Website access requirement announcement draws little fire — or notice

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Jan. 2, 2001 — On Dec. 21, the U.S. Access Board announced its long-awaited guidelines that federal agencies must follow to make their websites accessible to people with disabilities. The standards, to ensure compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and the WorkForce Investment Act of 1998, will take effect June 21. An Associated Press story that same day (one version can be found athttp://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/22/technology/22DISA.html gave the basics.

Yesterday, The New York Times’s Technology section carried a follow-up story which seemed to quote more advocates of access than detractors — something that has not often happened in media coverage of web access. In his January 1 story, “Advocates of People With Disabilities Take Online Stores to Task,” (online athttp://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/01/technology/01ECOMMERCE.html Times technology reporter Bob Tedeschi quoted The National Federation of the Blind’s James Gashel, who told Tedeschi that 300,000 to 400,000 blind people commonly relied on “screen reader” software.

“Advocates for people with disabilities say they have been essentially shut out by as many as half of all Internet stores,” wrote Tedeschi. “The things that need to be done to make a site accessible are not that hard to do, but they get ignored until somebody raises a stink,” Jane Jarrow said. Jarrow was identified as “president of Disability Access Information and Support, a consulting firm.”

A review of major newspapers suggests that the usual access detractors haven’t begun to yell about this latest round of web access yet; other than the stories mentioned above, there was little coverage of the new guidelines. That can be expected to change, though, as anti-regulatory interests wind up for their potshots at access.

A story by PC World reporter Judy Heim on how web access works — or should work — is still one of the best primers we’ve found. From the Sept. 2000 issue, it’s online at http://www.pcworld.com/features/article.asp?aid=17690

The Access Board’s own overview, and the guidelines themselves, can be found at http://www.access-board.gov/news/508-final.htm

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Access to information to bloom as rules take effect

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June 19, 2001 — After Thursday, rules for access to information become mandatory throughout the federal government. New information kiosks at national parks, for example, must have an alternate method of providing information – such as audio prompts – in addition to a touch screen; but most news of this change has focused on Internet access. Federal websites must be accessible to people who use screen readers and other alternate forms of using the Internet.

June 21 is the day rules for ensuring compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and the WorkForce Investment Act of 1998 take effect (for an overview, go tohttp://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/webaccess/index.htm). The law applies to all Federal agencies when they develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology — so software manufacturers are starting to release accessible versions as well.

For overviews of the change, the May 21 Federal Computer Week article (http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2001/0521/cov-508-05-21-01.asp) is good; and although it’s dated, still one of the best pieces on the problems of an inaccessible Internet is reporter Judy Heim’s report about online accessibility in the September, 2000 PC World online athttp://www.pcworld.com/features/article.asp?aid=17690

The web seems to be proliferating with sites on “how to make your site accessible” — some of the better ones we’ve seen are from the National Arts and Disabilities Center at UCLA (http://nadc.ucla.edu/dawpi.htm) and the National Parks Services’ site, which has a number of links to valuable accessibility resources including simplified version of the guidelines athttp://www.nps.gov/access/target.htm For an overview that includes a link to let you see how YOUR web page looks to a screen reader, go tohttp://www.delorie.com/web/lynxview.html The University of Wisconsin/Madison’s Division of Information Technology (http://wiscinfo.doit.wisc.edu/ltde/access/ewers.htm) offers a video showing how a screen reader works. If you’re a web developer, JAWS For Windows has a trial version you can download to test how your site sounds to text-to-voice screen readers, at http://www.hj.com/JAWS/JAWS.html And Bobby, a free service provided by the Center for Applied Special Technology, can help web page authors identify and repair significant barriers to access by individuals with disabilities.

For the federal overview, visit the Federal Information Technology Accessibility Initiative at http://www.section508.gov/

The document “How Civil Rights For People With Disabilities Impact The Private Sector” is available on the website of the International Center for Disability Resources on the Internet, athttp://www.icdri.org/how_civil_rights_for_people_with.htm

And be sure to visit the web access page at the Center for An Accessible Society at http://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/webaccess/index.htm

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The next brainiacs

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Aug. 28, 2001 — “We live at a time when the disabled are on the leading edge of a broader societal trend toward the use of assistive technology,” writes John Hockenberry in this month’s issue of Wired magazine (online athttp://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.08/assist_pr.html

“Bodies are perhaps a somewhat arbitrary evolutionary solution to issues of mobility and communication,” he explains, echoing the sentiments of Berkeley’s Michael Williams, a user and longtime proponent of “augmented communication.” “By this argument, the brain has no particular preference for any physical configuration as long as functionality can be preserved.”

“The greatest thing people with disabilities have done for the general population is to make it safe to look weird,” says Williams. “It’s certainly true that the general population has glommed onto some principles of assistive tech. Just roll down the street and observe the folks with wires dangling from their ears. Look at the TV commercials featuring guys with computerized eyewear.”

Writing of the “universal redrafting of the human design specification,” Hockenberry says that “in a straightforward way that needs no psychological jargon to explain, my former body simply doesn’t exist anymore. Like Isaac Stern and his violin, I am now part chair, with some capabilities that exceed my original specifications.”

Read Hockenberry’s entire article, “The Next Brainiacs,” online athttp://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.08/assist_pr.html

One of the places mentioned in Hockenberry’s story, the Cleveland FES Center, a consortium of the Cleveland VA Medical Center, Case Western Reserve University, the MetroHealth Medical Center and the Edison BioTechnology Center, is at http://feswww.fes.cwru.edu/

The National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research funds projects in assistive technology. “NIDRR’s research priorities in engineering and technology will help improve functional outcomes and access to systems technology in sensory function, mobility, manipulation, cognitive function, information communication, and the built environment,” says its Long-Range Plan; read more at http://www.ncddr.org/rpp/techaf/lrp_ov.html — and for an overview of NIDRR projects in this area, go tohttp://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/technology/index.htm — or visit the National Center for the Dissemination of Disability Research’s webpage on “Technology for Access and Function Research” athttp://www.ncddr.org/rpp/techaf/index.html

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Even “accessible” websites remain difficult for people with disabilities, says study

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Oct. 23, 2001 — A new study has confirmed what accessibility experts continue to point out: the Worldwide Web remains pretty un-usable for anyone who cannot see a conventional computer screen and use a mouse with dexterity.

“Web usability is three to six times better for non-disabled people than for people with low vision, no vision or motor impairment,” says Jakob Nielsen, who the New York Times calls “the guru of web page usability.” His firm, the Nielsen Normal group, recently released a study that shows this pretty conclusively.

Their 104 subjects included users with low vision, no vision, or motor impairment and a control group of people without disabilities, who were assigned 4 tasks: Find the average temperature in Dallas in January; buy Janet Jackson’s CD “All for You” from Target’s website; find a bus departing O’Hare airport to a specific address in Chicago using the Chicago Transit Authority website, and find the best mutual fund satisfying certain criteria on Schwab’s website. The control group of people without disabilities were able to complete the 4 tasks 78% of the time; screen reader users only 12.5% of the time. While the control group spent only a little over 7 minutes “on task,” the others took over twice as long. The control group’s error rate was only .06; screen reader users’ error rate was 2.0; screen magnifier users’, 4.5.

“Beyond ALT Text: Making the Web Easy to Use for Users with Disabilities” was released last week at the Nielsen Norman Group’s Usability conference in Washington, DC. An overview of the 148-page report is online athttp://www.nngroup.com/reports/accessibility — there’s a link there for downloading the report ($190). “Bad design kills Websites,” runs the headline of Washington Post internet columnist Leslie Walker’s Oct. 25 story about Nielsen’s conference (online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/washtech/techthursday/columns/dotcom/A48167-2001Oct24.html).

Walker’s column refers to economics; but Chapman University’s Art Blaser says discussions based only on economic reasons to provide access miss the point. “When we pass legislation ensuring rights, we make a statement: those rights are too important to be guaranteed only when they’re cost-effective.” Chapman says most “distance learning” courses today remain inaccessible as well, despite software that provides access if used correctly. Read Blaser’s article online athttp://www.raggededgemagazine.com/0901/0901ft1.htm

Read more about the legal requirements for web access athttp://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/webaccess/sect508.htm.

For the Center’s overview of web access issues, visithttp://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/webaccess/index.htm

Visit Jakob Nielsen’s website at http://www.nngroup.com/

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People with disabilities still lag on Internet usage

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Jan. 22, 2002 — A Harris poll released last week noted that people with disabilities still lag behind other Americans in use of the Internet — but they’re catching up. “In 2001, about 38 percent of adults with disabilities used the Internet at home, more than five times the seven percent who were online in late 1998. Over the same period, use among the non-disabled doubled from 26 to 56 percent,” says the National Organization on Disability, who commissioned the survey.

Among those with disabilities, people with vision or hearing disabilities were most likely to use the Internet at home (43 percent), followed by people with learning or cognitive disabilities (39 percent), and people with mobility and movement impairments (35 percent), the survey found. If its growth among people with disabilities continues at the current rate, Internet usage among people with disabilities “should match the rate of other users in a few years,” said N.O.D. Senior Research Advisor Gerry Hendershot, Ph.D. More on the survey can be found on their website at http://www.nod.org/

The NOD-commissioned survey is not the first to find Internet use lagging among people with disabilities. In a March, 2000 report, Stephen Kaye, Ph.D. of the NIDRR-funded Disability Statistics Center, found that Americans with disabilities were less than half as likely as their non-disabled counterparts to own a computer, and only about one-quarter as likely to use the Internet. More about this “digital divide,” including a link to Dr. Kaye’s report, can be found at the Center for an Accessible Society website athttp://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/webaccess/digitaldivide.htm

Perhaps part of the reason usage is catching up is because of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (read about this at http://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/webaccess/sect508.htm). Companies are finding that accessible websites are “cost-effective and generally good business,” wrote Wired’s Karen Solomon. Read her article online at http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,39563,00.html

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Update and clarification on Internet usage by people with disabilities

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Feb. 5, 2002 — The Harris poll results regarding Internet usage by people with disabilities do not conclusively show that people with disabilities have really gained on their non-disabled peers during the past few years, says Stephen Kaye, Ph.D. of the NIDRR-funded Disability Statistics Center, as we reported in the 1/22/02 E-Letter (“People with disabilities still lag on Internet usage,” online athttp://www.accessiblesociety.org/e_letters/eletter012202.htm)

What is important, he says, “is the very large gap that persists between people with and without disabilities in their access to the Internet. Even though a significant majority (56%) of adults without disabilities use the Internet at home, according the the Harris poll, most (62%) adults with disabilities don’t use the Internet at home. It’s likely that most of those people don’t have computers at all, or don’t have an Internet connection.

“Many people with disabilities have difficulty traveling outside the home, and, partly as a result, participation in society among people with disabilities is relatively low,” says Kaye. “The Internet could provide opportunities for participation in society, especially for those people with disabilities who are socially isolated. Unfortunately, when people with disabilities lack access to the Internet, they cannot take advantage of these opportunities, which are much more readily available to people without disabilities. Especially relevant is the employment arena–jobs are posted on the Web and often require Internet skills; telecommuting has often been touted as a viable employment option for many people with disabilities, but it is largely unavailable for those without computers and Internet access.”

The National Organization on Disability study we reported in the 1/22/2001 E-Letter was conducted by the Harris Poll; Kaye’s study was done as part of his research with the NIDRR-funded Disability Statistics Center (a link to Dr. Kaye’s report can be found at the Center for an Accessible Society website athttp://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/webaccess/digitaldivide.htm )

“Differences in the definitions of disability used in the two surveys prevent direct comparisons between them,” says Kaye. “The Current Population Survey data that I used in my analysis of Internet use relies on a definition of disability based on work limitation. The population estimate is 21 million people age 15 and over.” The Harris Poll, however, used questions similar to the questions used in the 2000 Census, which “capture a much broader population of approximately 40 million people age 5 and above,” says Kaye.

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Disability and the Digital Divide

Americans with disabilities are less than half as likely as their non-disabled counterparts to own a computer, and they are about one-quarter as likely to use the Internet, writes Stephen Kaye, Ph.D. of the Dsability Statistics Center.

Computer technology and the Internet have a tremendous potential to broaden the lives and increase the independence of people with disabilities. Those who have difficulty leaving their homes can now log in and order groceries, shop for appliances, research health questions, participate in online discussions, catch up with friends, or make new ones. Blind people, who used to wait months or years for the information they needed to be made available in Braille or on audiotape, can now access the very same news stories, magazine articles, government reports, and information on consumer products at the very same time it becomes available to the sighted population. People who have difficulty holding a pen or using a keyboard can use the latest speech recognition software to write letters, pay their bills, or perform work-related tasks.

These new technologies hold great promise, but as this report makes abundantly clear, the computer revolution has left the vast majority of people with disabilities behind. Only one-quarter of people with disabilities own computers, and only one-tenth ever make use of the Internet. Elderly people with disabilities, and those with low incomes or low educational attainment, are even less likely to take advantage of these new technologies. African Americans with disabilities also have an especially low rate of computer and Internet use.

More from the Disability Statistics Center.

Disabled least likely to use Internet, says study

Almost three quarters of Americans who report having a disability also do not use the Internet, says a new study from The Pew Internet & American Life Project. Over a quarter of these respondents say their disabilities make it difficult or imposible to go online. “Currently, the disabled are less connected than many other groups of Americans,” says the report. “Just 38 percent of disabled Americans use the Internet,” says the study. “This compares to the 58 percent of all Americans who use the Internet. Some 18 percent of survey respondents said they had disabilities — “a percentage that is very close to the 20 percent of Americans that the U.S. Census Bureau reports with disabilities,” says the study. “Researchers Colin Keane and Joel Macht of the Neil Squire Foundation have noted that many of the disabled lack access to adaptive technologies that would help them use computers and retrieve information from Web sites. At times, it is physically hard for the disabled to gain access to wired rooms and buildings. Other times, computer work stations at public sites cannot be adjusted or lack appropriate desks, chairs, software or adaptive hardware to make the computer and Internet more usable. In addition, the disabled as a group are poorer than other Americans and have a hard time affording the extra expense of adaptive technology. “ “It is important to note that respondents in our survey self-defined themselves as disabled or not,” say the researchers. “They were asked if they had any disability, handicap, or chronic disease kept them from participating fully in work, school, housework, or other activities, and they then answered yes or no. In addition, respondents who said they were disabled were also allowed to self-define their disability as one that impairs the use of the Internet or one that does not. “Thus, it is likely that some individuals (especially those who have little knowledge of the Internet and computers) believe their disability impairs Internet use when in fact it does not.” “There are social and psychological explanations why some Americans do not use the Internet,” says the study’s authors. “A personÕs sense of personal empowerment can make a difference in her decision to go online or not. Those who feel less in control of their lives are less likely to go online.” Read The Ever-Shifting Internet Population: A new look at Internet access and the digital divide HTML format | Download PDF format The Pew Internet & American Life Project is a non-profit initiative of the Pew Research Center for People and the Press.

Section 508

Section 508 is a part of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998. The Rehabilitation Act requires that electronic and information technology developed, procured, maintained, or used by the Federal government be accessible to people with disabilities.

Section 508 was originally added to the Rehabilitation Act in 1986; the 1998 amendments significantly expand and strengthen the technology access requirements in Section 508 — the 1986 version established non-binding guidelines for technology accessibility, while the 1998 version calleld for binding, enforceable standards.

The Access Board was the agency charged with developing the access standards. It issued the final standards on December 21, 2000, which take effect 6 months after the issuing date.

After June 21, 2001, federal agencies will have to use these standards in all their electronic and information technology acquisitions. The new version of Section 508 also establishes a complaint procedure and reporting requirements, which further strengthen the law.

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Q and A:

What does the law mean by “accessible’?

A technology system is accessible to people with disabilities if it can be used in a variety of ways that do not depend on a single sense or ability. For example, a system that provides output only in audio format would not be accessible to people with hearing impairments, and a system that requires mouse actions to navigate would not be accessible to people who cannot use a mouse because of a dexterity or visual impairment. Section 508 focuses on the overall accessibility of electronic and information systems, not on providing accommodations at individual worksites. Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act requires Federal agencies to provide reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities; it generally covers individual worksites but not overall technology systems. Even with an accessible system, individuals with disabilities may still need specific accessibility-related software or peripheral devices as an accommodation to be able to use it. For example, in order to use an accessible word-processing program, a person who is blind may need add-on software that reads text aloud; if the word-processing program could not be made compatible with a screen-reading program, it might not be accessible.

Does this mean Web sites can’t have graphics?

Not at all. Actually, designing an accessible Web site is not as difficult as most people believe. Often it is a matter of identifying graphics, elements, frames, etc. For example, HTML code already provides the “Alt Text” tag for graphics — which some designers simply forget or ignore.

Won’t accessible Web sites be less appealing?

On the contrary, accessible sites have several advantages. For one thing, some people turn off graphics so sites will load faster. Without “alt” tags, graphics-intense sites may be unusable. Also, with the growth of PDAs, and even Web site content delivered to cell phones, having text- based content is becoming more important. Because the screens on such devices are so small, graphics will probably never be a viable option. So the busy executive, waiting in an airport, who wants to check her stock portfolio on her cell phone isn’t going to turn to the graphics-only site. Furthermore, with the growth of voice technology the harried commuter can have the headlines from his favorite news site read to him, but only if there is a text-based content. Finally, if a digitized video has synchronized captions, the text can be searched. Did you ever try to find a particular scene from your favorite video? If you want to find the famous restaurant scene from the captioned version of “When Harry met Sally” search on “I’ll have what she’s having” and you’re there.

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Section 508 of The Workforce Investment Act of 1998requires Federal agencies to have internet sites that are accessible to all users — including people who cannot see or hear.

The Americans with Disabilities Act’s provisions have made a considerable impact on our society, opening many doors to employment, educational, and recreational opportunities that had previously been closed.

But a few years after passage of the ADA, it became clear that the provisions of the ADA had not contemplated the huge technological revolution that was enveloping our country. Although individuals with disabilities were finally gaining some physical and communications access to government and business employment and services, access to burgeoning telecommunications and information technologies remained elusive.

When, in the early 1990’s, Congress began considering sweeping changes to our nation’s telecommunications policies, disability advocates saw a ripe opportunity to have this need addressed. As a consequence, passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 brought with it the arrival of a new civil rights law for individuals with disabilities: Section 255.

Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996,Pub. L. 104-104, codified at 47 U.S.C. Sec. 255, requires telecommunications services and equipment to be accessible, where readily achievable. Where not readily achievable, such services and equipment must nevertheless be compatible with existing peripheral devices or specialized customer premises equipment used to achieve access, again where this is readily achievable. Readily achievable is defined as “easily accomplishable and able to be carried out without much difficulty or expense.” The legislation contemplates that manufacturers and service providers will consider access needs during the design, development and fabrication of their offerings, so that expensive and burdensome retrofitting for access will not be necessary.

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act was the next logical step in the progression of these various Federal civil rights laws. Much of the earlier legislation focused on access to what has traditionally fallen into the field of “telecommunications.” But our nation is now witnessing a rapid convergence of these traditionally telecommunications technologies with new and advanced electronic and information technologies. As our Federal government becomes increasingly reliant on these convergent technologies, Section 508 will ensure that individuals with disabilities will be able to reap their many benefits.

From Electronic and Information Technology Access Advisory Committee Final Report, May 12, 1999

World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Access Initiative

GUIDELINES ON HOW to make the Web accessible to people with disabilites were released May 5, 2000 by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the international Web standards group. Development of the standards was supported in part by funding from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research.

“The Web is such a critically important information resource that we have to make sure it does not shut people out,” Judy Brewer, director of the Consortium’s 18-month-old Web accessibility initiative told the New York Times’s Cybertimes reporter Pamela Mendels.

The guidelines call for providing alternative text for images, ensuring that information is available to a person who cannot see images, and captions for audio files, to make information available to someone who cannot hear audio — for whatever reason.

Accessible design benefits all Web users, said the W3C, because it allows “device-independence” for Web content.

Providing text descriptions for images help people accessing the Web from mobile phones, hand-held devices, or automobile-based PC’s when connection speed is too slow to support viewing images or video. Captioning for audio files means audio information won’t be lost to someone using the Web in noisy environments — or in silent ones like libraries where sound is discouraged. The captions will also make it possible to index and search audio content.

“The W3C has provided a unique forum which has allowed us to bring together experts from industry, research and practice in a way that has not been possible before,” said Greg Vanderheiden, Director of Trace Research & Development Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Co-Chair of the Web Content Guidelines Working Group. “The result is a set of guidelines that is more comprehensive, technically sound and practical than anything possible before. In addition, because the guidelines are built on the work and participation of virtually everyone who is active in this area, it provides us for the first time with a definitive set of guidelines that can serve as a reference for the field.” The guidelines are the outcome of work done initially at the Trace Center’s Info Tech Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center, funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research.

“The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines explain what to do,” said Tim Berners-Lee, Director of W3C. “It has always been difficult to know, when making a site more accessible, which changes are critical. These guidelines answer that question, and set common expectations so that providers of Web sites and users can be much more strategic. The bar has been set, and technologically it is not a very high bar. Some of the items in these guidelines will be unnecessary once authoring tools do them automatically. Now it is time to see which sites can live up to this.”

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines establish stable principles for accessible design, such as the need to provide equivalent alternatives for auditory and visual information. Each guideline has associated “checkpoints” explaining how these accessibility principles apply to specific features of sites. For example, providing alternative text for images ensures that information is available to a person who cannot see images. Providing captions for audio files makes information available to someone who cannot hear audio.

The guidelines are designed to be “forward-compatible” with evolving Web technologies, yet enable sites to “degrade gracefully” when confronted with older browsers.

Specifics on how to implement the checkpoints with the latest versions of mark-up or presentation languages such as HTML, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), or SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) are described in a parallel “Techniques” document, to be updated periodically.

“Designing a More Usable World for All,” from the Trace Center

Fact Sheet for “Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0”

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

Web Content Accessibility Guideline Checkpoints