By Linda Roberts | Associate Fellow
Lisa Pappas | Fellow
This column shares information about accessibility requirements and techniques, and introduces standards and policies that might affect your products. If you have feedback, contact Linda Roberts at lerober1@yahoo.com.
In our last column, we discussed the myth that some people hold in which they believe that people with disabilities do not use their Web pages and software products, so they do not need to worry about making them accessible. As a companion piece to this article, we wanted to learn from business professionals with disabilities about their experiences with Web pages and computer products that they actually use.
Ed is a software engineer and technical manager at a computer software company. He has been legally blind from Retinitis Pigmentosa since age 20. His visual field is less than three degrees and his corrected acuity is 20/400. To complete his work, he uses commercially sold screen readers and magnification software. He also makes color/contrast/text-size adjustments.
When asked about his biggest complaints with Web pages and other computer software, he had a few gripes. First, he said that the "poor or no use of landmarks or HTML heading tags makes it very difficult to navigate a Web page using a screen reader." Another thing that makes it harder to understand information are "tables that are not coded correctly to support navigation with a screen reader." Along those same lines, "complex content in a document/documentation that does not expose semantically meaningful structures that allow efficient navigation using a screen reader" also make it more difficult to understand information.
He "would like technical communicators to understand that blind users access content using a bottom-up approach whereas sighted users access content using a top-down approach. In other words, blind users are not able to skim a page visually, which is why it is critical that the content support some type of structure that can be used for navigation, for example, landmarks, heading tags, and so on. If this structure is not available, then a blind user must work through the content linearly at the lowest level. That is very difficult and slow."
Dan is a senior IT manager at a computer software company. He has had a number of eye issues since childhood, including Retinopathy or Prematurity, numerous retinal detachments, blind in left eye, extremely high myopia and astigmatism, 40% visual field loss in right eye, and myopic macular degeneration. His vision is 20/100 corrected with glasses and distance vision is 20/40 with Ocutek telescopic system.
Dan uses the following technologies in his everyday work:
- ZoomText Reader.
- Amazon Kindle for reading. The e-ink technology coupled with the great font size and type selections allow him to read easily for a long period.
- Apple iPad allows for browser pages, PDF files, and email. He appreciates the high-quality voice diction that is available on the iPad.
- Dragon NaturallySpeaking.
His biggest complaint is with Web designers who are more concerned with controlling the way a page looks and not allowing for changes or honoring the default settings he has set.
Sina is a technology consultant, CTO of a nonprofit, PhD student, and co-founder of a Web design firm. He is legally blind with zero light perception in his right eye and some in his left. He has had limited vision since birth, but his vision got significantly worse at age seven due to physical trauma caused by a tennis ball.
In his daily work, he uses:
- iPhone 4S with VoiceOver
- JAWS and NVDA screen readers on Windows
- Orca screen reader in Linux Gnome
- SpeakUp screen reader for terminal windows
- A Braille display for output, sometimes
He finds that Web pages are often not accessible due to a lack of compliance with accepted standards. Because simple solutions do not exist, firms may not exert the extra effort to make their products accessible to a wider range of users.
When in need of product help, he rarely uses end-user documentation or online help, relying instead on Google, Twitter, and other social media such as Facebook and LinkedIn. In his experience, "third parties are virtually always better," especially for accessibility guidance.
He would like technical communicators to consider universal design. Sina says, "Their audience is not limited to whom they think it is, but rather consists of a varying population with varying functional needs and limitations." As the population ages, people acquire functional limitations; improvements for one user group may "have emergent benefits for all."
Bob analyzes epidemiological data for the federal government using SAS software. For nearly a decade, rheumatoid and osteoarthritis have inhibited his use of a keyboard and mouse. When his condition is less-well controlled, he relies on Dragon NaturallySpeaking to drive his computer through speech input. In addition to Dragon, he uses an extremely sensitive touchpad. Says Bob, "‘Clicking’ is now [my] hardest computer-related ‘act.’" As speech input has become more sophisticated, he not only types by voice but also moves the cursor and manipulates text with voice commands. He uses end-user documentation or online help almost daily.
Holly is an intern for a technical communication firm and works as a reference librarian for a virtual reference chat service called NCKnows. She has been legally blind since birth, with 20/200 vision (extreme nearsightedness) in her left eye and is completely blind in her right eye. In addition, she has profound hearing loss and wears a hearing aid in one ear and a cochlear implant in the other. Just implanted six months ago, Holly says her cochlear implant has "opened a whole new world of hearing for me, and I am able to participate in many situations that I haven’t been able to very well in the past such as movies, groups, lectures, etc."
To facilitate her computer use, Holly has a 22-inch monitor and she enlarges the font. To avoid eye and neck strain, she also uses the zoom setting on her iPad and holds the device close to her face. Her wish list to improve accessibility of Web pages and software includes:
- Built-in zoom capability. Without that, she must use third-party software, such as ZoomText, or the magnification feature in the operating system.
- Text wrap on websites. When text is enlarged, if it’s set to wrap, the text flows vertically rather than forcing her to scroll horizontally.
- Video captions or transcripts. Text equivalents for videos would help Holly because of her hearing loss and also others who cannot listen to audio, such as being in an airport or other noisy setting.
As she’s currently learning DITA, Holly uses Oxygen’s online help once or twice a week and finds it easy to navigate and enlarge. However, search can be difficult.
To advise fellow technical communicators on accessibility, Holly says they need to understand that not everyone has technical knowledge and not everyone can access information in the same fashion. She believes it is important to offer alternative formats when possible.
Accessibility, rather than being a late-stage consideration of information development, instead is an essential of core technical communication skills: audience analysis (who is using my information products to do what?), human factors considerations (how do environmental factors influence my design and the user experience), and flexibility (single-sourcing, liquid design). By widening our concept of our audience, we can increase the usage, relevance, and customer satisfaction of the products we produce.
