When I was at South by Southwest Interactive earlier this year, I attended a panel which had the intruiging title of “High Class and Low Class Web Design”. I’m not sure what I expected before I went in, but while I was in there, I had a bit of an epiphany.
Coming from a topic based on class, there was a lot of talk about respect for the audience and whether designers treat their audiences as equals and how do deal with audiences that aren’t in the same cultural, educational or peer group. One of the panelists worked for a wrestling magazine and described how after being initially skeptical, he came to understand, and then to respect his audience as he got to know more about them.
In amongst a lot of fascinating discussion, came an interesting point - that it’s difficult, if not impossible to design for an audience that you don’t respect - and it got me thinking…
…what if the reason that web accessibility (and accessibility in general) hasn’t got as far as it should have by now, is that the majority of designers/managers/people in charge of making stuff have no, or not enough knowledge of what life is like for people with disabilities, or what it’s like having a disability, and as a result, don’t understand, and don’t respect them.
It’s all very well to make a choice that you don’t want to design websites for wrestlers because you just don’t “get” them (or think that it’s a complete waste of time and money), but there really shouldn’t be a web designer out there who decides they don’t want to (or can’t) make websites for disabled people.
It’s not news that there’s a lack of understanding generally about disability, but this is particularly true when it comes to how people with disabilities use the web, and since coming back I’ve been having a look around the web to see what’s out there, and the truth is, there isn’t much. Yahoo have been doing some good things with videos of screen reader and screen magnification users, but the feedback I’ve been hearing is that while those are great, it’s still not enough.
So in the coming months, we’re going to try and do something about that.
First though, it seemed sensible to get some opinions from you - the readers of this blog, and the people who have been crying out for this information - as to what exactly you want.
Some of the ideas we’ve come up with are:
Profiles/text interviews, accompanied by photographs of how each individual uses the web.
Audio interviews/podcasts (with transcripts, of course)
Surveys of groups of disabled people
Videos (technology and hosting permitting)
What do you think? Anything else you’d like to see? Any particular group you’d like us to concentrate on first?
Chris Bush | 17/08/2007 at 19:08 | Permalink
This is a great idea. I think I learnt more about the web from user-group interaction than i ever did just by reading books and research papers.
I know its probably a bit out of your remit but it would be great if you could include older users too, to promote the fact that Accessibility is not just about disabled users.
On a side note: Julie Howell at a PSF event spoke about how one of your IT guys managed a PC, a screen reader, a phone and delivered high quality tech support to people. I was truly blown away by that - really eye opening.
Nathan Steyn | 18/08/2007 at 6:19 | Permalink
I’ve found the accessibility tips you’ve provided the most useful thing of all. These usually explain why a practice is needed in a real world context. This helps to make me realize the guidelines are not just dogma, but they actually help someone. I like doing things knowing that they are helpful. It adds meaning to what I do.
So the more personal insight you can provide into the difficulties that people with disabilities have using the Web, the better, but only so long as solutions are provided.
And I agree with Chris that extending what to cover to a broader range of people would make what you do even more useful.
Richard | 18/08/2007 at 10:04 | Permalink
First of all I’d like to say, as someone who has attended your “Beyond the Basics” course, one of the most useful and enlightening things about it was getting to see how someone with sight problems uses the web. It really brought home what the whole point of making websites accessible is all about.
“Profiles/text interviews, accompanied by photographs of how each individual uses the web.”
Very helpful and would be an excellent start.
“Audio interviews/podcasts (with transcripts, of course)”
Again, anything that gives developers an insight into how disabled users tackle the web is going to assist us developers.
“Surveys of groups of disabled people”
Good, assuming the results of the survey are passed on. :)
“Videos (technology and hosting permitting)”
This is the one I’m really keen on. Could Camtasia be used for screen capture with audio commentary? Camtasia can convert into a variety of formats, which could be stored on a server for download and then viewed offline.
I’m really looking forward to any of this stuff as soon as it can be implemented. Tomorrow? ;-)
patrick h. lauke | 19/08/2007 at 12:19 | Permalink
sort of related: a few years ago i contributed a modest little article to the Skills for Access project http://www.skillsforaccess.org.uk/ which has an interesting section with case studies, containing interviews with several users with disabilities.
back on topic: this sounds like an excellent idea.
Iain Lackie | 20/08/2007 at 11:07 | Permalink
I think for many people it’s not so much a lack of respect as far as blind and otherwise visually impaired people using the web is concerned so much as a complete ignorance of the fact that we can. It’s more a question of ignorance than lack of respect.
It’s interesting that Yahoo! should have been mentioned in this context. Yes, we have the videos about using screenreader technology etc. However, the same Yahoo! tells us that its mail beta cannot accommodate screenreaders at this time and they still haven’t done anything about that bugbear for blind people, the CAPTCHA. The left hand seemeth not in this case to know what the right hand doeth! Is there any point I ask myself in campaigning about the more esoteric aspects of web accessibility when blind people are increasingly being kept out of even the most accessible of websites by the presence of the visual verification CAPTCHA? This is surely a ‘real world’ issue which organisations like RNIB which claim to be promoting web accessibility should be campaigning hard about.
JackP | 20/08/2007 at 17:36 | Permalink
Videos are great for getting the point across. I know you have the ‘B’ along with your ‘RNI’ but I remember finding a video Robin Christopherson showed at @media 06 to be particularly good, showing a woman with learning difficulties and demonstrating how un-necessarily complicated ‘terms and conditions for use’ seem to be on websites.
Basically, videos are best: of different disabilities, different skill levels, and different pieces of assistive technology ideally.
And if they’re presented by one of the über-cool people from the web access team, well, that’d just be perfect :-)
Ben 'Cerbera' Millard | 23/08/2007 at 22:31 | Permalink
In the “surveys” category, I’d be interested in small but oft-discussed things like:
What % of users are using a device which can expand
<abbr title>or<cronym title>?What % of users know if their device has this facility?
What % of users turn this on (or leave it off) for regular browsing?
What are the common recovery techniques users employ when finding a shortened term (or a regular term) whose meaning they are unfamiliar with?
More fundamental things like the videos showing how different ATs are used is more widely applicable, though. Mobility enabling peripherals like switches, voice activation, tongue joysticks and eye-tracking systems are rarely mentioned. It would be cool to see some of them in action, even if it’s beyond what RNIB is strictly about.
Ben 'Cerbera' Millard | 23/08/2007 at 22:32 | Permalink
The comment system ate my list markup. But at least the message showed up. :-)
Ann | 24/08/2007 at 14:24 | Permalink
Thanks all for your feedback, it’s very useful and reinforces a lot of what I’ve already got in mind, as well as a couple of things I hadn’t thought about, which is great.
Just to reassure people, although we are RNIB, the Web Access Centre and the focus of our team is strongly pan-disability, and as such we won’t be just focusing on sight loss issues.
John | 19/09/2007 at 15:01 | Permalink
I agree there are many very large sites such as yahoo, msn, myspace etc which are aware of access issues but don’t seem to show a positive attitude to accessibility. image captchas are just one example of exclusion, I would be interested to hear the responses from such sites when asked about their accessibility policies.