to "jump directly to content" and
skip that page's navigation is very helpful, for example. Providing
titles to the list of links, or even spelling out what the list of
links is about can let a hearing-based navigator share the same
visual clues that show a sighted navigator which links are major or
minor, higher or lower in hierarchy, etc.
Without a content management system, owning and managing
multiple web sites -- one for use by browsers, one for use by
readers -- means twice the work. With a good content management
system in place, however, new content can be added once and
published to two or more sites effortlessly. When a visitor comes
to the web site, the web server can detect whether a web browser or
a reader is requesting the page, and deliver up the correct site.
In this way, everyone receives a site optimised to the way in which
they access the web.
Templates for two or more sites still need to be proactively
designed, especially if you give careful attention to navigability
for the impaired. Nevertheless, for experienced web design
companies, converting a site from browser-exclusive to
reader-focused is a straightforward project because the content is
already categorised and organised.
Even better, CMS templates can be easily modified to make
changes or improvements site-wide. This is important, because Web
accessibility remains a young discipline:
- standards sometimes change,
- implementation practices and standards interpretations are
evolving,
- new reader technologies are emerging,
With a CMS, you can publish completely new sites to
accommodate specific new readers, or to meet conflicting
requirements.