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Thread: Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibility problems encountered by blind users on the web
Number of posts in this thread: 17 (In chronological order)
From: Bryan Garaventa
Date: Wed, May 09 2012 10:08AM
Subject: Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibility problems encountered by blind users on the web
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This is an interesting article from the University of York
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id"07736
I'm glad I'm not the only one saying this any longer.
From: Bryan Garaventa
Date: Wed, May 09 2012 11:03AM
Subject: Re: Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibility problems encountered by blind users on the web
← Previous message | Next message →
Sorry about that, forgot to add the description.
This paper describes an empirical study of the problems encountered by 32
blind users on the Web. Task-based user evaluations were undertaken on 16
websites, yielding 1383 instances of user problems. The results showed that
only 50.4% of the problems encountered by users were covered by Success
Criteria in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0). For
user problems that were covered by WCAG 2.0, 16.7% of websites implemented
techniques recommended in WCAG 2.0 but the techniques did not solve the
problems. These results show that few developers are implementing the
current version of WCAG, and even when the guidelines are implemented on
websites there is little indication that people with disabilities will
encounter fewer problems. The paper closes by discussing the implications of
this study for future research and practice. In particular, it discusses the
need to move away from a problem-based approach towards a design principle
approach for web accessibility.
Full text PDF:
http://dl.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id"07736&ftid16890&dwn=1&CFID545442&CFTOKEN`990192
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bryan Garaventa" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2012 9:08 AM
Subject: [WebAIM] Guidelines are only half of the story:
accessibilityproblems encountered by blind users on the web
> This is an interesting article from the University of York
> http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id"07736
>
> I'm glad I'm not the only one saying this any longer.
> > >
From: McKeithan, Thomas
Date: Wed, May 09 2012 11:22AM
Subject: Re: Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibilityproblems encountered by blind users on the web
← Previous message | Next message →
Thanks for sharing Brian.
Respectfully,
Thomas Lee McKeithan II
Accessibility Program Manager
National Industries for the Blind
1310 Braddock Place
Alexandria, VA 22314
(703)310-0586 Direct
(202)276-6437 Cell
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
"Believing is achieving, for if I believe, I can and I will achieve."
From: Morin, Gary (NIH/OD) [E]
Date: Wed, May 09 2012 1:37PM
Subject: Re: Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibility problems encountered by blind users on the web
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Speaking ONLY for myself, and I don't mean to be insulting or insensitive, but "accessibility" is not defined solely on whether only blind users and not other persons with disabilities can use the web or any other technology. I know that, for example, on Google's Accessibility listserv I was told bluntly that that is the definition of accessible and that any other group had to specify the term (i.e., accessible to Deaf persons, accessible to persons with dexterity impairments, etc.), as if by some majical decision the definition was restricted to only group of persons over another.
I write this because it concerns me that we're almost having to play against each other - i.e., my oppression, my disability, my lack of access is worse than yours - rather than what do we have to do collaboratively to ensure that technical is meaningfully accessible to each of us and to all of us.
Done for now with my two shekels worth of your time on my soapbox,
Gary
From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Wed, May 09 2012 1:53PM
Subject: Re: Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibility problems encountered by blind users on the web
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This is a very interesting study, and I need to sit down with it and a
bunch of coffee for an hour or so, to fully appreciate it.
However, Iahave a few initial reservations.
Like Gary said, this report seems too blind-centric.
For another, I have seen a similar article to this, making bold claims
about user issues that WCAG does not address. In that case the
gentlman in question clearly did not know or understand WCAG at all,
and made a lot of eroneous claims regarding its shortcomings. There is
no connection, as far as I know, between that and the report this
group has produced, so I am in no way questioning the depth of their
knowledge of this issue, only that I need to study the details of
their tests to see if their evaluation agrees with my understanding of
WCAG.
The third concern I have is whether the users know how to use their
assistive technology. You can implement the most accessible site in
the world, according to standards, but if the user does not know how
to utilize these to explore a website these are useless. As someone
who works closely with A.T. instructors I see this time and time
again, the A.T. training is often simply not up to bar, so that part
of it needs to be pooked at specifically to see if, or how much, of a
part this plays in the problem.
Related to this is the Assistive Technology itself, if that does not
support whatis being implemented on the site, the benefit of sticking
with standards does not end up with the users.
It just seems people are very quick to blame deficiencies in the WCAg
standard for all perceived web browsing issues, putting all the
responsibility of the user experience on the web site developer and
the accessibility standards, and none on the users themselves or the
technology they use (GW Micro, for instance, does not support ARIA
landmarks and won't till version 8, this even if the landmarks have
been around for years and are supported elsewhere).
I have some issues with the Success Criteria specifically, and I think
the standard could be simplified a lot, and it is a fact it has not
been as effective as many of us would have hoped, whatever the reason.
But I think our assessments of the standard, which is a necessary and
useful thing to do, must take these other issues into account and
understand the part they play in the usability problems.
Cheers
-B
On 5/9/12, Morin, Gary (NIH/OD) [E] < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Speaking ONLY for myself, and I don't mean to be insulting or insensitive,
> but "accessibility" is not defined solely on whether only blind users and
> not other persons with disabilities can use the web or any other technology.
> I know that, for example, on Google's Accessibility listserv I was told
> bluntly that that is the definition of accessible and that any other group
> had to specify the term (i.e., accessible to Deaf persons, accessible to
> persons with dexterity impairments, etc.), as if by some majical decision
> the definition was restricted to only group of persons over another.
>
> I write this because it concerns me that we're almost having to play against
> each other - i.e., my oppression, my disability, my lack of access is worse
> than yours - rather than what do we have to do collaboratively to ensure
> that technical is meaningfully accessible to each of us and to all of us.
>
> Done for now with my two shekels worth of your time on my soapbox,
>
> Gary
>
>
From: Karlen Communications
Date: Wed, May 09 2012 2:26PM
Subject: Re: Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibility problems encountered by blind users on the web
← Previous message | Next message →
One thing I see is that the WCA Guidelines are being used as "standards" for
all types of file formats when we are developing standards specific to those
file formats.
I haven't read the study but in our language we seem to talk about
guidelines and standards as if they were the same thing.
Hopefully as we develop standards for specific document formats and types of
content they can be incorporated and referred to in the WCA Guidelines as
specific standards for specific types of content.
Cheers, Karen
From: Bryan Garaventa
Date: Wed, May 09 2012 2:48PM
Subject: Re: Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibilityproblems encountered by blind users on the web
← Previous message | Next message →
Firstly I recommend reading the article.
What it boils down to is that standards by themselves are not enough for
developers to deduce what constitutes accessibility, since standards can be
interpreted in many different ways, and are often interpreted wrongly. The
findings of the study support this.
It also states that we should have a proactive approach to accessibility
instead of relying on a reactionary approach geared only on fixing problems
that already exist, which causes accessibility to be an afterthought in most
cases.
Quoting from the article
"The results of this study indicate that it is time to move away from the
problem-based paradigm for web accessibility, where our primary goal is to
eliminate problems encountered by users. Taking a lesson from usability
research, web accessibility research must define a much broader set of
design principles, based on user data, that focuses on the use of the web by
people with disabilities - not just on the problems they encounter."
I agree with this, and have been working for years to promote the same idea.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Karlen Communications" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: "'WebAIM Discussion List'" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2012 1:26 PM
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Guidelines are only half of the story:
accessibilityproblems encountered by blind users on the web
> One thing I see is that the WCA Guidelines are being used as "standards"
> for
> all types of file formats when we are developing standards specific to
> those
> file formats.
>
> I haven't read the study but in our language we seem to talk about
> guidelines and standards as if they were the same thing.
>
> Hopefully as we develop standards for specific document formats and types
> of
> content they can be incorporated and referred to in the WCA Guidelines as
> specific standards for specific types of content.
>
> Cheers, Karen
>
>
From: Jennifer Sutton
Date: Wed, May 09 2012 2:53PM
Subject: Re: Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibility problems encountered by blind users on the web
← Previous message | Next message →
Hello:
Karen, I'm not sure quite what you mean when you talk about WCAG
techniques for other formats. I believe there are already techniques
related to other formats such as Silverlight, Flash, and PDF. To see
them, start here:
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/
They're listed in the Table of Contents which is at an h2.
I agree it'd be nice if other formats were included; in some cases,
perhaps this issue is related more to authoring tools.
Getting back to the article, which was originally under discussion,
here's a thread that some might find of interest:
http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?852325-Research-shows-adhering-to-WCAG-doesn-t-solve-blind-users-problems
Jennifer
At 01:26 PM 5/9/2012, you wrote:
>One thing I see is that the WCA Guidelines are being used as "standards" for
>all types of file formats when we are developing standards specific to those
>file formats.
>
>I haven't read the study but in our language we seem to talk about
>guidelines and standards as if they were the same thing.
>
>Hopefully as we develop standards for specific document formats and types of
>content they can be incorporated and referred to in the WCA Guidelines as
>specific standards for specific types of content.
>
>Cheers, Karen
>
>
From: Bryan Garaventa
Date: Wed, May 09 2012 3:58PM
Subject: Re: Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibility problems encountered by blind users on the web
← Previous message | Next message →
Regarding the link
http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?852325-Research-shows-adhering-to-WCAG-doesn-t-solve-blind-users-problems
This too supports the need for a standardized design system for rendering
web content accessibly, since both usability and accessibility can be
addressed at the same time by automating the low level processes that often
cause the most problems for screen reader and keyboard only users.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jennifer Sutton" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2012 1:53 PM
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibility
problems encountered by blind users on the web
> Hello:
>
> Karen, I'm not sure quite what you mean when you talk about WCAG
> techniques for other formats. I believe there are already techniques
> related to other formats such as Silverlight, Flash, and PDF. To see
> them, start here:
>
> http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/
>
> They're listed in the Table of Contents which is at an h2.
>
> I agree it'd be nice if other formats were included; in some cases,
> perhaps this issue is related more to authoring tools.
>
> Getting back to the article, which was originally under discussion,
> here's a thread that some might find of interest:
>
> http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?852325-Research-shows-adhering-to-WCAG-doesn-t-solve-blind-users-problems
>
>
>
> Jennifer
>
> At 01:26 PM 5/9/2012, you wrote:
>>One thing I see is that the WCA Guidelines are being used as "standards"
>>for
>>all types of file formats when we are developing standards specific to
>>those
>>file formats.
>>
>>I haven't read the study but in our language we seem to talk about
>>guidelines and standards as if they were the same thing.
>>
>>Hopefully as we develop standards for specific document formats and types
>>of
>>content they can be incorporated and referred to in the WCA Guidelines as
>>specific standards for specific types of content.
>>
>>Cheers, Karen
>>
>>
From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Thu, May 10 2012 2:39PM
Subject: Re: Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibilityproblems encountered by blind users on the web
← Previous message | Next message →
The study was very interesting, but suggests an expansion on the category of accessibility which I'm interested in hearing whether people agree. I do agree that the issues raised in the study are problems for users, but I'm not convinced that they are _accessibility_ problems that need to be covered in an accessibility standard.
The six categories of errors that the study identified as not having any WCAG 2.0 requirement to address, and the six which are covered somewhat are worth mentioning - I'd be interested in whether people agree that these should be part of WCAG.
Not covered in WCAG 2.0:
1) Content found in pages where not expected by users
2) Content not found in pages where expected by users (example provided: "on a museum website, users followed a link to an object in the museum collection but did not find any information about the room in which that object is displayed, which they expected.")
3) Pages too slow to load
4) No alternative to document format (e.g. PDF)
5) Information architecture too complex (e.g. too many steps to find pages)
6) Broken links
Covered at least in part by WCAG 2.0:
7) Functionality does not work (as expected)
8) Expected functionality not present
9) Organisation of content is inconsistent with web conventions/common sense
10) Irrelevant content before task content
11) Users cannot make sense of content
12) No/insufficient feedback to inform that actions has had an effect
So, what do people think? How many of 1-6 should be added to WCAG?
AWK
From: Ryan E. Benson
Date: Sat, May 12 2012 1:53PM
Subject: Re: Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibility problems encountered by blind users on the web
← Previous message | Next message →
> Full text PDF:
> http://dl.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id"07736&ftid16890&dwn=1&CFID545442&CFTOKEN`990192
Is there a way to get the text back? It seems like the took the pdf down.
--
Ryan E. Benson
On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 1:03 PM, Bryan Garaventa
< = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Sorry about that, forgot to add the description.
>
> This paper describes an empirical study of the problems encountered by 32
> blind users on the Web. Task-based user evaluations were undertaken on 16
> websites, yielding 1383 instances of user problems. The results showed that
> only 50.4% of the problems encountered by users were covered by Success
> Criteria in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0). For
> user problems that were covered by WCAG 2.0, 16.7% of websites implemented
> techniques recommended in WCAG 2.0 but the techniques did not solve the
> problems. These results show that few developers are implementing the
> current version of WCAG, and even when the guidelines are implemented on
> websites there is little indication that people with disabilities will
> encounter fewer problems. The paper closes by discussing the implications of
> this study for future research and practice. In particular, it discusses the
> need to move away from a problem-based approach towards a design principle
> approach for web accessibility.
>
>
> Full text PDF:
> http://dl.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id"07736&ftid16890&dwn=1&CFID545442&CFTOKEN`990192
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bryan Garaventa" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2012 9:08 AM
> Subject: [WebAIM] Guidelines are only half of the story:
> accessibilityproblems encountered by blind users on the web
>
>
>> This is an interesting article from the University of York
>> http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id"07736
>>
>> I'm glad I'm not the only one saying this any longer.
>> >> >> >
> > >
From: Léonie Watson
Date: Sun, May 13 2012 7:22AM
Subject: Re: Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibility problems encountered by blind users on the web
← Previous message | Next message →
It is an interesting paper to read. The idea of a set of design
principles is also interesting. It's something we've been working on in UK
government recently. The Gov.UK design principles are still alpha release,
but for practical reasons inclusion has already emerged as a principle in
its own right.
http://www.gov.uk/designprinciples/
To answer your question Andrew, I'm not sure that those six points
can (or should) be included in a set of accessibility guidelines. Like most
things it isn't that simple though, so I've put some thoughts down here. You
might want to grab a cup of tea first though...
1) Content found in pages where not expected by users.
2) Content not found in pages where expected by users.
With points 1 and 2 it's difficult to judge whether they should be
covered by WCAG, or whether they may already be covered. There isn't enough
information given in the report to explain why participants were surprised.
Given that the report finds that they were not covered, we have to
assume that the surprise wasn't due to poor preceding link text, poor page
titles or other factors covered in WCAG.
My guess then is that the Information Architecture (IA) is the
underlying problem in these cases. I can't envisage how that could be
addressed through WCAG though. Link text aside, it's a subjective
categorisation problem that is best addressed through card sorting or some
other usability technique isn't it?
3) Pages too slow to load.
I'm not sure why this would be considered an accessibility issue.
Obviously, if you can't get to the page you can't access it, but that's
level right across the playing field.
It also opens up a can of worms in terms of definition. Even if we
tried to come up with a design principle, as opposed to a testable SC, it's
a challenge. Too slow for whom? On which device/connection? In what
environment/context?
4) No alternative to document format.
There wasn't enough information in the report to really understand
this point. If, as I suspect, it was largely about alternatives to PDFs, I
wonder whether it's entirely an accessibility issue.
Given that there may not be a single file format that is truly
accessible to and usable by everyone, there could be an argument for a WCAG
guideline to cover the need for alternatives. The bit I'm uncomfortable with
isn't the legitimate provision of an alternative format, but the escape
clause it opens up for less committed content authors. Perhaps I'm worrying
too much though.
5) Information architecture too complex (e.g. too many steps to find pages).
This has reflections of points 1, 2 and 3. The challenge would be
defining a design principle or guideline that successfully encompassed such
a subjective and context dependent issue.
6) Broken links
This comes back to the point that if you can't access a page it
isn't accessible by definition, but then it isn't accessible to anyone
equally. At the risk of being flip, if we start down this path do we need to
include guidelines for things like factually incorrect content as well?
Taking a step back to the report itself, I understand that
researchers need to choose a limited field of study and that the headline
finding needs to grab attention quickly and concisely. I can't help feeling
that screen reader users have once again become the poster children for
accessibility, and that the headline is at odds with the focus of the report
itself though. The real irony is that the report is an untagged PDF (which
I've emailed one of the authors about).
Léonie.
From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Thu, May 10 2012 2:39PM
Subject: Re: Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibility problems
encountered by blind users on the web
The study was very interesting, but suggests an expansion on the category of
accessibility which I'm interested in hearing whether people agree. I do
agree that the issues raised in the study are problems for users, but I'm
not convinced that they are _accessibility_ problems that need to be covered
in an accessibility standard.
The six categories of errors that the study identified as not having any
WCAG 2.0 requirement to address, and the six which are covered somewhat are
worth mentioning - I'd be interested in whether people agree that these
should be part of WCAG.
Not covered in WCAG 2.0:
1) Content found in pages where not expected by users
2) Content not found in pages where expected by users (example provided: "on
a museum website, users followed a link to an object in the museum
collection but did not find any information about the room in which that
object is displayed, which they expected.")
3) Pages too slow to load
4) No alternative to document format (e.g. PDF)
5) Information architecture too complex (e.g. too many steps to find pages)
6) Broken links
Covered at least in part by WCAG 2.0:
7) Functionality does not work (as expected)
8) Expected functionality not present
9) Organisation of content is inconsistent with web conventions/common sense
10) Irrelevant content before task content
11) Users cannot make sense of content
12) No/insufficient feedback to inform that actions has had an effect
So, what do people think? How many of 1-6 should be added to WCAG?
AWK
From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Sun, May 13 2012 8:02AM
Subject: Re: Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibility problems encountered by blind users on the web
← Previous message | Next message →
At the risk of repeating myself, I agree with all of the excellent
points in the preceeding mail, but must also wonder about user
training or techniques.
Do they know what headings are, and do they use headings to try and
make sense of the page.
Do they use landmarks as a back up to try and analyze the page's
logical structure?
A more interesting study would be to analyze their techniques and try
and come up with a best-method plan to teach users to methodically
look for information on web pages.
Having come up with an algorithm like that, apply that to the pages in
question to see how well it would do at locating information on those
pages.
For instance, how accessible would you find this page if you did not
try to jump directly to heading level 1?
http://www.brandonsanderson.com/blog/1084/More-Creative-Writing-Lectures--Updates
(it would take you almost 80 arrow down presses to get to this
article, if you do not try to interact with the page structure you
would've given up by then, or at least not view the page favorably).
Could the screen readers do a better job of presenting pages to the
users (for example, by indicating colors and layout of the page in
some fashion, I have personally always found that one of the missing
features in all screen readers.
I find all of these 6 points not something that accessibility guide
lines could or should address specifically.
And while i totally agree with Bryan on the main point -- that we need
to somehow be more proactive about accessibility and use technology
better to incorporate accessibility out of the box in technical tools
(also addressed, at lesat in part, by ATAG)-- I don't find this report
particularlly convincing, nor do I agree with all its methods and
findings.
It places too much responsibility on the website designers and not on
the users or assistive technology they deploy, to say nothing of the
screen reader being used as the only assistive technology being
tested. It is a good usability study, but not a good accessibility
one, in my view.
The fact that the Pdf of the report itself is untagged also really
does a lot to make me lose faith in what the authors are doing. If
they don't even know how to make an accessible report about
accessibility, how much do they really know or understand about
accessibility?
If there was no way to make the report accessible (though it appears
to me that simple tagging would've been sufficient), they should
indicate that, and appologize for it up-front.
-B
On 5/13/12, Léonie Watson < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> It is an interesting paper to read. The idea of a set of design
> principles is also interesting. It's something we've been working on in UK
> government recently. The Gov.UK design principles are still alpha release,
> but for practical reasons inclusion has already emerged as a principle in
> its own right.
> http://www.gov.uk/designprinciples/
>
> To answer your question Andrew, I'm not sure that those six points
> can (or should) be included in a set of accessibility guidelines. Like most
> things it isn't that simple though, so I've put some thoughts down here.
> You
> might want to grab a cup of tea first though...
>
> 1) Content found in pages where not expected by users.
> 2) Content not found in pages where expected by users.
>
> With points 1 and 2 it's difficult to judge whether they should be
> covered by WCAG, or whether they may already be covered. There isn't enough
> information given in the report to explain why participants were surprised.
>
> Given that the report finds that they were not covered, we have to
> assume that the surprise wasn't due to poor preceding link text, poor page
> titles or other factors covered in WCAG.
>
> My guess then is that the Information Architecture (IA) is the
> underlying problem in these cases. I can't envisage how that could be
> addressed through WCAG though. Link text aside, it's a subjective
> categorisation problem that is best addressed through card sorting or some
> other usability technique isn't it?
>
> 3) Pages too slow to load.
>
> I'm not sure why this would be considered an accessibility issue.
> Obviously, if you can't get to the page you can't access it, but that's
> level right across the playing field.
>
> It also opens up a can of worms in terms of definition. Even if we
> tried to come up with a design principle, as opposed to a testable SC, it's
> a challenge. Too slow for whom? On which device/connection? In what
> environment/context?
>
> 4) No alternative to document format.
>
> There wasn't enough information in the report to really understand
> this point. If, as I suspect, it was largely about alternatives to PDFs, I
> wonder whether it's entirely an accessibility issue.
>
> Given that there may not be a single file format that is truly
> accessible to and usable by everyone, there could be an argument for a WCAG
> guideline to cover the need for alternatives. The bit I'm uncomfortable
> with
> isn't the legitimate provision of an alternative format, but the escape
> clause it opens up for less committed content authors. Perhaps I'm worrying
> too much though.
>
> 5) Information architecture too complex (e.g. too many steps to find
> pages).
>
> This has reflections of points 1, 2 and 3. The challenge would be
> defining a design principle or guideline that successfully encompassed such
> a subjective and context dependent issue.
>
> 6) Broken links
>
> This comes back to the point that if you can't access a page it
> isn't accessible by definition, but then it isn't accessible to anyone
> equally. At the risk of being flip, if we start down this path do we need
> to
> include guidelines for things like factually incorrect content as well?
>
> Taking a step back to the report itself, I understand that
> researchers need to choose a limited field of study and that the headline
> finding needs to grab attention quickly and concisely. I can't help feeling
> that screen reader users have once again become the poster children for
> accessibility, and that the headline is at odds with the focus of the
> report
> itself though. The real irony is that the report is an untagged PDF (which
> I've emailed one of the authors about).
>
> Léonie.
>
>
> From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
> Date: Thu, May 10 2012 2:39PM
> Subject: Re: Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibility problems
> encountered by blind users on the web
>
> The study was very interesting, but suggests an expansion on the category
> of
> accessibility which I'm interested in hearing whether people agree. I do
> agree that the issues raised in the study are problems for users, but I'm
> not convinced that they are _accessibility_ problems that need to be
> covered
> in an accessibility standard.
>
> The six categories of errors that the study identified as not having any
> WCAG 2.0 requirement to address, and the six which are covered somewhat are
> worth mentioning - I'd be interested in whether people agree that these
> should be part of WCAG.
>
> Not covered in WCAG 2.0:
> 1) Content found in pages where not expected by users
> 2) Content not found in pages where expected by users (example provided:
> "on
> a museum website, users followed a link to an object in the museum
> collection but did not find any information about the room in which that
> object is displayed, which they expected.")
> 3) Pages too slow to load
> 4) No alternative to document format (e.g. PDF)
> 5) Information architecture too complex (e.g. too many steps to find pages)
> 6) Broken links
>
> Covered at least in part by WCAG 2.0:
> 7) Functionality does not work (as expected)
> 8) Expected functionality not present
> 9) Organisation of content is inconsistent with web conventions/common
> sense
> 10) Irrelevant content before task content
> 11) Users cannot make sense of content
> 12) No/insufficient feedback to inform that actions has had an effect
>
> So, what do people think? How many of 1-6 should be added to WCAG?
>
> AWK
>
>
> > > >
From: Léonie Watson
Date: Sun, May 13 2012 9:33AM
Subject: Re: Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibility problems encountered by blind users on the web
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Ryan E. Benson asked:
"Is there a way to get the text back? It seems like the took the pdf down."
When I went there this morning the only option I could find was to
buy the report. $15 for non ACM members.
Léonie.
From: Bryan Garaventa
Date: Sun, May 13 2012 1:51PM
Subject: Re: Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibility problems encountered by blind users on the web
← Previous message | Next message →
It's true that there are many facets to accessibility.
User familiarity and experience with Assistive Technologies is one facet,
which is a viewpoint that can easily be exploited by simply putting an SEP
(Somebody Else's Problem) field around it from a business standpoint, which
isn't helpful to anyone.
Another facet is standardization using guidelines and requirements, which
are helpful. The problem is that they address issues from a symptomatic
standpoint, so that, in many cases, from a business standpoint, problems
aren't considered to be problems until someone complains about them. We,
here, know what isn't working and why it's not, so we can be pretty voluble
about pointing these things out to the right people. The vast majority of AT
users however just know that something is wrong and they can't find what
they are looking for, so they just leave and go somewhere else where things
are less confusing. This happens not just for AT users, but for everyone.
Most people don't report issues they come across from day to day, either
because they don't know who to report it to, they don't have time, they
figure somebody else has already reported it, or they simply don't want to
do so.
Also, addressing issues at a symptomatic level isn't scalable, which is a
huge problem that comes up over and over. What happens in these cases, is
that you have the home pages of complex sites, and some critical path pages
such as registration, login, account preferences (maybe), and so on, that
have properly implemented standards, but then when you explore further into
other regions, you find spotty standard compliance and sometimes none at
all.
The concept that is missing, which is growing larger as time goes on, is
that many complex websites are evolving into complex web services, which is
vastly increasing the number of ways to implement interactive features in
ways that completely overlook accessibility. For example, there are
thousands of ways of dynamically rendering content on a page that is not
accessible, but there are definitive ways of doing it that ensure the
highest level of accessibility. To clarify, web services usually contain
many interactive features that exist within one page, that dynamically pull
content into the page as needed based on user interaction. This is valuable
in that it provides a feature rich environment for interactivity, and it
greatly reduces bandwidth overhead since small amounts of content are being
loaded instead of full pages every time queries are made, which increases
the speed of these services as well.
So the missing facet is a structured framework where dynamic content can be
easily managed in a scalable fashion, so that the accessibility of these
features can be implemented by default, instead of trying to do it as a
symptomatic afterthought. This will enforce proper coding techniques to
ensure accessibility, and will ensure scalability across millions of
webpages.
I think we're getting hung up on the details regarding blind versus not, and
the tagging of the PDF.
Standards and requirements will always be important to provide structured
guidelines for developers.
Nevertheless, standards by themselves are not going to be enough to enforce
a scalable level of accessibility within evolving coding structures without
a framework for this purpose, which takes the guesswork out of the rendering
process for developers unfamiliar with Assistive Technologies.
Without a structured coding framework for this purpose, accessibility will
forever be chasing the latest innovations in web technology development, and
complaining loudly that it doesn't work for everyone.
The only workable solution for this situation, is to merge accessibility
with the development of web technologies so that future innovations already
have an accessible platform from which to work. Then the standards can be
used to fine tune the accessibility of individual features to maximize the
user experiences for everyone.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Birkir R. Gunnarsson" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >; "WebAIM Discussion List"
< = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2012 7:02 AM
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibility
problems encountered by blind users on the web
At the risk of repeating myself, I agree with all of the excellent
points in the preceeding mail, but must also wonder about user
training or techniques.
Do they know what headings are, and do they use headings to try and
make sense of the page.
Do they use landmarks as a back up to try and analyze the page's
logical structure?
A more interesting study would be to analyze their techniques and try
and come up with a best-method plan to teach users to methodically
look for information on web pages.
Having come up with an algorithm like that, apply that to the pages in
question to see how well it would do at locating information on those
pages.
For instance, how accessible would you find this page if you did not
try to jump directly to heading level 1?
http://www.brandonsanderson.com/blog/1084/More-Creative-Writing-Lectures--Updates
(it would take you almost 80 arrow down presses to get to this
article, if you do not try to interact with the page structure you
would've given up by then, or at least not view the page favorably).
Could the screen readers do a better job of presenting pages to the
users (for example, by indicating colors and layout of the page in
some fashion, I have personally always found that one of the missing
features in all screen readers.
I find all of these 6 points not something that accessibility guide
lines could or should address specifically.
And while i totally agree with Bryan on the main point -- that we need
to somehow be more proactive about accessibility and use technology
better to incorporate accessibility out of the box in technical tools
(also addressed, at lesat in part, by ATAG)-- I don't find this report
particularlly convincing, nor do I agree with all its methods and
findings.
It places too much responsibility on the website designers and not on
the users or assistive technology they deploy, to say nothing of the
screen reader being used as the only assistive technology being
tested. It is a good usability study, but not a good accessibility
one, in my view.
The fact that the Pdf of the report itself is untagged also really
does a lot to make me lose faith in what the authors are doing. If
they don't even know how to make an accessible report about
accessibility, how much do they really know or understand about
accessibility?
If there was no way to make the report accessible (though it appears
to me that simple tagging would've been sufficient), they should
indicate that, and appologize for it up-front.
-B
On 5/13/12, Léonie Watson < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> It is an interesting paper to read. The idea of a set of design
> principles is also interesting. It's something we've been working on in UK
> government recently. The Gov.UK design principles are still alpha release,
> but for practical reasons inclusion has already emerged as a principle in
> its own right.
> http://www.gov.uk/designprinciples/
>
> To answer your question Andrew, I'm not sure that those six points
> can (or should) be included in a set of accessibility guidelines. Like
> most
> things it isn't that simple though, so I've put some thoughts down here.
> You
> might want to grab a cup of tea first though...
>
> 1) Content found in pages where not expected by users.
> 2) Content not found in pages where expected by users.
>
> With points 1 and 2 it's difficult to judge whether they should be
> covered by WCAG, or whether they may already be covered. There isn't
> enough
> information given in the report to explain why participants were
> surprised.
>
> Given that the report finds that they were not covered, we have to
> assume that the surprise wasn't due to poor preceding link text, poor page
> titles or other factors covered in WCAG.
>
> My guess then is that the Information Architecture (IA) is the
> underlying problem in these cases. I can't envisage how that could be
> addressed through WCAG though. Link text aside, it's a subjective
> categorisation problem that is best addressed through card sorting or some
> other usability technique isn't it?
>
> 3) Pages too slow to load.
>
> I'm not sure why this would be considered an accessibility issue.
> Obviously, if you can't get to the page you can't access it, but that's
> level right across the playing field.
>
> It also opens up a can of worms in terms of definition. Even if we
> tried to come up with a design principle, as opposed to a testable SC,
> it's
> a challenge. Too slow for whom? On which device/connection? In what
> environment/context?
>
> 4) No alternative to document format.
>
> There wasn't enough information in the report to really understand
> this point. If, as I suspect, it was largely about alternatives to PDFs, I
> wonder whether it's entirely an accessibility issue.
>
> Given that there may not be a single file format that is truly
> accessible to and usable by everyone, there could be an argument for a
> WCAG
> guideline to cover the need for alternatives. The bit I'm uncomfortable
> with
> isn't the legitimate provision of an alternative format, but the escape
> clause it opens up for less committed content authors. Perhaps I'm
> worrying
> too much though.
>
> 5) Information architecture too complex (e.g. too many steps to find
> pages).
>
> This has reflections of points 1, 2 and 3. The challenge would be
> defining a design principle or guideline that successfully encompassed
> such
> a subjective and context dependent issue.
>
> 6) Broken links
>
> This comes back to the point that if you can't access a page it
> isn't accessible by definition, but then it isn't accessible to anyone
> equally. At the risk of being flip, if we start down this path do we need
> to
> include guidelines for things like factually incorrect content as well?
>
> Taking a step back to the report itself, I understand that
> researchers need to choose a limited field of study and that the headline
> finding needs to grab attention quickly and concisely. I can't help
> feeling
> that screen reader users have once again become the poster children for
> accessibility, and that the headline is at odds with the focus of the
> report
> itself though. The real irony is that the report is an untagged PDF (which
> I've emailed one of the authors about).
>
> Léonie.
>
>
> From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
> Date: Thu, May 10 2012 2:39PM
> Subject: Re: Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibility problems
> encountered by blind users on the web
>
> The study was very interesting, but suggests an expansion on the category
> of
> accessibility which I'm interested in hearing whether people agree. I do
> agree that the issues raised in the study are problems for users, but I'm
> not convinced that they are _accessibility_ problems that need to be
> covered
> in an accessibility standard.
>
> The six categories of errors that the study identified as not having any
> WCAG 2.0 requirement to address, and the six which are covered somewhat
> are
> worth mentioning - I'd be interested in whether people agree that these
> should be part of WCAG.
>
> Not covered in WCAG 2.0:
> 1) Content found in pages where not expected by users
> 2) Content not found in pages where expected by users (example provided:
> "on
> a museum website, users followed a link to an object in the museum
> collection but did not find any information about the room in which that
> object is displayed, which they expected.")
> 3) Pages too slow to load
> 4) No alternative to document format (e.g. PDF)
> 5) Information architecture too complex (e.g. too many steps to find
> pages)
> 6) Broken links
>
> Covered at least in part by WCAG 2.0:
> 7) Functionality does not work (as expected)
> 8) Expected functionality not present
> 9) Organisation of content is inconsistent with web conventions/common
> sense
> 10) Irrelevant content before task content
> 11) Users cannot make sense of content
> 12) No/insufficient feedback to inform that actions has had an effect
>
> So, what do people think? How many of 1-6 should be added to WCAG?
>
> AWK
>
>
> > > >
From: Karlen Communications
Date: Mon, May 14 2012 4:16AM
Subject: Re: Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibilityproblems encountered by blind users on the web
← Previous message | Next message →
You wrote: "The only workable solution for this situation, is to merge
accessibility with the development of web technologies so that future
innovations already have an accessible platform from which to work. Then the
standards can be used to fine tune the accessibility of individual features
to maximize the user experiences for everyone."
I agree and one of the things I'm advocating for is the inclusion of
inclusive design in everything produced by teachers, faculty and students at
the primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education. Part of the problem
identified here is that we still think of inclusive education as having to
be "accommodated" for rather than "this is how we do it." We need to ensure
that all tools used in education are inclusive and that any document,
multimedia project or software/application created by any student is
inclusive in its design.
It is only then that we will stop the retro fit cycle for any digital
content or application, or service.
This in turn will drive the creation of more inclusive technologies and my
wishful thinking is that we'll look on this stage of digital evolution as a
"dark age."
http://karlencommunications.com/adobe/OntarioEducationAndAODA.pdf
As long as we have to "retrain" graduates to produce accessible digital
content and applications we'll be stuck in a retro fit cycle of
accommodation rather than one of inclusive design by default. People working
in the area of digital content and application design will continue to look
on accessibility as an add-on which is part of the current problem.
Cheers, Karen
From: Steve Faulkner
Date: Mon, May 14 2012 4:50AM
Subject: Re: Guidelines are only half of the story: accessibility problems encountered by blind users on the web
← Previous message | No next message
Detlev Fischer has undertaken a sobering of the study:
Methodological flaws put question mark on study of the impact of WCAG on
user problem http://www.bitvtest.eu/articles/article/lesen/chi2012-wcag.html
On 14 May 2012 11:16, Karlen Communications
< = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >wrote:
> You wrote: "The only workable solution for this situation, is to merge
> accessibility with the development of web technologies so that future
> innovations already have an accessible platform from which to work. Then
> the
> standards can be used to fine tune the accessibility of individual features
> to maximize the user experiences for everyone."
>
> I agree and one of the things I'm advocating for is the inclusion of
> inclusive design in everything produced by teachers, faculty and students
> at
> the primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education. Part of the
> problem
> identified here is that we still think of inclusive education as having to
> be "accommodated" for rather than "this is how we do it." We need to ensure
> that all tools used in education are inclusive and that any document,
> multimedia project or software/application created by any student is
> inclusive in its design.
>
> It is only then that we will stop the retro fit cycle for any digital
> content or application, or service.
>
> This in turn will drive the creation of more inclusive technologies and my
> wishful thinking is that we'll look on this stage of digital evolution as a
> "dark age."
>
> http://karlencommunications.com/adobe/OntarioEducationAndAODA.pdf
>
> As long as we have to "retrain" graduates to produce accessible digital
> content and applications we'll be stuck in a retro fit cycle of
> accommodation rather than one of inclusive design by default. People
> working
> in the area of digital content and application design will continue to look
> on accessibility as an add-on which is part of the current problem.
>
> Cheers, Karen
>
>
>