Dear Nick,
you - as your usual - ask a very good question. As you know, we only work
for public, mostly accredited, museums and cultural institutions - so
designing for accessibility if embedded at the core of our design and
development process and ethos. We certainly don't roll our eyes and strive
for 'AA' in every case.
The issue is complex - as you point out - for two main reasons, in my
opinion - especially when dealing with automated validation tools and
services.
The first one is the debate accessibility versus usability (which I prefer
to call ergonomics). Strict accessibility rules may clash with ergonomic
principles in many situations and one is required to make an educated
choice as to what to compromise. An example: according to accessibility
principles, you should not have two links next to each other to the same
target. But if your layout has (for instance) collection objects with
images and titles, you (for ergonomic) want to have the link on both -
because this is what online visitors expect. Automated validation will fail
- what do you do?
The second one is content management - which is always outside of and much
more long-term than the design and development process. Content managers
can directly edit and control websites in all of their aspects, making then
alive and changing constantly. Using rich-text editors, anything can be
embedded into web templates - how would you control that - without
compromising the freedom that is expected when editing?
There is also another aspect that is missed by 'blind' obedience to
automatic validation. In all cases, these tools can only apply the rules -
so for instance would flag as an error the absence of ALT tags for non text
content - but happily approve nonsensical or useless ALT tags ("A picture")
and TITLE ("A title") tags.
Complex call - I wonder what others think and do - as there is always room
for improvement.
Best, Cristiano
On 29 January 2015 at 09:26, Nick Poole <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Dear MCG'ers,
>
> The discussion over the past few days has prompted me to return to the
> question of where 'web accessibility' fits into peoples' priorities these
> days.
>
> Back in the day, when the Disability Discrimination Act was fresh and new
> and initiatives like Bobby and the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
> were in the ascendant, we spent lot of time beating ourselves up about
> 'AAA' or 'AA' compliance.
>
> Then, slightly inevitably, there was a bit of a backlash as people came to
> realise that machine-processed accessibility was not the same as human
> accessibility. At roughly the same time, the dominant narrative came to be
> about Universal Design and the idea that rather than designing specific
> experiences for specific audiences, we ought to be using web standards
> (HTML4 and CSS - remember them!?) to create universally accessible, liquid
> interfaces that played nice on screens and mobiles. I sat in a *lot* of
> meetings with web development companies who would eye roll when web
> accessibility came up and then dismiss it with 'our world-class coders make
> code that's so silky smooth, it laughs at your puny guidelines'.
>
> Now, with the power and flexibility of HTML5 and the rise of mobile-first,
> responsive design, we certainly have much nicer interfaces (generally
> speaking). Screen readers are smarter, their users more experienced and
> fiddly keys are gradually being replaced by the elegance of swipe and pinch.
>
> I worry, though, that accessibility in general, and more specifically
> taking positive and proactive steps to meet users halfway if they have
> specific needs, has taken something of a back seat. I heard yesterday that
> the number of museums with 'provisional' as opposed to full Accreditation
> status has increased significantly, and that many are being asked to
> improve both their access provision and the quality of information they
> provide about accessibility - which increasingly means online.
>
> I am hoping that people are going to tell me that web accessibility, both
> in a 'universal' and a specific sense, is still high on the list when you
> are specifying and developing web projects, but it has been a long time
> (until this thread) since I have seen anyone talk about it as a
> high-profile commitment - with the obvious exception of the excellent work
> of the Jodi Awards. Also, while I have seen people mention technical (ie.
> web standards) accessibility, I really haven't seen anything about
> intellectual accessibility since around 2004.
>
> So - my question to the list: is web accessibility still a thing? If not,
> why not? If so, has it simply gone to ground as an embedded part of the
> development process?
>
> All best,
>
> Nick
>
> Nick Poole
> Chief Executive
> Collections Trust
> Tel: +44 (0)20 7942 6080
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Cristiano Bianchi
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