Web Accessibility is Not (Primarily) About Conformance with Web Accessibility Standards

Brian KellyInnovation AdvocateCetisUniversity of BoltonBolton, UK

Contact DetailsEmail: ukwebfocus@gmail.comTwitter: @briankellyCetis Web site: http://www.cetis.ac.uk/Blog: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/

Slides and further information available athttp://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/web-accessibility-is-not-primarily-about-conformance-with-web-accessibility-standards/

A presentation for the IDRAC (International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference) 2014 conference to be held in Second Life on 3-4 October 2014

2

Contents

• About Me• Early Involvement with Web Accessibility• About WAI and WCAG• Realisation of the Limitations• “Blended Accessibility for Blended Learning”• Beyond Accessibility for Learning• Accessibility 2.0: People, Policies and

Processes (and Politics)• A Standard – BS 8878• Conclusions

3

About Me

Brian Kelly• Early adopter of Web technologies (Jan

1993)• UK Web Focus at UKOLN: a national post,

advising UK universities on best practices for use of the Web from 1996-2013

• Now Innovation Advocate at Cetis, encouraging take-up of innovation technologies and practices by UK universities

4

Involvement with Web Accessibility

Long-standing involvement with Web accessibility:• Attended W3C WAI launch, Santa Clara, April 1997• Many peer-reviewed papers published since 2004,

co-authored with accessibility researchers & practitioners from UK and Australia

• Awards: “Implementing A Holistic Approach To E-

Learning Accessibility”: Best research paper at ALT-C 2005

“Developing countries; developing experiences: approaches to accessibility for the Real World”: John M Slatin Award for best communications paper at W4A 2010

• Co-organiser of Accessibility Summit in 2004 and Accessibility Summit II in 2006

5

WAI Recap

W3C WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative):• Developed framework for providing “universal

accessibility”• Has had global impact• Based on 3 components for:

Content (WCAG) Authoring (ATAG) Browsers/User Agents (UAAG)

WCAG 1.0:• Specific to HTML; had flaws

WCAG 2.0• Format independent• POUR principle: requires accessible content to be

Perceivable; Operable; Understandable and Robust

6

Realisation of the Limitations

From 1997 - 2002:• Encouraged universities to use

WCAG guidelines to provide “universal accessibility”

From 2002-2004:• Realisation of the limitations,

especially in e-learning context: “How do I make this

3D molecule in Java accessible?” “If I provide Alt-text to the images in

the quiz I’m giving the answer away”

Conclusions: It’s wrong to think that universal accessibility can be achieved by simply conforming to a checklist. However WCAG guidelines do have value, but we need a better solution.

7

“Blended Accessibility for Blended Learning”

In 2004 we realised:• Differences between informational and

learning web services1

• Importance of accessibility of learning objectives / learning experience rather than the learning resource2

• Importance of other IT and non-IT learning environments beyond the Web

Note 1• We want immediate & simple

access to information • Understanding & learning is

different. The “understanding” arises through pedagogical processes discussions, misunderstandings, “light bulb”, ….

Note 2Example: a field trip involves trip up a mountain. This is not accessible. Do we:• Install wheelchair ramp up

mountain?• Cancel trip as it’s not universally

accessible?• Seek to make the various

experiences accessible (e.g. team working)?

8

Beyond Accessibility for LearningDifferent accessibility challenges for• Information • Learning • Culture•Communications • Games • …

We identified the importance of context and the intended purpose of the service for accessibility

9

Relevance of Second Life

Is Second Life Accessible?Blog post published in Jan 2008:

This video clip shows a user with cerebral palsy, Judith, using Second Life with a headwand. As Judith explains: ‘I’ve got a wheelchair in Second Life also. You can choose whether you want to be in a chair or not. You can have crutches, you can have whatever disability you have in real life in Second Life’

Not universally accessible, but accessible (and valuable) to a user with disabilities.This example illustrates need to have a user-focussed approach to accessibility standards

10

Revisiting Limitations of WAI

In June 2008 UK government announced that all government web sites must conform to WCAG AA Implications:• What if WCAG is

flawed?• What about the

costs?• What about the loss

of services of use to some/many?

There is a need for a standard, but it must be realistic and address a wide range of use cases.A new approach much avoid:• Unnecessary barriers to innovation• Temptations to delete services which are

accessible to many but not all (cf Judith & SL)

11

People, Policies and Processes

In 2007 we argued:• We need a new approach

to accessibility• We called this approach

“accessibility 2.0”• Move on focus from

digital resource to: People (the users and

other stakeholders) The policies covering

use of web services The processes which

would ensure that policies were being implemented

Accessibility 2.0: People, Policies and Processes, Kelly et al, W4A 2007

12

• xx

And Politics!

See blog post at http://slewth.co.uk/blog/2014/09/17/

13

A Standard – BS 8878

In parallel BS 8878 was developed:• A British Standard

Code of Practice• A framework that

allows definition of the process undertaken by organisations to build or procure an optimally accessible web site

People Policies

Processes

14

BS 878 In 88 Seconds Summary by Jonathan Hassell: see blog post and transcript

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ4MRCyMTRQ

BS

887

8

See also blog posts by Jonathan Hassell, editor of BS 8878: http://www.hassellinclusion.com/bs8878/

15

Conclusions

“Web accessibility is not an intrinsic characteristic of a digital resource but is determined by complex political, social and other contextual factors, as well as technical aspects which are the focus of WAI standardisation activities. It can therefore be inappropriate to develop legislation or focus on metrics only associated with properties of the resource”A Challenge to Web Accessibility Metrics and Guidelines: Putting People and Processes First, Cooper et al, W4A 2012

A question for the audience:Could BS 8878 approach be used in a Second Life context?

16

Questions?

Any questions, comments, …?

17

This presentation, “Web accessibility is not (primarily) about conformance with web accessibility standards”, by Brian Kelly, Cetis is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence

Note the licence covers most of the text in this presentation. Quotations may have other licence conditions.

Images may have other licence conditions. Where possible links are provided to the source of images so that licence conditions can be found.

Slides and further information available athttp://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/web-accessibility-is-not-primarily-about-conformance-with-web-accessibility-standards/

Licence and Additional Resources