CIS In designing and programming software, it is important to consider who the e

ID: 3588342 • Letter: C

Question

CIS

In designing and programming software, it is important to consider who the end user will be and what, if any, assistance would be needed in order to use the application. Web designers and programmers will often take steps to allow visually impaired users to access websites more easily. Similarly, teachers will use accessibility tools or assistive technology to help make materials accessible to all in the classroom.

Websites like adobe.com/accessibility and others provide information on accessibility, assistive technologies, and legal compliance:

www.adobe.com/accessibility (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

In a discussion post:

1. Write at least 4 sentences explaining why maximizing accessibility is important to everyone?

2. Using the Internet, search for an accessibility tool or assistive technology that is available. Then complete the following:

Identify the accessibility tool or assistive technology that you chose.

Give the website address where found.

Describe it and list the benefits from it being used in at least 4- 5 sentences.

Explanation / Answer

Web Accessibility

The Web is essentially designed to work for all people, whatever their hardware, software, language, culture, location, or physical or mental ability. When the Web encounters this goal, it is accessible to people with a various range of hearing, movement, sight, and cognitive ability.

Thus the impact of disability is fundamentally changed on the Web because the Web removes barriers to communication and interaction that many people face in the physical world. However, when websites, web technologies, or web tools are badly designed, they can create barriers that exclude people from using the Web.

Why: The Sample for Web Accessibility

It is vital that the Web be accessible in order to provide equal access and equal opportunity to people with diverse abilities. Certainly, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognizes access to information and communications technologies, including the Web, as a basic human right.

Accessibility supports social inclusion for people with disabilities as well as others, such as older people, people in rural areas, and people in developing countries.

There is also a strong business Sample for accessibility. Accessibility overlaps with other best practices such as mobile web design, device independence, multi-modal interaction, usability, design for older users, and search engine optimization (SEO). Case studies show that accessible websites have better search results, reduced maintenance costs, and increased audience reach, among other benefits. Developing a Web Accessibility Business Sample for Your Organization details the social, technical, financial, and legal benefits of web accessibility.

What is accessibility?

Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web said that about accessibility is "The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone, regardless of disability, is an essential aspect."

In detail Accessibility, in the context of the World Wide Web, means maximizing the ability of all users to access information, services, and resources. A successful website adapts to the needs and preferences of its audiences, customizing content to fit the users expressed wishes within the constraints of available hardware, software, and bandwidth. Today, the Web is not only making previously difficult activities easier for many people, (reading the news; shopping; taking classes); it is also rapidly becoming essential for many tasks in the workplace and the home. Making the web accessible to everyone, including persons with disabilities, has reached a new level of importance.

Accessibility benefits everyone

People often talk of accessibility as if it meant only “designing for users with disabilities”. In truth, accessibility is relevant for everyone. Just as everyone’s experience is improved by multimedia content, since it’s easier to synopsis and remember, everyone can use from multimodal1 interfaces, since they’re easier to use. And for persons using an alternative browser (such as a mobile phone or voice interface) or facing situational constraints accessible design can become essential at any time. Consider the following table:

Table: Equality of some functional Constraints and situational constraints

Functional Constraint

Situational Constraint

Possible Accommodation

Blindness, Little visualization

Poor lighting, small display

Large, resizable text

Inflexible of hearing

Loud Environment

Captioning, text equivalents

Mobility Limitation

No mouse available

Keyboard compatibility

Universal Design

Every web user has a unique

The Web is an opportunity for unprecedented access to information for people with disabilities. Many accessibility barriers to print, audio, and visual media can be much more easily overcome through web technologies. For example, when the primary way to get certain information was go to a library and read it on paper, there were significant barriers for many people with disabilities, such as getting to the library, physically getting the resource, and reading the resource. When that same information is also available on the Web in an accessible format, it is significantly easier for many people to get. In some cases, the Web allows people with disabilities to do things that were nearly impossible without it.

set of skills and preferences. Functional ability is just one factor among many. (Illustration: NCAM Universal Design logo) Everyone has different skills Every user comes to the web with a unique set of skills and preferences. While many users may turn off graphics to speed up their slower-bandwidth connections, foreign-language speakers may rely heavily on graphics and icons to understand page content. Advanced users may want access to a gathering of options that can enhance their experience, but would complicate a beginner. Some users may be colorblind; others may simply be using a black-and-white screen. One simply cannot predict what hardware, software, and skill sets a user will bring to the web.

Providing authority and choice to users

The solution to this problem is to give the power of choice to users. Browsers attempt to give the user control over window size, image loading, and scripting, but sometimes designers remove these choices to convey a recommended experience. Beyond this, a user’s web browser may, permitting to his or her needs, transform pages into an audio stream, a different language, or high-contrast colors. It’s important to know the methods by which alternative browsers deliver content to users – and techniques to enhance those methods.

Always make content available in flexible ways; avoid overly prescribing the “look and feel” of a site to the user. Instead, rely on marking up content and trusting the browser to do its job. It’s not necessary to have a database driven site to do this; properly marked-up HTML is meant to render in different ways, as with a heading element that both looks bigger on a screen and sounds louder on an audio browser.

Involving universal design

Disabilities Affecting Web Access

Benefits of accessibility techniques

Search engines depend on text, headings, and metadata to understand pages. Providing alternatives to graphical or script-generated text (which may not be indexed) can move pages higher in rankings. Also, many services today (such as Google or BabelFish) provide free, automatic language translation, making pages with text equivalents accessible to foreign-language speakers.

Example: Designing Effective ALT Text:

Today’s screen-reader technology cannot interpret the content of images unless the page’s author has provided alternate, or “ALT”, text. In that case, screen readers substitute the ALT text for the content of the image. Taking a short time to design appropriate ALT text increases accessibility tremendously for visually or cognitively impaired users using screen readers. ALT text should be written as a sentence or phrase with punctuation at the end; the length and detail level of the description depends upon the intended audience and purpose of the image.

i.e. If an image is chart or illustration then its ALT text should be “Summarize and explain (or) If an image is a Photograph or work of art then its ALT text should be Describe the image’s content etc.

Accessibility Tools