Free tools to test your site for accessibility

Following on from my posting earlier in the month where a US court issued two landmark decisions that the Target Corporation has to make their website accessible to blind people, web accessibility is an area which many nonprofits and charities still find difficult to implement on their sites.
In this article I’m going to show a few of the free easy to use tools available which can help you with testing your website not only for accessibility but also usability and web standards too. Later in the article, I’ll list some other useful resources and services that are available to help charities and organisations.

Accessibility and usability are key to a successful site. You will want your site to be accessible to the widest possible audience regardless of ability or browsing technology, including those who have visual, hearing, motor and cognitive impairments. Conformance to the W3C guidelines helps to make the Web more accessible to users with disabilities and benefits all users. In short, it makes the web a better place for everyone.

If you are the person responsible in your organisation for creating or updating your website, there are some free easy to use tools to help you test and examine your site.

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Success with the law on accessible websites

A federal district court judge in California has issued two landmark decisions in a nationwide class action against the Target Corporation ruling that they must make their website accessible to the blind.
Read more about the case at Max Design.

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Let your readers be in control: Text resizing

Text resize buttons on a single website or enable your readers to take control and learn how to make all their internet viewing a better experience? Which would you prefer?

Later in this article, I’ll provide you with a helpful list of links to resources which can help you to understand more about accessibility.

As well as designing for the web, and supporting groups to make informed choices for their website ideas, I also help with accessibility audits too. Some people get ‘told and sold’ that their website is accessible because of a bit of code that shows buttons on their site to enable their viewers to resize their text on that site. In some cases, a few of these sites are highly in accessible in many other areas. I’m not totally against resize buttons, and have implemented it myself within reason on some sites where relevant and complimentary to compliant, accessible design. I also include helpful guides on how to resize text easily within your browser. I do feel though, that text resize buttons, don’t serve any real value and shouldn’t be needed. I also ensure that even without these controls, the site aims to be accessible from the users end, as best as possible, no matter what device, browser or platform they are using to access the information they are seeking.

Another common barrier to making a websites more usable for all can be the way that some accessibility statements on sites are written. They are conveyed in a manner which seem best read by other website developers, rather than for the understandable benefit to the end user who just wants to be able to access their site of choice without having to learn and understand a myriad of jargon about the way the site was designed.

One example of text resizing buttons acting in a complementing manner is on the Webcredible website. Not only do they have buttons, but also the site design is carefully constructed for maximum usability and accessibility, that’s what Webcredible do. Also they have a simple piece on their ‘about this site’ page which enables users to take control and learn how they can change their text viewing size for themselves. But sadly not all sites are that well designed.

One person that I know well, who has difficulties with many sites due to the font size, often finds that text resize buttons cause more of a barrier than a help. Especially when they are viewing sites with outgoing links. What use is making one site with text resizing facilities when that site then leads them to another website with a totally different ability to render text at an appropriate size?

So, shouldn’t we all be trying to help users to have a better experience by helping them to take control?
By improving your readers knowledge and understanding with help on suitable browsers (including Opera and Firefox) and showing them how to make their viewing easier, the internet can slowly but surely become a more inclusive place for all.

At Accessify, a website of tools and resources to help with accessibility for websites, Ian Lloyd has posted an article “Teach a Man to Fish (or How to Resize Text)”. It includes a visual guide video on text resizing. The video shows how you can take control by showing how easy this can be achieved in a variety of browsers. For those that cannot see the video there is a text transcript available too. The aim of the video and transcription is that it helps to provide a visual and audio way to complement “accessibility / how to use this site” statements on websites.

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Working towards a new world of Interoperability and Accessibility? It’s not here yet…

In the web design arena, there is currently a lot of discussion about how and where the ‘web’ is headed. With the concepts and available draft of of HTML 5, and the air of disappointment to many that it potentially is not necessarily going to enable better accessibility to all. On the other side of the equation, CSS (cascading style sheets - the supporting code that helps enables your site to look good and separates the style from the structure of the site) has reached 10 years of age already, and there is enthusiasm at how the next stages will enable more beautifying of the web.

On a positive note, I’ve discussed recently with fair few nonprofits who are becoming really aware about wanting their sites being operable on all platforms and browsers. It’s been a great experience sharing my knowledge and enthusiasm to enable them to explore and reach forward with ideas on making their site usable, approachable and accessible to a wider audience.
I’ve also experienced frustration that whilst many nonprofits are striving to move forward with usability and accessibility, many businesses are not taking this seriously and therefore losing their customers and potential sales. I’ve experienced this first hand this week whilst scouring various estate agent websites, not one would operate fully in anything other than Internet Explorer.

So for those interested to see where the web is headed, I’ve collated a few links to some articles which have given me some food for thought on accessibility, usability and also internet design for the future.

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31 Days to a Better Blog: The final days

Firstly before I begin my summary of the final tasks, I’d like to say a big thank you to Paul Webster from the ICT Hub, who boldly took on the final days of the challenge whilst I hopped on a train with the family, leaving all technology behind and unplugged for a much needed vacation in France. Paul on his Watford Gap blog (about ICT support in the regions here in the UK, with a bit of railway coffee for good measure!), did a fine job of tackling the final days really well and I no doubt will be a slave to any of his requests in the future as compensation.
A big thank you too to the 31 Days to a Better Blog community who not only welcomed Paul into it all at a late stage, but a personal big cheers to you all. With thanks to this challenge first instigated by Michele Martin of the Bamboo Project Blog, I have a new circle of global friends who through the project have introduced me to a wide range of ideas, concepts and inspiration too. Congratulations to the MiniLegends, the fabulous class of 9 year olds in Australia with the support of their fabulous teacher Al Upton who won the Chocolate Challenge.
Do take a look at the MiniLegends site, they’ve used VoiceThread recently which I mentioned to them a while back. These young people are just fabulous!!!

Anyway, August is now over, and officially so is the challenge. I had a good excuse to fall behind with my holidays, and a few of us are still plodding through the final tasks.
It hasn’t ended there though, nearly all of us and quite a few extra have joined in as a new community to learn and discover more in our journeys with blogging. You can read more about the ideas behind this in a recent post by Michele Martin, or head straight over and join in on the new Building a Better Better Blog community. Also, I’d highly recommend that you keep looking at the taskmaster of this challenge, Darren Rowse’s site at Problogger. The interest and learning that have been shared on his site are really useful too, with many of the readers and participants giving their tips and experiences.

I’ve not had too much time to do all of the final tasks in great detail but listed them here, and I hope that you, my readers have enjoyed my journey into building a better blog. I still have much work to do. This challenge has inspired me to really understand the role of my blog, and also of my main website, and redesigns and tweaking will be much of a feature in the coming months ahead to refine my sites usability and look more.

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Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design

Roger Johansson of 456 Berea Street reviews ‘Just Ask - Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design‘. The book will help you to integrate usability testing and accessibility into the design of your site. The book is available free online or can be ordered.

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Adding an Audio Feed

To help enable my blog to become more accessible to a wider audience, I’ve added an audio feed.
I’ll share with you how I’ve gone about it and why.

I’ve been looking into audio feeds and podcasting recently, trying to see how I can use them in my site. I discovered a nice free tool to enable easy feeds and podcasts which I’ve now implemented on my site.

I used the ReadSpeaker AudioFeed which is powered by Readspeaker.

It’s really easy to set up and all you need is a normal RSS feed to enable this to work.
ReadSpeaker AudioFeed uses the latest in automatic speech conversion to create the voice from the text. (hence why if you have a listen, it is not my voice!).

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Some useful links for usable websites, blogs and contented readers

Primarily as a freelance website designer, and becoming more immersed in the role of ‘blogs’, I’ve become more aware of some of the ease in which blogs provide an easier way for communication and can serve a real valid purpose compared to just having a static information site.
I’m receiving an increase in requests from organisations and groups, small and large who all want to blog as a way to tell their story or share their message on the internet. Communicating with users and supporters via the internet is fast becoming a mainstream activity for many organisations.

As mentioned in a previous post, with my frustration of testing a YouTube video on my site only to find that the code provided didn’t adhere to web standards; I was beginning to feel that at times, much of the changing ways in which we are communicating with the web was affecting usability and accessibility and the fact that it often compromised web standards.
So here are two really useful links where you can obtain a wealth of information to help.

The first is about tips for blogging with usability and accessibility in mind, and the second is about better writing through design, and how to create a voice for your text. Both links are really useful for all, whether you have a website or a blog, there are some great pointers to help your site and message work better.

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Getting YouTube code to validate (updated)

When I moved my blog over to Wordpress after blogging neatly and perfectly and in control with the most excellent Modx, I began to use many of the gizmo's and widgets which make my blog abit more 'Web 2.0'.

Usually when designing sites, I don't use other people's bits of code or plug-ins, as I am designing purely for the purpose of creating a custom site for a purpose for the client. But with Wordpress and enjoying the ease of blogging and playing, I've ventured into 'widget world' and 'embedding objects' too. So what is my problem with alot of it?

Validation - YouTube and many others bits of code meant my site failed validation of its mark up with the W3C Validator. But I did find an easy cure to remedy this nasty condition...

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Webcredible article on improving accessibility for motor impaired users

Webcredible’s latest article on improving accessibility for motor impaired users.

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