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Accessibility

By Colin Ford, BBus (Dist), Cert IV TAA, MACS (Snr) CP

Accessibility Features that are currently implemented include:

1. W3C® Markup Validation improves compatibility across different web browsers
2. The WAVE online Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool reported “no accessibility errors detected”
3. Contrast between text colour and page background
4. Large (14pt) San Serif Base Font with TWO spaces between sentences and plenty of “whitespace”
5. Easily Identifiable links
6. Alternate Text (“alt attribute”) is available for ALL images (except background images and banner)

W3C® Markup Validation

All pages on this site have been validated as “well-formed” XHTML 1.0 Transitional by the W3C® Markup Validation Service.  The external CSS stylesheet code was also tested and has passed the W3C's CSS 2.1 validation (W3C® Markup Validation Service, 2011).

Though not definitive, error free and “well-formed” code is a good indicator of interoperability & compatibility across different web browsers  (Advantages Of W3C Validation For Your Website, 2011; Kosek & Nálevka, 2006).    Top of the page

WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool

Testing with the WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool  detected no accessibility errors on any pages on this site.

This web-based tool provides an easy-to-interpret detailed colour-coded report listing any specific barriers to accessibility on a webpage.  The report will also highlight any elements and/or features that support accessibility.

It has been designed as an aid to a more comprehensive subjective evaluation of accessiblity by humans beings as there are a myriad of interdependant factors that facilitate or reduce web accessibility  (WAVE, 2011).    Top of the page

Contrast and Colour

The contrast on this site has been assessed using the Vischeck Color Blindness Simulation.  This online software tool predicts how a web page would most likely appear to a person suffering from each of three different types of colour blindness.

The contrast and colors on this site have also been evaluated using Fujitsu's ColorDoctor 2.1 For Windows® software tool that also includes a gray scale conversion option as well as three different colour blindness condition simulations.  (Fujitsu, 2011)    Top of the page

Adding a Font-Size Control

The latest browsers now provide controls to increase and decrease font size.   Unfortunately these built-in controls are often hard to find, especially for some older users (National Institutes of Health, 2009, p5.).

Fortunately, it is relatively simple to provide visitors with an easily recognisable button that allows them to globally change the font-size of the page. (like this dummy example button shown on the right) (National Institutes of Health, 2009, p5.).

This type of control would will improves access for sight impaired or older visitors.

It is envisaged that either CSS or javascript methods could be used to provide a simple font-size control at the top of each webpage.    Top of the page

Improved Screen Reader Compatibility

The site is already well suited to browsing using a Screen Reader as it provides a “Skip to Content” link at the top of each page that allows vision impaired users to skip repetitive navigational information (WebAIM, 2011b).

As an upgrade, a specific CSS style class could be added to make this link “invisible” to normal users.
By positioning this link off the screen (Lemon, 2011) it would still be available for screen readers and text-based browsers (Leporini & Paternò, 2008, pp. 35, 40).

Perhaps an “invisible”  “Go to Navigation Bar” link could also be added (Leporini & Paternò, 2008, p. 35).

Screen readers “linearize”[sic] a web page, ignoring visual layout cues (WebAIM,2011b).   The title text for the majority of links on this site are informative and meaningful.

Most screen readers will identify and announce images that are links as “graphic link”, and then read out the text specified in the associated alt attribute  (WebAIM, 2011a)

At present, there are several instances on this site where the visible link text forms an integral part of the enclosing sentence structure, for example:


This context can be problematic if the screen reader has not been configured to interpret links appropriately.  

There is much opportunity to improve the way that links within the text are coded with "the distinguising information at the beginning of the link" on this site.

It is suggested that this practice may make it easier for screen readers to detect context appropriately, and thus read the HTML link “title” attribute seamlessly as a phrase within the sentence in which the link occurs  (WebAIM,2011b).

This is in line with the W3C’s concept of “programmatically determined link context”  (W3C®, 2010).     Top of the page

Security Issues

As it stands, this site does not require HTTPS security, however, the phone numbers for each of Rebecca's Clinics and her email address are protected by javascript to prevent harvesting by “screen scrapers”.

Security implications of some planned XML improvements are discussed here... Proposed XML Upgrade.    Top of the page

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