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stats

Retail sites fail accessibility test

An article from the BBC “Retail websites fail access test” discusses the lack on web accessibility in the largest retail web sites in the United Kingdom.

It was found that 30 of the UK’s most important retail web sites had significant accessibility issues. Here are some findings:

  • Only 3 terms and conditions pages achieved basic accessibility standards
  • 23 of the 30 web sites used search and navigational features that would not work without Javascript
  • 29 of the 30 web sites do not use shortcut links to enable people to navigate the page without using a mouse
Categories
gov guidelines

Guidelines Updated for Swedish Public Web Sites

The Swedish Administrative Development Agency has released an updated version of the guidelines for Swedish public sector web sites. The document is used by public organizations when procuring new web sites as well as by developers as an aid in the development process.

A summary of the guidelines in English is due in early 2007. In the meantime, check out these blogs for an overview:

Categories
conference webaim

Presentation on Standards-Driven Web Accessibility

Jared Smith from WebAIM recently spoke at the Refresh06 conference in Orlando, Florida. The slides for his presentation User-center, Standards-driven Web Accessibility are available in Acrobat and HTML formats. Thanks to Jared for providing.

Categories
conference event podcast usability

Podcast #35: Usability and Accessibility Conference

Ross and I attended the Fourth Annual Usability and Accessibility Event on World Usability Day, November 14, at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. This podcast covers the day’s events with our comments and conversations with various attendees. It’s a lot of fun!

Download Web Axe Episode 35 (Usability and Accessibility Conference)

Some folks I met represented the following organizations:

Categories
code color design layout navigation podcast text

Podcast #34: Design Considerations for Accessibility

Considerations for designing an accessible web site, including discussion on web site conventions, navigation, color, text, and layout.

Download Web Axe Episode 34 (Design Considerations for Accessibility)

[Transcript for Web Axe 34]

Stick to Conventions

  • Search upper right
  • Global navigation across top
  • Sub navigation on sides
  • Icons

Navigation Considerations

  • Skip navigation
  • Indicate visited pages, current page
  • Use breadcrumbs where possible

Color Considerations

  • Ensure enough color contrast
  • Light on dark, or dark on light?
  • If you change the color of an anchor state, change them all
  • Never use color to convey information

Layout Considerations

  • If you have a low vision/large text style sheet, convert layout to one column
  • Pay attention to if it is obvious you can scroll downward or not
  • If Article is broken up between several pages, provide a link to a single page with the whole article for easy printing
  • Try and design for 760px minimum width

Text Considerations

  • Sans-serif fonts are generally easier to read on a screen
    • Print serif fonts are, but light reflects off of paper where screen illuminates light
  • Text Sizing
    • Ensure font can be enlarged with out breaking the design
    • Headers should be larger than regular text (to indicate more importance)
    • Fonts should be decent size, not everyone knows how to resize text

Other Considerations

  • Limit the use of Flash
  • Print Style Sheets
  • Graphical buttons should be text with graphical backgrounds (for sizing without pixelation)
  • Include an access guide, or site help
  • No flickering
  • Audio–plan for text-only version and links
  • Video–plan for real-time captioning