WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: Cost of Web accessibility, yet again

for

From: julian.rickards
Date: Oct 7, 2004 7:20AM

I don't think you need even 1 hour per page to do an audit. If you use one
of the browser Accessibility tools for IE or Firefox/Mozilla and with a copy
of the WCAG beside you, you can (1) check for tables, (2) check for
headings, (3) check for deprecated tags, (4) run an HTML & CSS validator,
(5) disable styles, (6) highlight images without alt, (7) disable
JavaScript, (8) replace images with alt text, etc. You can then jot down
notes on compliance against each checkpoint. Once the first page is done,
likely, the same types of mistakes are made in the rest of the pages and you
can do faster checks with the rest of them. For example, if the company logo
graphic has an alt attribute of alt="logo.gif, 15kb", you can assume that
all pages do the same: check a couple to confirm this.

In many cases, web pages are built from the same template so mistakes made
at the outset are carried through. Once you have spent an hour or so on the
first page, you can check several more to see if they do the same thing.

I don't think you would have to specify that Page abc.html needs the data
table fixed but Page def.html has no data tables. If you have to fix a data
table in one page, even if only 10% of the pages use data tables, you have
to fix them so I would identify that as a "to fix" item in the audit. It may
be that some pages use features not found on others and by the time you have
reviewed the whole site (perhaps even before you review every page on the
site), you may have identified an error with every checkpoint in WCAG 1.0
(at whatever priority level you or the client decides upon) but not every
error may occur on every page.

I suspect that 2-3 hours may be sufficient to review the whole site and
another hour to write a report.

Another thing to consider is not to identify how to fix the errors but
instead identify the checkpoint that isn't met and what it means to
accessibility. For example "Proper data table structure enables screen
reader users to associate data with the headings. For example, in a calendar
table, a screen reader user can stop at the table cell containing the text
Staff Meeting and ask the screen reader to read out the headings for that
cell. The screen reader will read out Tuesday, 10AM and the user will know
that the staff meeting will be held on Tuesday at 10AM. Visual users can
glance to the top cell of the column and read Tuesday and to the left cell
of the row to read 10AM and draw the same conclusions. With proper table
formatting, screen reader software can provide the association of the data
to the headings: without proper table formatting, all of the table content
is just data with no relationship to each other." This type of information
does not tell the client what they should do (providing them with a means to
hire someone else or do it themselves) but it helps them understand how
people who need accessibility benefit from the fix and it justifies the
effort you need to apply to make the fixes. Knowledge is power: if you
provide your client with the knowledge and understanding of how
accessibility benefits the visitors who need it, they will be more willing
to have the work done.

HTH,

Jules

-----------------------------------------------
Julian Rickards
A/Digital Publications Distribution Coordinator
Publication Services Section,
Ministry of Northern Development and Mines,
Vox: 705-670-5608 / Fax: 705-670-5960