Web Access for All
From: E-Week - May 19, 2003
By: Debra Donston 

The economy, war, the economy, security patches, the economy, natural and
unnatural disasters, the economy, SARS - there are dozens of reasons why Web
accessibility may not be high on organizations' priority lists right now (did
we mention the economy?), but the issue should at least be on IT managers'
radar.  

Analysts estimate that 10 percent of the population has some kind of physical
challenge, and that percentage is expected to increase in the next 10 years
as the population ages. 

At issue most often with Web accessibility is vision impairment. Software
applications such as Freedom Scientific's Jaws use speech synthesis and PC
sound cards to "read" site content to users. The software is no James Earl
Jones, but it allows blind and other sight-impaired users access to content
that would otherwise be unavailable to them. 

Problems arise when, for example, graphics and images don't have associated
alternative text, or colors are used to convey meaning. People with hearing,
mobility and cognitive challenges may also require that Web content be coded
to meet their needs-for example, associating a text transcript with audio
files for hearing-impaired users. 

While precedent-legal or otherwise-may be needed to spur some companies
along, many organizations are federally mandated to make their Web sites
accessible to all constituents. 

In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act with Section 508, which
requires federal agencies to make their electronic information accessible to
people with disabilities-and to make that access comparable to the access
available to others. In addition to federal agencies, any organization that
contracts with the government must adhere to Section 508 guidelines or risk
losing the government's business. 

The deadline for bringing sites into compliance with Section 508 was June
2001, but many organizations are still struggling to interpret, let alone
adhere to, Section 508 guidelines. 

An eWEEK Corporate Partner who asked not to be identified said the real
challenge for his organization, which must comply with Section 508, surrounds
the interpretation of the 508 requirements. 

"If you look at the [commercial off-the-shelf] packages designed to 'check'
or 'evaluate' a site, they tend to lack consistency across the spectrum of
requirements," the Corporate Partner said. "I had a person full time for six
months just learning the requirements, then individually working with every
stakeholder to make it happen."  

A number of applications are available for assessing Web sites'
accessibility. Most check against Section 508 and/or the World Wide Web
Consortium's WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) guidelines (www.w3.org/wai).
The tools range in cost from free to tens of thousands of dollars, with
capabilities ranging just as widely. (See eWEEK Labs' review of Watchfire
Corp.'s AccessibilityXM and the Labs' guide to other accessibility resources.)  

The total cost of making a site adhere to 508/WAI guidelines is estimated at
between $180,000 and $200,000, including testing and continuous monitoring,
according to Meta Group Inc. research, while the cost of making accessibility
part of a Web site design process will be about $45,000 to $50,000. 

The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases Web
site was redesigned in 2001 with Section 508 in mind. 

eWEEK Corporate Partner Robert Rosen, CIO at the institute, in Bethesda, Md.,
said this helped to rein in costs. "It was part of our Web site redesign, so
we didn't break it out separately," said Rosen. "Since we designed with that
in mind, the incremental cost wasn't great."  

Sutter Health has also addressed accessibility concerns during its site
redesign process. 

As a health network comprising many affiliates, the Sutter Health corporate
Web team is responsible for the look and feel of about 30 sites. Sutter
Health has not yet adopted any formal accessibility rules, but it has made
some significant changes in its most recent redesign. 

"We added an 'enlarge the text' feature on our sites, so someone with a
problem reading our standard font size can enlarge it, in increments; this
item is available on every subpage of our sites," said Judy Stokes, Sutter
Health Web site manager, in Sacramento, Calif. "We also made 'alt text' a
requirement for all our images, so those who view a site without graphics
will have explanatory text for the images."  

A problem many organizations are facing is that Section 508 is just one of
many requirements they must comply with-"compliance mania," as Meta analyst
Jennifer Vollmer puts it. 

"Companies are stretched to capacity because they have to deal with [the
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act], the Patriot Act, the
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act," said Vollmer, in Stamford, Conn. 

"Companies are being forced to prioritize compliance, and my gut instinct is
that accessibility isn't at the top of the list," she said. 

That may change even for companies that don't have to comply with Section
508, as lawsuits are starting to pile up against organizations whose Web
sites are deemed difficult to access by people with disabilities. 

Last summer, for example, advocacy group Access Now Inc. and a blind
individual filed a lawsuit against Southwest Airlines Co. The suit contended
that the airline had violated the Americans with Disabilities Act because its
Web site was difficult to access by the blind. 

Although U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz ruled in the airline's favor in
October, she voiced surprise that a company as large as Southwest was not
making things as easy as possible for all customers and potential customers. 

At about the same time, a federal judge ruled that MARTA, or the Metropolitan
Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, actually had violated the ADA by
constructing a Web site that was inaccessible to the sight-impaired.
Plaintiffs in the case had complained about problems accessing schedule and
route information. 

The ADA does imply all domains, including the Internet, said Vollmer, but the
act can be difficult to interpret. What it's really going to take to spur
companies to action, she said, is that one big lawsuit. 

To avoid being a defendant in that one big lawsuit, companies should gauge
their liability and responsibility and weigh the time spent to retrofit
existing content and create accessible new content against the benefits of
increased customer affinity and, yes, sales. 

And that goes for external and internal customers (can all employees easily
access all the information on your human resources intranet?), as well as for
customers "challenged" through their use of mobile devices. 

A PDA user, for example, will be just as stuck for information when a Flash
application provides no alternative text as the sight-impaired person using a
reader application. 

Vollmer recommends that companies assign someone to be the equivalent of a
chief accessibility officer and concentrate on new content rather than
working to retrofit old content. 

"Someone in the organization should take charge of accessibility and what the
company's doing about it and then work with IT, HR and legal to form an
accessibility board to come up with a strategy to move the company forward,"
Vollmer said. "You're not going to get into trouble so much for old content,
but make sure that as you progress, you follow guidelines and test with
people with disabilities."  

Bottom line: More and more people are doing business over the Web. Companies
that want to make it as easy as possible for their internal and external
customers to use the corporate Web site to research, buy and sell are
building virtual access ramps to their sites as part of the Web development
and upgrade cycle. 

Companies that ignore the issue are ignoring potential customers and existing
customer concerns and may be courting problems. 

"Access has gotten sidelined," said Meta's Vollmer. "I guess we know the
reasons why, but that doesn't mean that it should be so. The problem of
accessing Web sites isn't going away." 

Executive Editor Debra Donston can be reached at debra_donston@ziffdavis.com. 


Web Accessibility Resources
    Web Accessibility in Mind's introduction to Web accessibility
    WAVE 3.0 accessibility tool
    World Wide Web Consortium Web Accessibility Initiative
    U.S. Government's Section 508 site
    HTML Writers Guild Web accessibility standards
    10-step guide to Web accessibility
    AskAlice: SSB Technologies Inc.'s Web accessibility audit tool
    Accessibility self-assessment and tutorial
    Microsoft Corp.'s accessibility site
    Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Accessibility Program
    Apple Computer Inc.'s People with Special Needs site
    Web page filter for the color blind, a work in progress

W3C Tips for making Web sites accessible
    Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content
    Don't rely on color alone
    Use markup and style sheets, and do so properly
    Clarify natural language usage
    Create tables that transform gracefully
    Ensure user control of time-sensitive content changes
    Ensure direct accessibility of embedded user interfaces
    Design for device dependence
    Provide context and orientation information
    Provide clear navigation mechanisms
    Ensure that documents are clear and simple

For the complete list of guidelines, and detailed advice on how to meet them,
go to www.w3.org/tr/wai-webcontent. 

Business Drivers for Accessibility
    Regulatory (high priority)
    Risk management (medium priority)
    Improved relationships (medium to high priority)
    Increased transactional commerce (medium to low priority)
    "Feel good" marketing (low priority)

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1090387,00.asp

Contributed by Marsha Allen