Equal Access for All
Bill Marchone
PC Magazine - January 2, 2001 - page 91

Have you made life more difficult for anyone today? If you`ve put up a Web
site recently, chances are that you have. While people with disabilities have
been empowered by technology when you use the new techniques for site
building, navigation, and creating exciting visuals, you may inadvertently
disenfranchise some users. The unique user interfaces you`re creating may
render the content inaccessible to those with any perceptual or motor
impairment. Key aspects of accessibility  easy use with assistive interfaces
or devicesfly in the face of popular Web design tenets. Commercial sites
increasingly use Flash and other animations to catch your eye and draw you
in. Fat lot of good it does you if you`re blind or suffering from a vision
impairment. I see sites all the time with critical information - either
navigation or headline text - buried in bitmaps. Unless you provide extensive
alternative text in the HTML or build a nongraphical shadow version of your
site, it may be impossible for some people to use.  

Setting Standards
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has standing and draft standards for
browsers, Web sites, and applications such as media players, that outline and
encourage the development of universally usable interfaces. The Web would be
a better, more useful, more navigable place if everyone adhered to the
recommended standards. (Check them out at http://www.w3.org, and take a look
at the current work-in-progress accessibility spec at:
http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/WD-UAAGJO-IMP-20001101.)  

When software development was firmly in the hands of the programming
priesthood, it was easier to maintain standards. Today the operating system
provides the basic hooks and tools for accessibility, but a badly designed
application can utterly block their use. Web sites are no exception. 

As Microsoft has become the dominant operating-system and browser provider,
it has had to pick up considerable responsibility for accessibility features.
See http://www.microsoft.com/enable for the highest-level view. It took Windows
and many Windows programs a long time to become access-aware, and they still
leave something to be desired. The next version of Windows, for example,
code-named Whistler, will have much greater integration between the operating
system and the Internet Explorer browser. Not everyone is leaping for joy at
this prospect. 

People with mobility or dexterity limitations tend to rank IE dead last,
behind Opera and Netscape Navigator, because it`s difficult to drive the
browser from the keyboard. Many users vastly prefer using keyboard commands
to the mouse, especially on a laptop, where the mouse is replaced by a
generally inferior pointing device. I prefer keyboard shortcuts to driving
the menu from the Alt key, and Netscape has more convenient shortcuts than
JE. But Opera, which has only a tiny fraction of the browser market, has by
far the richest selection of shortcuts. 

One-Button Access
Most shortcuts involve holding one key and pressing another  a problem for
one-handed use or for people who use a head wand or mouth stick. Over 18
years ago a reader mentioned using a small bag of lead shot to hold the Ctrl
or Alt key down while he pressed a shortcut key. We had a better idea and
wrote a little utility that would switch the Ctrl and Alt keys to toggle
modepress on, press off. It eventually became part of the operating system.  

Any application that doesn`t generally require you to enter data can also
have one-button commands. Browsers, except when you`re entering text into
form fields, are an obvious choice. Games are, too, but further examples are
hard to find. My favorite PIM, Info Select, uses some single-button commands,
and so does Opera. When you open additional browser windows in Opera, they
all live within Opera`s main screen. Instead of Alt-Tabbing among them, as
you would with IE or Netscape, you simply press 1,2,3, and so on to choose
the window you want. 

I value Opera`s simplicity, the leanness of its code, its thoughtful user
interface, and even the completeness of its default bookmark file. It`s worth
every penny of the regis- tration/purchase price. 

But even a perfect browser can`t overcome a badly designed site. Using some
of the resources above and a little common sense, you can ensure that the
sites you build are usable by everyone. Remember, one person in five has a
visual or physical impairment, and full enablement is a temporary condition. 


Bill Machrone is VP, Technology at Ziff Davis Media. You can reach him at
bill_machrone@ziffdavjs.com and get a thrice-weekly dose at
http://www.pcmag.com/machrone.

