Disabling Web Barriers
By Michael Moeller
PC Week, May 11, 1998, page 25

Dynamic content, multimedia advancements could foil disabled users

Jamal Mazuri browses the web as many users do these days. He surfs online and
downloads pages to an off- line reader. But there's one important difference:
Mazuri is blind. 

A legislative analyst at the National Council on Disability, in Washington.
Mazuri can browse 80 percent of the Web using the Lynx text browser and
text-to- speech software to translate HTML code into usable information. 

But that access is being threatened as Web sites become more complex and as
the software for aiding disabled users loses ground to the advancements of
dynamic content and multimedia. The potential impact is major. not only on
disabled users, but also on the online merchants that depend on a constant
flow of new customers. "Accessing commercial sites is becoming harder, since
many of them arc using VBScript or JavaScript, which can’t be translated into
text," said Mazuri. "What scares me is VRML [Virtual Reality Modeling
Language]. If it takes off, there is no way that [visually impaired users]
will be able to access that information."  

He isn't alone. Experts say more than 90 percent of all Web sites have some
barriers to users with physical or cognitive disabilities. 

The World Wide Web Consortium, research institutes and software vendors are
jointly attacking the problem, recommending Web design practices that make
the most out of accessibility features that have been added to the latest Web
standards such as HTML 4.0 and Java. 

Design goals for building accessible Web sites and adding automated functions
to authoring tools and browsers are due to be published by the W3C’s Web
Accessibility Initiative International Program Office over the next few
months. 

Solutions being considered include using style sheets instead of customized
HTML tags; adding text behind image maps, scripts or applets: and providing
transcripts for audio or video content. 

Vendors are addressing the problems as well. Microsoft Corp. is preparing to
release a set of APIs that will add closed captioning to streaming media. Sun
Microsystems Inc. added accessibility features to the Java Foundation Classes
released earlier this year; they will be part of Java Development Kit 1.2
this summer. Netscape Communications Corp. is counting on its source code
developers to beef up disability support in its browser. 

Improving technology, however, is only the tip of the accessibility iceberg.
"Even if we throw all our technology at [accessibility], the biggest effort
needs to be educating developers," said Gregg Vanderheiden, director of the
Trace Research & Development Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a
leading center for technology access studies. 

Indeed, few sites are even aware a problem exists. To show just how
inaccessible a site can be. the Center for Applied Special Technology has
created a tool called Bobby, which is available at http://www.w3c.org and
http://www.cast.org. 

Other developers say they need standards for enabling access to disabled
users. 

"[Access] comes up in discussions, but we have a hard enough time just
working with the different browsers." said Mark Benerofe, vice president of
Sony Online Ventures, in New York. "It is nearly impossible for us to address
all the needs of the disabled."  

Commercial Web sites that don’t address those needs may find themselves in
legal trouble. In a 1996 opinion, the U.S. Department of Justice indicated
that Web sites run by government agencies or by companies that use the Web to
sell goods fall under the same access guidelines as other public
accommodations. 

"The way the [Americans with Disabilities Act] works is that its
applicability is tested when someone files suit," said Geoff Freed, director
for WebAccess, a nonprofit organization in Boston that is working to enable
closed captioning on the Web. "That is what’s going to have to happen here."  

To prevent accessibility from becoming a legal battleground, the W3C and
partners are pushing the new guidelines and will try to sell IT managers on
the crossover benefits of access technologies to workers in "hands-busy" or
"eyes-busy" environments such as shop floors or operating rooms. 

"This is about not only keeping the Web open for those with disabilities,"
said Judy Brewer, director of the accessibility project at the W3C, in
Cambridge, MA, "but for everyone as the Web evolves."  

Mazuri agrees that accessibility has a huge upside: "Even with accessibility
being an issue, the Web has been a great equalizer. I have access much
quicker to more information than ever before."