Free on-line tools
A warm welcome to you. Before we go into the
whole aspect of accessibility let me tell you a little bit about this site. As you have probably
worked out, Hermish checks your web pages for accessibility issues. It also checks for superceded HTML content
as well. If this is not enough Hermish has just released a new ‘page display’ checking tool. We
wanted to call it a ‘browser simulator’ but that might get us into trouble. The page display tool allows
you to remove stuff like style sheets and tables from your pages so that you can see what it might
look like on other browsers. You can use the ‘Browser compatibility’ checking tool to find discover
browser limitations.
Please also note that Hermish is under constant development, since it’s release
at the start of May ’04 we have rooted out most of the major flaws. We would
like to all the people who have helped us for their valued support and insight
into accessibility.
Hermish is a free web accessibility tool designed to help you bring your
web site up to required standards outlined by The World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C). For an in-depth discussion of accessibility issues visit http://www.w3c.org/WAI/.
Web accessibility guidelines in compliance to the Web Accessibility Initiative
(WAI), a set of guidelines with different priority levels. The European
Union suggests that websites have at least Priority level 1 accessibility.
The United States have their own set of accessibility guidelines named Section
508, Hermish can check your document for Section 508 accessibility as well.
Who is affected by accessibility?
There are many groups of people with disabilities, most will be affected
by websites without accessibility in place.
How web accessibility techniques help disabled people access the internet
Blind people and accessibility
IBM Homepage Reader is excellent for accessibility and a good example of
an assistive technology for blind people. Known as a screen reader, this
type of browser filters web pages for text and reads content accordingly
thus increasing accessibility. Instead of showing images (photographs and
graphics) screen readers rely on text equivalents such as the alt element
within the img tag.
Visual difficulties and accessibility
People with accessibility difficulties reading standard sized text rely
on the facility to enlarge text. This of course increases accessibility
for people who may not always have their glasses with them.
Deaf people and accessibility
Although deaf people have less accessibility requirements and able to navigate
web pages visually, audio dependant sites prove to be not accessible. Should
your website use sound to function consider providing text equivalent pages
to increase website accessibility.
Disabled and accessibility
Some sections of the community may have great difficulty with accessibility
when using pointing devices such as a mouse. In this instance a web page
should increase accessibility by providing the capability for using a keyboard
to navigate.
Colour blindness and accessibility
Another accessibility issue is the inability to distinguish between specific
colours. Therefore you may wish to rethink accessibility when deciding on
what colours to use on a web page. One particular method to uphold visibility
is to maintain a distinctive contrast of background and foreground colours.
Black text and white background is far more visible than yellow text and
orange background.
Before a web site can be deemed as accessible it must comply to guidelines
under Priority 1 Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). The site should comply
to Priority 2 but as of yet is not paramount. Passing both levels 1 and
2 it could be made to comply with Priority 3. The greater the Priority
levels the greater the accessibility.
Priority levels
Each priority level has a number of checkpoints that must be covered.
Hermish automatically checks these for you.
Priority 1 accessibility
The web developer must comply to all checkpoints under priority 1. By
establishing Priority 1 you allow for minimal accessibility to a web page.
Therefore web page not complying priority level 1 would be impossible for
certain groups to access. Nevertheless Priority 1 is still restrictive and
should be considered as a starting point for moving onto Priority 2.
Priority 2 accessibility
The web developer should comply to all checkpoints under priority 2. By
establishing Priority 1 and 2 you allow for a much greater level of access
thus increasing audience levels. One benefactor is increased accessibility
produces greater levels of information that search engines rely on for ranking.
It is understood that search engine optimisation is improved when accessibility
is increased.
Priority 3 accessibility
The web developer could comply to all checkpoints under priority 3. By establishing
Priority 1, 2 and 3 you ensure that every measure of accessibility has been
met to the highest standard possible. Obviously, as technology progresses
so will the definition of Priority guidelines. The advantages of complying
to all Priorities means that your web pages will reach a larger audience
ensure a greater level of credibility.