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The most common issue is the use of images in place of text. Designers like this feature so much that they not only to prefer images over text, but exclude text elements inherent to the HTML standard. This is one of the most frequent and obvious barriers to handicapped access. In fact, to the right (d) is Gary Bauer's home page before it has finished loading. Not only is it made up almost entirely of images, but the ALT text (see below) is entirely invisible because the background is blue and the text black.
For the visually impaired as well as for laptop users, background images and colors can make sites unpleasant or illegible. The use of background images contributes to an ancillary dilemma like that shown above--reverse text on a dark background image is also invisible if no background color is specified and the site visitor has turned off imaging.
Furthermore, expansion to scripts and applets has denied site usefulness to visitors whose Web access is not via the Big Two graphical browsers.
When visitors arrive at a site's home, it's usually by the domain name (such as http://www.forbes2000.com/). The home page is normally presented, but that's not always how it works. Where sites are built from databases, or where browsers and user addresses are scanned for information, that home may be just a launching point for a new page. The accessible way to do this is to let the server automatically redirect the browser to the correct location. The inaccessible way is to give the browser a 'refresh' command, which is not acceptable to all browsers. For example, here (d) is how the home page for Steve Forbes looks to Lynx:
That's it. The experienced user will launch the link to the homepage, and smart speech browsers like IBM Home Page Reader will refresh properly.
The other side of the refresh problem is the page that refreshes when it shouldn't -- such as Al Gore's home page. By re-launching every five minutes, it interrupts the page being read aloud.
Handicapped accessibility requires consideration and wisdom--even to realize the obvious. For example, the portion of Bill Bradley's site shown to the left (d) presents barriers.
In context, the link "more" is obvious. But speech browsers, such as IBM Home Page Reader, build a separate links list which may be browsed out of context; in such a list, the customer would encounter this meaningless link spoken aloud:
more
The savvy Web page manager can improve accessibility and clarify presentation with a complete and direct--and simpler--link like this one:
Read more about reforms important to Americans
Examples of very good links (and also very bad ones) are found on the Steve Forbes home page. In the image to the right (d), the links are presented as a full description of its contents. Just above, however, is an out-of-context link that reads only "full story", and below it is a link with neither context nor ALT text (see next category).
Each image can be accompanied by text alternatives, as can every page element that is not simple text.
For images, the options are ALT and more recently LONGDESC. The ALT 'attribute' (an attribute gives specific information about content) is a short line of text that is read aloud by 'screen scrapers' and speech browsers, shown during image loading, and presented as a pop-up under the mouse pointer. LONGDESC is a similar attribute, but offering more information than ALT.
For images with no important content (such as decorative elements, bullets, etc.), the ALT attribute can be empty. The empty attribute is important so that speech readers and text browsers do not attempt to read meaningless information.
Pat Buchanan's Web site, for example, suffers seriously from the missing ALT. Here's how the top of his main page appears to the Lynx browser (d), used by many speech readers; because of the absence of empty ALT attributes, all the image names would be read aloud:
An important access tool is the 'd' link. This link is the user's clue that descriptive, contextual information is provided when that link is accessed. The 'd' link can be used for full descriptions of the images on a page or its presentation and organization; a text alternative for multimedia elements (video and audio transcripts, for example); or a complete alternate version of the page with linear (rather than 'page') organization and text replacements of all elements.
Note that none of the candidates' Web sites had 'd' links.
Try out the 'd' links you find on this page; there's one in the next section.
What looks good on paper and on a 'designed' site may be at best a struggle and at worst disastrous for some users. Below is a portion of Pat Buchanan's main page (d) as viewed with a typical graphical browser.
To the left we have highlighted a portion of the links from Pat Buchanan's main page (d). This is the links list produced by the IBM Home Page Reader. The highlighted links have multiple problems:
website" [two blocks intrude between "party" and "website" on some browsers]
The highlighting was done for this report by OrbitAccess, not by Home Page Reader, which treats all links equally. In other words, to the visually impaired user, both useful and useless links are spoken with equal importance.
Sometimes even earnest attempts at access can be derailed. Al Gore's site, for example, automatically refreshes itself every five minutes to assure visitors of current information. Unfortunately, this refresh interrupts the page being read by Home Page Reader and launches the Gore page again. Rather than refresh the page, the site builders could have used the accessible method of keeping the page out of the browser cache, meaning it would be reloaded every time the browser returned to it.
Multimedia--animated graphics, audio and video--are increasingly popular on the Web as users have faster connections and can download or stream (play live) these huge digital files.
But multimedia has a down side, not only requiring installation and configuration of myriad players and plug-ins (RealAudio, MP3, AVI, QuickTime, etc.), but also leaving hearing- or visually-impaired users unable to experience them.
The lessons learned from television captions and second audio program (SAP) transmissions have not yet been adopted by most Web sites, including those of the presidential candidates. Al Gore, for example, goes a long way in providing various formats of multimedia presentations (including text), but does not take the logical next step of including superimposed captions or simultaneous text, or taking advantage of the Synchronous Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) options for synchronizing images, sound, and text.
Other issues can bar access to contemporary Web sites, but fortunately they are not severe in the seven candidates' sites.
Browser-specific markup. The use of browser-specific markup and content means some visitors will not be provided with full information. Only John McCain's site had no errors, meaning valid HTML was used throughout.
Frames. The breakdown of pages into separate windows known as frames makes navigation difficult for linear text readers. Where frames are used, full frame names offer a guide to decorative vs. informational frames. The most effective method, however, is to employ the User Agent information--that is, have the server determine which browser is being used, and provide Web pages that will be correctly presented.
Go to next section: Executive/Mobile Access
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