According to inventor of the World Wide Web and Director of W3C Tim Berners-Lee, “The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.” Considering the unparalleled flexibility and virtually limitless possibilities of digital media and technology, there is no excuse for an internet that does not accommodate the full range of human diversity. Over 20% of the population has some kind of disability that might impact their ability to access the web through ‘conventional’ digital platforms. The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative defines disabilities that affect an individual’s ability to access to the web as including auditory, cognitive, neurological, physical, speech, and visual disabilities. It is impossible for those of us who do not have a disability to truly appreciate the barriers that users with disabilities are confronted by when using the internet. I believe that, as web developers, we have an ethical responsibility to identify and eliminate accessibility barriers in the software we write.
To understand how to code accessible websites, it is essential to learn about the techniques that users with disabilities already utilize to navigate the web. W3C divides these techniques into the categories of assistive technologies (software and hardware that is designed to facilitate interaction with the web) and adaptive strategies (ways in which users with disabilities utilize mainstream software and hardware to improve accessibility). Oftentimes, the success of assistive technologies and adaptive techniques is contingent on the cooperation of software developers in writing code that is compatible with those accessibility tools. For example, a screen reader is an assistive technology utilized by blind users and users with print-reading disabilities that processes content in a web browser and converts it to text-to-speech or Braille. For screen readers to work, it is essential that a language is specified in the html tags, that the semantic structure of a webpage is accurate and descriptive, and that the content makes sense presented linearly and in the absence of visual design clues. If a language is not specified, text-to-speech software might dictate the text in the wrong language or translate the text improperly. Any pictures used in a website (especially those essential to understanding the site’s content) should be given a descriptive alt tag so they can be interpreted by screen readers. The experience of navigating a website using a screen reader is similar to that of navigating through the menu of an automated telephone system, and we all know how frustrating that can be. Proper html semantics, labels on forms and descriptively named links are essential for users of screen-readers to navigate through a website.
An example of an adaptive technique utilized by people with disabilities for web browsing is keyboard navigation. According to a 2012 survey, 8.2% of Americans have difficulty lifting or grasping, limiting their ability to use a mouse. Most websites are designed with only mouse users in mind, resulting in an accessibility barrier for individuals with mobility disabilities. If a website is designed properly and with accessibility standards in mind, it should be easily navigated using only a keyboard. Individuals using a keyboard to navigate use the arrow keys to scroll up and down a webpage and tab and shift+tab to navigate back and forth between links. For the tab navigation to work properly, links should have some kind of highlight on focus effect turned on so that keyboard users can keep track of where they are on the site. Additionally, links in navigation bars should be ordered logically from left to right and then top to bottom so that the page has a natural flow for keyboard users.
Overall, it takes relatively little effort for web developers to make their sites accessible to all users. HTML was designed to be accessible, and using HTML properly means building accessible websites. Considering the increasingly central role the internet plays in our society, it is essential that we cooperate with existing accessibility standards and innovate new ways to make the web even more accessible. Making the web accessible to the full range of human diversity expands the possibilities of future innovation that will benefit us all.
Resources for Maximizing Accessibility
- Accessibility Developer Tools: A chrome browser extension that adds an accessibility checker to the audit section of chrome developer tools
- Web Developer: A chrome browser extension that has a validate accessibility feature
- ChromeVox: A screen reader browser extension for Chrome. Useful for understanding what it is like to navigate the web using a screen reader.
- Colorblind Webpage Filter: a web application that simulates how any website would appear to users with various forms of colorblindness
- Accessibility Color Wheel: a tool that helps choose a combination of background color and text color that is readable to colorblind users
- Microsoft’s Inclusive Tool Kit Manual: A pdf detailing inclusive design principles and strategies.
- W3C Web Accessibility Initiative Website: Strategies, guidelines, resources to make the Web accessible to people with disabilities.