Developer’s Perspective

Work together to help society move forward and create a better civilization.

Author: Mohamed Matboully

Introduction
Background
Proposed Solution
Recommendations
References

Introduction

In this case study, we wanted to observe the day to day challenges a professional user interface designer faces. For instance, the problems faced by a web developer while designing web pages for different audience types or end-user groups and possible solutions promoting E-accessibility in future.

E-accessibility more than just a buzz word

The aim is to design for the extremes so that everyone benefits. We have a variety of technologies that can help overcome learning disabilities. When we are thinking about extreme disability such as someone who has been blind since birth or totally deaf, however, the majority of disabilities are subtle and hence of a more temporary nature.

Based on our interview with the expert web developer David Berman on October 22, 2017, whose day to day activities involve observing people using mobile apps and websites.

The common issues that surfaced regarding accessibility identified the gaps that needed to be filled to improve the accessibility in the design of these applications. Therefore, he spends considerable time coaching web and mobile developers and UX designers how to fill those gaps through development techniques.

Berman notes that the guidelines are ambiguous. Usually, the guidelines are straightforward, but some of them are poorly articulated and confusing. Also, some of the guidelines are subjective, especially when an organization is trying to add accessibility to a product. To be able to declare it an accessible a product it should have a certain level of accessibility. It is frustrating for the organization because it cannot measure if these guidelines have been met or not. How would they know if this is enough or not and this is another barrier (personal communication, October 22, 2017).

Background

The use of information and communication technology (ICT) such as the World Wide Web (WWW) has become embedded in everyday life and is progressively becoming indispensable for public and private sector organizations (Bakhsh & Mehmood, 2012). According to Kuzma (2016), a majority of global e-government websites are not meeting Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

Infographic on what is Web Accessibility? and designing for accessibility[1]

Indeed, Web accessibility guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 provide a shared standard for web content accessibility that meets the needs of individuals organizations and governments. Web content accessibility guidelines are intended to be used by web content developers. With authoring tool developers, web accessibility tool developers and anyone who needs a standard for web accessibility guidelines have 12 guidelines that are organized into four principles:

The four principles of WCAG 2.0; Perceivable, Robust, Operable and Understandable [2].

Perceivable; This means that the interface components must be presented in a way that users can perceive them. For example, this includes alternative text, alternatives for time-based media, such as captions, adaptable content, and distinguished content as well as using color contrast.
Operable; This is referring to the components of the interface, for example, the navigation should be accessible by using a keyboard. The keyboard trap provides users enough time to read and use the content.
Understandable; This means the operation of the interface must be understandable.
Robust; This means content must be robust enough that it can be reliable for users using assistive technologies.

For each guideline, there are testable success criteria, which are categorized according to three levels providing successively greater degrees of accessibility:

Level A (minimum) – the most basic web accessibility features. Level AA (mid-range) – deals with the biggest and most common barriers for disabled users. Level AAA (highest) – the highest level of web accessibility.

For more information regarding WCAG; https://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag.php

Furthermore, Berman (2014) emphasized that there are five reasons we should care about accessibility matters to ensure that we do not leave anyone in society behind:

The population of people with disabilities has increased based on United Nations (UN) estimates and is around 10 percent of the world’s population (Kuzma, 2016). Moreover, 1 in 7 Canadians lives with a disability (Berman, 2014). In this decade most of humanity will be online, and if the websites are accessible, this means we leave no one behind.
Search engines are the sources of most online searchers and are platforms for e-commerce activity, as they are employed by people looking to buy a product. Even Search Engine Optimization (SEO) now ranks web content that is more accessible higher than content that is less accessible.
Human Resources are the most valuable asset for any given organization. However, an organization’s human resources pool may include both regular and disabled employees, that are equally competitive or talented. However, for the disabled population to be equally productive as the regular employees, their job performing tools (e., desktop applications, websites and mobile apps) need to incorporate accessibility guidelines in their design.
The social responsibility; It is our collective responsibility as a civilized society to accommodate those who may be naturally at a disadvantage, to create a more tolerant and inclusive society, which offers equal opportunity for all. Therefore, both organizations and individual web developers and designers are socially responsible for giving special consideration to accessibility when designing web pages.
Regulatory authorities around the world are passing laws and regulations designed to ensure that web content maintains a minimum level of standards, as per the web accessibility guidelines. Also, in Canada, not just, the government but any public and private sector organizations with more than 50 employees are required by law to have an accessible website or one that at least meets the minimum level of accessibility.

The key consideration in creating an accessible website is that it is going to work with the current as well as future technologies, not yet invented. Such websites should be both backward and forwards compatible, i.e., integrate older accessible web-pages and should be flexible to allow any new accessibility guidelines to be incorporated into the overall design. New assistive technologies should be designed in such a way that they are able to comply with the same standards.

Thus, we cannot anticipate what’s coming next, but we know that if we follow these standards, our sites will already be compliant with browsers and technologies that haven’t even yet been invented (personal communication, October 22, 2017).

Proposed Solution

Living in a digital age means that everything is digitized now. It means that things, ideas, and innovations that couldn’t be perceived before can now be perceived by everyone (Berman, 2014). In the digital world, the most important set of accessibility guidelines are the WCAG 2.0 (the current version, soon to be succeeded by version 2.1) published by W3C. Berman used it most of the time in the e-accessibility world; The second is the ISO standards for accessible PDF files.

Berman is serving on the committee that is working to improve the Ontario Legislation. They are working on what is the next step to improve the Ontario regulations regarding web accessibility; he mentioned that he would like to share that however, he cannot, but efforts are going on to encourage harmonization with the federal regulations that are being developed (personal communication, October 22, 2017).

In General, the first step to improve the application of these guidelines is to make them clear and to interpret them in a way that is more clear as well as creating the next process of techniques to make it easier for people to comply with.

Some organizations are resistant because it will cost them a lot of money or time, nonetheless, if they do it well, it can reduce the cost. They can open up to market and reach more people. For instance, every time someone calls the tax department at Canada revenue agency with a question such as (how I do fill in this form?) it costs about $26 but someone can find the answers for themselves online, it will only cost about 6 cents.

Therefore, when we have an accessible website, more people are going to find their own answers, rather than hiring someone to answer over the phone which will cost more. Millions of dollars will have been saved by making the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) website more clear and more accessible.

Recommendations

In lieu of the above discussion, the change over the last ten years has been dramatic, and they are not doing this only for social reasons, but also for commercial reasons. To develop websites according to the web accessibility standards requires expertise in the field of information technology and computer science.

In the future new projects and developments may be made according to that new policy as accessibility at development level is easy to implement and less costly as compared to after the completion of the project. The awareness is probably the most important aspect of that shift toward web accessibility. In the future Berman states that we would like:

Future generations to enjoy a more accessible world.
Accessibility or Inclusive Design to be applied to every project.

Redesign the bigger picture without “no access” sign[4]

Therefore, we would like to redesign the bigger picture without “no access” sign. We have to collaborate more to help society move forward and create, to design a better civilization (personal communication, October 22, 2017).

References

[David Berman]. (2014, May 13). Web Accessibility Matters: Why Should We Care [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuGl4bnBlw0&index=1&list=PL6J3hNm0 YtpMObf2K97GgRonG8NUiolwb

Bakhsh, M., & Mehmood, A. (2012). Web accessibility for disabled: A case study of government websites in Pakistan. Paper presented at IEEE (342-347). doi:10.1109/FIT.2012.68.

https://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag.php

Kuzma, Joanne. (2016). Global E-government Web Accessibility: A Case Study Global E-government Web Accessibility: A Case Study.