Category Archives: Information Accessibility

Recently I visited Dunedin. I always enjoy a visit to Dunedin, even if it is the middle of winter, perishing cold and threatening to rain most of the time, but the welcome is always warm. Of course the day I left was perfect.I was there for work as part of Otage Uni’s Disability Awareness Week. It was full on. I gave a speech and took part in a debate, which sadly we lost, although only because our adjudicator had the casting vote. Oh well, there was a pleasant little bottle of wine for each of us and it was fun. The speech was reported in the local rag and the photo wasn’t too ghastly I am told, even if the story contained the odd inaccuracy.

But that wasn’t all. There was an assortment of meetings, including on career services for disabled students and several about accessible information and web accessibility. We also ran two workshops, introductions to web accessibility and to information accessibility.

Information accessibility is a really interesting area for us at AccEase. We have always concentrated on web accessibility but information accessibility is equally important and our workshops had a really enthusiastic reception. There will be more to come, and we will be taking a more integrated approach to information accessibility. And so to quote a cliche – “watch this space”.

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Last week was Dyslexia week. Shame I couldn’t get this post finished in time for it as there wasn’t much publicity. That is a pity because dyslexia affects a surprising number of people, and it is only now gaining recognition in New Zealand educational circles.

As a web accessibility issue dyslexia has a low profile, although the barriers are recognised and assistive technology is available. However many people in the web community still think that web accessibility is all about blindness and screen readers. Sure blind people face significant and continuing barriers to web site access. But other groups of disabled people do too, and often the barriers are quite different for them than for blind people.

But it is interesting to note that some of the accessibility issues for people with dyslexia are quite similar to those for people with low vision, including me. It seems that quite a lot of the things I hate about web sites are also not enjoyed by people who have dyslexia either.

Many of the problems they, and I, face with web sites revolve around the way information is presented on the screen. Funnily enough the dyslexia week site exhibits the same problems.

I will list just a few.

Unbroken text stretching right across your screen is a pain in the neck. As the eyes try to scan across, it is really difficult to follow on to the next line. If it goes off to the side and you have to scroll across, it makes it even worse! The point of vision gets lost in a morass of text. Text in a relatively narrow column is easier to read.

Right justified text is another pain where the words are spaced out so that both the left and the right sides of each column of text are straight lines. Unjustified text – like the text on this page – leaves a ragged edge down the right hand side.

For a dyslexic reader, justified text, with its uneven spaces between words, creates visual patterns of white space which are hard to ignore. They distract the reader, who loses the place.
Bright text on a white background is another problem for people with dyslexia, (less so for me if the text is strong and black.) Words can appear to move and blur. An off white background may help. Text on a patterned background is really unhelpful and difficult and distracting to read.

Dyslexic readers, like me, find moving images distracting and like the plain uncluttered nature of a type face like arial. We hate italics, and we love print of a decent size.

Like almost everyone else people with dyslexia like plain English – see the new Plain English Power web site.

It just shows that providing good web accessibility does not create barriers for others.

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Content is king may be a cliche but nonetheless the content of a web site, and how it is presented is a critical part of accessibility, but sometimes forgotten in the “gee whiz” technology focus. After all we are talking about a communication medium.

If you have ever been confronted with some useless flash image when you arrive at a web site that tells you nothing about where you are, or what you should do next then you will know what I mean.

Recently I tried visiting some fashion sites. Nice pictures but short on information to the point where one had no contact details! I really wonder why they bothered. Even with broadband most of the sites I tried to visit took ages to load. The text, such as it was wouldn’t enlarge either. (Couldn’t possibly spoil the look, darling!)
Then there was one which had only a squitchy image and a progress bar creeping along. This is the twenty first century! Why would anyone want to waste their time sitting and watching that? I simply gave up. Their loss.

Rant over. I do understand that not everyone is a word person like me, but at least some meaningful content would be good.

The opposite of course is just as bad. Tons of turgid verbiage which is also a pain in the neck. People don’t read information on web sites in the same way as they read a printed page. They will not read as much text on a web page as on a printed page. I sometimes have to resort to cutting and pasting into Word and then printing off long and dense documents, which isn’t good for the planet, and is more costly to me. Of course I only print off the things I am really highly motivated to read. I have to leave the rest.

Accessibility is not just about resizing, use of colour, alt text for images, skip links, proper data tables and all that important stuff, nor is it about reducing everything to boring plain text with no visual clues. It is also about having properly marked-up headings, straightforward writing, short sentences and paragraphs that engage the reader. It is not about dumbing down important information. It is about writing clearly and concisely in a way which will engage the reader.

While web content must be considered in terms of structure and organisation, attention must also be paid to quality, usefulness, ease of understanding and accessibility of the information it contains.

Having been a journalist, writer and broadcaster I must say I am a real fan of good old plain English Everyone benefits.

I also thoroughly recommend Rachel McAlpine’s new book Better Business Writing on the Web.

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