accessibility

This 6-year old article examines the problem of web designers taking too much for granted. Unfortunately, much of it still holds true. [First published November 2001. I have included some updates.]

Web designers have been involved with the Internet for a long time, at least in Internet years. We begin to take the users for granted and expect them to know all the tricks of surfing Web pages.

I work with many 40+ year olds who have just bought their first computer. These people own businesses, make decisions, and have some money to spend. Among other things I teach them how to use the Web. They all want to do this very early on. I think there are large numbers of people in this category. They give me fresh insights every day into how confusing the Web is — stuff we take for granted is actually very obscure and confusing for beginners.

My client, a 55-year-old retired interior designer looked at me and said: “What do I do now?” She had just finished entering information into an online form and the “Submit” button was staring her in the face. The problem was, that “Submit” had no meaning for her.

I work with a lot of people in their 40s and 50s (and above). I train them to use their computers. For many it’s their first ever experience with a computer. They bring it home from the shop, plug it in and go on to the Web.

New Users already “know” a lot

These users know a lot about a vast range of real-world subjects. They have owned and operated businesses and companies or government departments — many still do. They have money to spend and they make decisions. They have often had secretaries in the past to deal with the computer. Now, however, they are on their own.

They have heard lots of stories about the Web. They “know” that viruses and pornography are on the Internet. They “know” that the Internet equals the Web. They know that you can go shopping online and they know that credit card numbers can be stolen.

New Users are scared

Those new to the Web and to computers are scared: Scared of viruses. Scared of pressing the wrong thing. Scared that pornography will “happen” on their machine. Scared that their credit card will suddenly show charges because they’ve accidentally bought something.

When people are new to something common sense often flies out the window — the brain is fully occupied processing the new information. And when they are new to these magical and powerful devices called computers they will happily suspend all disbelief. Of course charges can appear by magic on your credit card just because you looked at a Web page, just because you viewed an item at a shopping site.

New users don’t yet know how it all works. They are mystified that there is a difference between an ISP and Yahoo. They don’t know how information is passed around or how the money works or who charges them for what they are doing or how.

Computers are a whole new world

They don’t know the ways or the terminology of computers or the Internet.

My client, who would have known to post or fax a form or hand it in at a counter in real life had no idea that the word “Submit” was a button, that you need to click on a button and absolutely no idea that the word “Submit” actually meant “Send Information”. When I pointed it out she said, “Well, I wouldn’t have guessed that!”

[Update February 2008: this sounds incredible, and you may want to suggest my client was just 'dumb', but she wasn't dumb, and this is a true story. Rather than 'blame and shame' I'd hope we can learn from it.]

We need to avoid these terms from the “inner circle” if we want our pages to succeed with all users. Instead of “Submit” we could use “Send Information” or “Send Details”.

“Download” doesn’t mean much if you’re new to computers. How about a friendly, short note somewhere obvious that says something like: if you want this software or document on your own computer you’ll need to click on the download button?

We need to explain a whole lot more and take a lot less for granted.

We expect too much

As Web designers we expend a lot of energy on making our Websites user-friendly, but we can’t help but take too much for granted — we are just too familiar with Websites.

We’re also too familiar with computers. We assume that users can tell that a window exists and so we cheerfully open a pop-up window and even provide a “close” button. I watch my new-user clients get totally bewildered when we encounter one of these pop-ups.

Even worse is when we use a model from one kind of operating system — such as providing an “x” in the top right corner to close a window. I know that it means nothing to Mac users in general, and it definitely doesn’t convey anything to my new-user clients.

“Close this window” would help more than just the word “close” and it would help a great deal more than an icon, wherever it’s placed.

Symbols don’t always mean anything

One client of mine runs her own art gallery and has had her computer just a few weeks. She was interested in watching videos of recent news stories and had found a page from a leading news source offering video clips. When she clicked on one video link a window appeared, something downloaded and then nothing happened.

Well, actually, I’m not sure what she clicked on. The rather subtle icons of a speaker and a film camera (clear to me and absolutely meaningless to her) didn’t tell her whether she was clicking on video or audio. In any case, both required Real Player, which she didn’t have on her machine.

The news Website can’t expect everyone to understand that a speaker icon (if people can even recognise it) “means” sound and that a camera icon “means” video. Sure it conveys those messages to those of us steeped in the idiom, but to the millions of people every year who are buying their first ever computer it doesn’t (yet) mean anything.

How about some sub-headings with the words Video and Audio, to go along with the icons? The actual links to video or audio could then be grouped under the appropriate heading.

Tell people what to expect

I explained to my client the need for additional free software and pointed her to Real.com where I guided her through the maze to the free player download area. On the way we dealt with several extremely confusing (to her) pop-up windows. After she filled in a form I was finally able to see that it was a 6Mb file and I suggested she stop there. That was going to be a half-hour or more download.

If I hadn’t been there and if, by some miracle, she’d managed to navigate the Website and fill in the form, she wouldn’t have known that a 6Mb download was about to happen or that it would take half an hour or more on her dial-up connection. And even then I can’t imagine she would have known how to install the software.

[Update February 2008: this same client, amazingly enough, still has the same computer and the same dial-up connection, in spite of much encouragement to 'keep up with the times'. There are many reasons why no change has taken place.]

If we’re offering downloads, or time-consuming content we need to let our users know what they’re in for. Give a file size and a download time estimate up-front before the users get tangled up in filling forms and the like.

Be outward looking

OK, I confess, I live in New Zealand … it’s a bit to the right of Australia and somewhat higher up than Antarctica. Our entire population is a shade short of 4 million. [February 2008: now 4.25 million.] We’re a highly Internet literate population though — nearly 2 million of us use the Internet [2008: more than 3 million].

And, in common with many others around the world, we write our dates in the day / month / year format. As a country we’re way too small to have States (even if our po
litical system worked like that) and I believe we do actually have postcodes but I only know of about 3 people who have any idea what their postcode is.

My new users get stumped by forms which require a state or a zip code. That’s one sale lost in the battle to sell goods online. Some of us are knowledgeable enough to subvert the form — 90210 is a handy zip code.

And if you write a date as 9/11/01 it can be really hard to tell if that’s 11 September or 9 November. There’s a lot of guessing that goes on.

Like it or not, the Web is international. We Kiwis (as New Zealanders are called) visit pages from all around the world. People from all around the world visit pages from all around the world. Make sure you build in tolerance to your Web pages and don’t force others to fit into your cultural model. Write dates with the month in words, create forms where zip codes and the like are optional or where it’s possible to enter Doesn’t Apply.

It’s a bell-curve world

The NUA suggests [link now dead] that as of August 2001 over 513 million people are online worldwide. In February 2008 that number is 1.08 billion.

Many of those people are just starting out with their first-ever computer, while others know their way around to some extent and still others are power-users.

I know for a fact that many of the beginners I work with are decision-makers of importance and that many have spending money at their disposal. They are knowledgeable and clever people in their regular lives, but when it comes to computers and the Internet they are confused, scared and ignorant.

And as fast as they learn the new skills of this information age others will come along and be the unlearned beginners.

As Web designers we can make small changes to help out these users — we can be cautious with our use of icons, we can use clearer text, we can think internationally, we can let people know what to expect when they’re about to enter into the process of obtaining files.

These are a few small techniques which can make the difference between a regular Website and one with the gloss of excellence.

First published in Digital Web magazine in November 2001 and republished with permission. This article may have been modified from the original.

Popularity: 30% [?]

I’ve just discovered the Low Visionary blog, written by local woman, Robyn Hunt (and using WordPress). Robyn writes about the blog:

Twenty or thirty years ago when disabled people talked about accessibility we meant access to buildings and the built environment. …Today it includes …the Internet, and all the technologies that relate to it.

…to many disabled people the Internet is an important, sometimes the only means of independent access to information.

All of the information for all of the people all of the time.

Robyn writes about her opinions on website accessibility, and also what’s going on in Wellington and the world, especially as it relates to people with disabilities.

Robyn and I have sometimes worked together in the past and I’ve learned a great deal from her over the years. If you’re a web person, the Low Visionary blog is definitely one to keep in your field of vision.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Once you understand the Visitor, it’s easy to notice that some visitors will see what’s on your Web site, while many will see and interpret only the coding behind it. And that’s why the coding behind a website is so important. [First published July 2006. Some details may be a bit dated.]

What’s the single most important feature of any book? You’d be right if you answered: the reader, the human being who reads what’s on the page.

Book = (paper + ink) + (reader)

OK. That question was easy, now let’s try a slightly harder question. What’s the single most important feature of a Web site?

Did you get it? The answer is: the visitor.

Web site = (server hardware + software) + Internet + (visitor)

However, let’s just break that down a bit more. Here’s the reader of the book:

Reader = (eyes + brain)

Here’s the Web site visitor:

Visitor = (client hardware + software) + (eyes + brain)
AND/OR
Visitor = (client hardware + software) + (ears + brain)
AND/OR
Visitor = (client hardware + software) + (fingers + brain)
AND/OR
Visitor = (search engine hardware + software)

The visitor to your Web site will in all cases be some computer-powered hardware and software, such as a cellphone, new or old computer, PDA or search engine, and will often, but not always have a human being behind it.

That human being will interact with the computer hardware and software in various ways, including receiving output by reading things from a screen or paper, listening to a screen reader, reading Braille and providing input with any one or more of a pointing device such as a mouse or trackpad, keyboard, or other mechanism.

Once you understand the Visitor, it’s easy to notice that some visitors will see what’s on your Web site, while many will see and interpret only the coding behind it. And that’s why the coding is so important. Which is why Apple’s iWeb is such very disappointing software.

Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing

My experiments with iWeb have produced some quite pretty results. Pages look good, and they are certainly easy to produce. There’s nice integration with iPhoto and so on, and the Inspector makes it easy to change fonts and colors and whatnot. Layout’s a breeze: just drag and drop. iWeb even uses those nifty little guides that pop objects right into a suitable alignment.

Once you’re done you can press a button or choose a menu command to Publish or Export your files and heck, they even pass the World Wide Web Consortium’s Validator test. The code is valid — it follows the grammar laid down for web pages.

But what you’ve created is a pit of seething ugliness, overlaid with the thinnest patina of gorgeous gloss and glitz: proof positive that what’s syntactically correct may still be meaningless. It’s no more than a Hollywood illusion: it looks like the Starship Enterprise, it sounds like the Starship Enterprise, but it sure isn’t capable of lifting off planet Earth, let alone travelling at warp speed.

iWeb is not for Web Sites

If all you want to do is create a Web site to show off photos of your dog to your immediate family, and they all have decent computers, decent Internet connections, good eyesight and are able bodied, then iWeb will do a reasonable job for you.

If you’re a professional of some kind then using iWeb to create a Web site is rather like letting a 5-year old nephew design your brochure, letterhead and Annual Report.

The problem is not only that the code behind the scenes is a mess, but that iWeb provides no way (that I could find) within the interface, to apply some of the most basic rules for making a Web site. And those rules aren’t just pedantic puffery, they exist for good, practical reasons.

Headings Allow Skim Reading

You’ll see this article is broken up into sections, each with a heading. Headings let the sighted visitor skim through to pick up the gist and zero in on any particularly interesting sections. A blind person using screen reader software can press a key and the software assembles a list of headings so she can skim through and zero in on interesting content. A search engine, such as Google, is like a blind visitor as it doesn’t see the finished page — it looks at the coding, just like a screen reader does. Google thinks headings are pretty important.

Headings Aren’t Big and Bold

Let’s just be clear: making text big and bold doesn’t make a heading on a web page — it just makes text big and bold. A sighted visitor sees a short stretch of big, bold text with a certain amount of white space around it and leaps to a conclusion that it’s a heading. For software such as a screen reader or a search engine to ’see’ a heading, the code behind the scenes must specify it’s a heading, by using ‘h’ tags, like this:

<h2>A fairly important heading</h2>

There’s no way in iWeb to apply a ‘heading’ style to text with ‘h’ tags — the only option is to make text bigger and bolder, and that isn’t a heading, it just looks like one to some visitors.

When Images Go Walkabout

Even more fundamental than headings is alternate text, also known as alt text. It’s a basic rule of web coding that when you include an image (and certain other things) you must also put in some text that can replace the image if it goes missing for some reason. There are some comprehensive guidelines about how to choose good alternate text for certain circumstances, but the basic principle is easy: include some text that can replace the picture.

The reason behind this rule is that blind people, search engine software, and those who use equipment that can’t or won’t display images need some words to tell them what they’re missing. Without those words to replace the pictures a Web site can become a nightmare maze of meaningless meanderings. One New Zealand bus company’s Web site invites you to click on the link for timetables in your area. If you can’t see the pictures they’ve used for the area names there is no way to know what to click on. In 2000 the Sydney Olympic Committee failed to provide alternate text for the Web site for the games. They were found guilty of discrimination and fined.

Well, iWeb gives us no way at all to add or edit the alternate text for photos we may include.

Getting Your Hands Dirty

The only way you can possibly add correct headings or alternate text is to go in to the coding itself, outside of iWeb, and using a text editor. If you know how to do that, then you wouldn’t want to wade through the tangled mess iWeb creates. And you’d have to do it over every time you changed something on the page.

iWeb for Fun, but not for Profit

iWeb’s a fun product. It’s easy to drag and drop text and photos into places on the page. If it had an export to PDF function it would probably be pretty good for creating printed materials.

If you have a clearly-defined audience and know their capabilities, if you don’t care about search engines, if you don’t need to consider those on slow connections or who might have any kind of special needs, if you’re creating a small family-type Web site, then iWeb may be fun to play with.

If you are in any way publishing to a wider, largely unknown audience, or have any kind of even slightly professional texture to your site then iWeb is most definitely not for you. The software doesn’t just create extremely poor coding, but it prevents you from implementing some of the most fundamental principles of an acceptable Web site.

A Disappointment

It’s not like the notions of headings or alternate text are in some way new — they’ve been there in the rules of HTML since the beginning. As a web designer and Mac user I feel so disappointed in Apple. This software i
s gorgeous, and shallow. Its likely to set back what we’re trying to achieve with the modern web: access for all to fun, information, people and community.

The Clayton’s Web

In New Zealand in the 1980s there was a lot of concern about drinking and driving. A company produced a non-alcoholic beverage called Clayton’s that resembled Scotch. There was a big advertising campaign that backfired: “Clayton’s — the drink you have when you’re not having a drink.” Clayton’s came to be a catchphrase for something that wasn’t what it purported to be, a sham, a fake.

The real Web is a realm of freely available information: the coding behind the scenes caters to all equipment, all visitors. The Clayton’s web looks good, maybe even looks fantastic, but in fact it’s a sham, a disappointment.

iWeb: it’s the web software you don’t use when you’re making the web.

This article was first published in About This Particular Macintosh in July 2006 and may have been modified from the original. Iweb has been updated many times since this article was written, but I haven’t yet checked to see if it has overcome these shortcomings. feel free to leave comments that update the picture.

Popularity: 17% [?]