Looking at Accessibility
Plone Conference, Budapest 2009 ©Totsie Marine
by Totsie Marine
Webonobo.com
Think about how your website would look to someone with low vision, for example. Does your site have obvious sections, delineated either by color or borders? Is the content divided into sections by header, subheading and body font sizes?
Depending on the degree of low vision the user has, their first step is typically to enlarge the browser font. In Firefox, this option is under the View tab. Try it and you'll see how enlarging the font can cause the lines to wrap, or throw images out of alignment. This can be disconcerting to the viewer as they struggle to make sense of your content.
The next tool a low vision or blind person will turn to is a screen reader. Screen readers are software programs that literally read the words on the page. This is where using alternate text for images is important so the listener can differentiate the body copy from the image caption. Screen readers can be programmed to speak in different voices, male and female, or with accents like Spanish, French or Italian.
Hearing impaired users benefit from captions on videos to help them get the whole message you are presenting. For those with motor impairments, there is voice recognition software and selection switches that take the place of the keyboard and mouse.
One of the reasons that Webonobo chose Plone for Content Management is because Plone carefully follows standards for usability and accessibility. Plone pages are compliant with US Section 508, and the W3C's AA rating for accessibility, in addition to using best-practice web standards like XHTML and CSS.
Additional information:
- US government Section 508 standards
- In 1999, the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), a project of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), published the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
- For government agencies, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which was revised in September 2010 by the Department of Justice, outlines the requirements for state and local website design standards.
- For those interested in promoting web accessibility within your company or organization, there is a W3C Web Accessibility Business Case Guide that covers the social, technical, financial, legal and policy factors.
