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Designing for Web Accessibility:

Guidelines and Regulations

Jonathan LazarTowson University

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What is Web Accessibility?

People with various impairments/disabilities use different types of assistive technologies Screen readers (speech output) Braille displays (tactile output) Alternate keyboards or pointing devices

(input) Speech recognition (input) and others

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What is Web Accessibility?

Web sites need to be flexible enough to work with all of the various input/output/assistive technology devices

When a web site is flexible to work with these devices, it’s called “accessible”

There is still an academic argument: Technical access is different from ease of

use, but we need to work on technical access, before ease of use

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Accessibility Guidelines

It’s not enough to say, “make it accessible” that’s why you need to have specific guidelines to instruct people on how to do it

Guidelines are a traditional technique from HCI and usability

There are many sources of guidelines: Web accessibility research community Non-governmental organizations Governmental agencies Consulting firms

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Accessibility Guidelines

Usually, these guidelines and communities are all intertwined.

For instance, members of the accessibility community used their research in the late 1990s To help develop the Web Content Accessibility

Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0 in 1999 (sponsored by an NGO)

The WCAG 1.0 were used and modified in creating Section 508, the US Federal guidelines, implemented in 2001

Section 508 guidelines were used for implementation for Maryland State government agencies, with rules implemented in 2005

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Accessibility Guidelines

In reality, these guidelines only address perceptual and motor impairments

People with perceptual and motor impairments want to access the same information, same web sites, same applications as other users, just using different I/O devices

In reality, people with cognitive impairments often want to accomplish different task goals

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Accessibility Guidelines

It’s not enough to say, “make it accessible” that’s why you need to have specific guidelines to instruct people

There are two main sets of Accessibility Guidelines:

Section 508 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Both of these are undergoing revisions at this

point in time

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WCAG 1.0

The web content accessibility guidelines were created by the WWW Consortium

http://www.w3.org/wai WCAG 1.0 was approved in 1999 Split into a number of levels:

Priority Level 1 (must do) Priority Level 2 (should do) Priority Level 3 (may do)

Level 1 are the important ones

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WCAG 1.0

Since 1999, these have been the international “standards,” but they have no legal standing

Many countries (including the US) based their legal standards on WCAG 1.0 (priority level 1)

Also comes in different sizes: small, medium, and large

WCAG is for content. WAI also has agent and authoring tool guidelines

In reality, even though the official standard is now WCAG 2.0, WCAG 1.0 has more power since laws are based on it

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WCAG 2.0

WCAG 2.0 was approved in December 2008 Differences:

Applies to newer web technologies More precisely testable (some guidelines in

WCAG 1.0 were very vague) Gives examples of where alt text isn’t

necessary (e.g. for pure decoration) Techniques document that gives actual coding

examples Doesn’t immediately prohibit as much…more

gray areas exist

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WCAG 2.0

1.0: set of guidelines that have checkpoints

2.0: 4 design principles, with relating guidelines

Comparison document: http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-WCAG20-

20060427/appendixD.html WCAG 2.0, over time, will become

important. But it’s not there yet.

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What is Section 508?

Section 508, the new portions of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, were implemented as law (signed in 1998), with rules effective in 2001

This requires that the federal government only purchase or develop or otherwise fund accessible technology

This applies to ALL technology, but in this presentation, we focus on the web

All federal or federally-funded web sites must be accessible!

This was a big change (this is when companies really starting paying attention to interface accessibility)

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Section 508

Section 508 only applies to the Federal government or federally funded projects, not private industry

Standards are defined by the US Access Board (http://www.access-board.gov/)

Since a large portion of the IT industry involves government contracts, those private companies must develop accessible, 508-compliant solutions to sell to the Federal government.

What about the Americans with Disabilities Act? More later on that…

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Section 508

Large set of standards Software applications and operating systems

(1194.21) Web-based intranet and internet information and

systems (1194.22) Telecommunication products Video and multimedia products Self contained, closed products Desktop and portable computers

1194.21 and 1194.22 are most relevant to our interface design work

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Section 508

Section 508 standards for the web (1194.22) are strongly based on WCAG 1.0 Priority Level 1 (the law even states this and has a translation table)

Most states have laws in place, based on Section 508, that cover the accessibility of state government computing systems

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New version of Section 508

The 508 guidelines are under review Informally known as the “508 refresh” Telecommunications and Electronic and

Information Technology Advisory Committee (TEITAC) presented recommendations to the Access Board on April 3, 2008

http://www.teitac.org It’s now in the hands of the US Access Board http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/update-

index.htm

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New version of Section 508

While the report delivered by TEITAC in 2008 is by no means final or adopted, there are some important recommendations:

New version of 508 should be based on WCAG 2.0

Guidelines will still be focused primarily on perceptual and motor impairment (cognitive impairment was tabled due to limited existing research, and being hard to test for or measure)

The guidelines recognize that web-based, desktop, and hand-held applications have essentially merged

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New version of Section 508

You need to keep checking the web sites for updates on the “508 refresh” http://www.teitac.org http://www.access-board.gov/

Note that there is no clear timeline for when the new 508 guidelines will be approved, but: The suggested, but not approved, guidelines are

already up on the web It’s based on WCAG 2.0, which is already

approved Based on past experience, it is expected to be in

2010 or 2011

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State Laws

Many states (e.g. California and Maryland) have laws that requires that state-developed, supported, or funded technology be accessible for people with disabilities

Often, these laws directly reference Section 508 or WCAG 1.0

You can often find state-level laws for accessibility by checking the web site of the state chapter of the National Federation of the Blind

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One Example: Maryland Laws

Maryland has a law in place since 2000 (when it was signed) and 2005 (when the rules were implemented)

The law is known as Non-visual Access to Information Technology http://doit.maryland.gov/policies/Pages/nva.as

px This law requires that all IT developed or

procured by Maryland state government be accessible to people with disabilities.

This law uses a modified version of Section 508, with additional descriptions

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Does 508 apply to private industry?

A very basic summary of the challenge: Section 508 covers all technology but not

private industry…these are federal regulations

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) from 1990 clearly applies to private companies (with 15 or more employees), but does not clearly cover web sites (www.ada.gov)

This is where the policymaking/confusion exists!

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ADA and Web Accessibility

ADA was signed into law in 1990, before the web was known, so no sections covered the web

There have been multiple attempts, using different approaches, and different locations, to get the ADA to clearly cover private web sites

It’s still unclear, and there’s a long history!

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Some of the history

In 1996, Justice Department (DOJ) issued a policy statement saying that ADA does apply to the Internet

In 2000, DOJ filed an amicus curiae brief in Hooks v. OKBridge (saying the same)

In 2003, DOJ issued a policy statement with guidelines for state and local government web sites

In 2004, NY Attorney General Elliot Spitzer declared that ADA applies to the Internet in NY state, and forced Priceline.com and Ramada to comply

NONE of these have any real policy influence or importance!!!

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ADA-related cases

National Federation of the Blind (NFB) vs. AOL, filed in 1999, settled out of court 2001

Martin v. Metropolitan Atlanta Transportation Authority (2002)- ADA was violated by not having an accessible web site

Southwest vs. Access Now/Gumson (2002). Southwest won, ADA doesn’t apply to web sites, was not a place of public accommodation

Target vs. NFB, filed in 2006 Preliminary ruling in 2006: ADA does apply Class was certified, CA subclass in 2007 Settled out of court in 2008, more than $6 million

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ADA-related cases

Judge Patel (NFB v Target) stated in 2006: The ADA "statute applies to the services of a

place of public accommodation, not services in a place of public accommodation.”

But it was settled out of court, without a final ruling

What about places that are strictly online? Right now, this is the legal case that most

businesses and policymakers are aware of Of course, you should want to get as many

customers as possible for your web site

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Other Lawsuits, Non-Web

There are tons of other lawsuits and settlements relating to accessibility, although not focused on the web: ATMs Educational materials Podcasting Paper money NFB vs. Oracle (ERP software purchased by

a state government)

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Other policy activity…

ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (PL 110-325) Re-defined the definition of disability to be more inclusive

USACM had a policy statement approved, encouraging expansion of accessibility law to private web sites

http://www.acm.org/public-policy/accessibility U.S. Dept. of Transportation guidelines

New rules in effect May 13, 2009 for airlines No discriminatory pricing for people with

disabilities New notice for proposed rulemaking coming

soon, for airline web sites and kiosks

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Current State Legislation

A very few states (e.g. California) have laws that require that private companies make their web sites accessible

Other states have bills that have been introduced to require web accessibility for private companies, but often, these bills do not get passed

These may have a questionable impact, since even web sites that legally are required to be accessible (such as federal and state government) often have very low rates of accessibility)

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But how accessible is the web?

Regardless of what laws, policies, or guidelines say, the web isn’t accessible yet!

While many government web sites are accessible (but not all, as required by law), most private web sites are not

80% of general web sites as inaccessible seems like a good estimate from multiple studies It depends on what categories of web sites

Companies still fight this, since there’s a lot of confusion, and they don’t like regulation

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How does this relate to security?

As we move to (or already are there) web 2.0, e-government, e-commerce, social networking, there is inherently a need for security features on web sites

These include: Passwords Security questions Human interaction proofs

How can we ensure that these features are accessible for different user populations?

The other slides will cover these topics

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Process and Design

Making web pages or features accessible is not technically challenging when done right

An accessible web site does not need to appear any different to someone without an impairment…it just looks like a normal site

Retro-fitting an existing web site for accessibility takes much more work than adding the features during initial design

Often, the easiest way to make a web site accessible is to include accessibility as a requirement in the next web site re-design cycle. So when it’s re-designed, the new design is fully accessible