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The Accessibility Challenge

We recently completed a large website redevelopment project. The site, when launched, contained nearly 1,000 individual content items. Since launch, that number has grown. We expect it to continue to increase, especially as the departments who took a wait and see attitude start contributing content to the site. If past experience holds true, this site will have close to 5,000 content items within a year or two.

One of the stated goals for the site was accessibilty. Granted, this was not the term used, but as we went through the process of identifying the site’s customers, local senior citizens were mentioned. Because this is a city website, they do not have to comply with Section 508 — however, as many local government agencies choose to do, the city made compliance a goal. Throughout the design process, we kept this in mind, and, because the backend of the site is a content management system, we included “hooks” to ensure things like alt attributes weren’t forgotten.

Okay, fine. Mission accomplished.

Sort of. The day-to-management of the website is handled in a decentralized manner by non-technical staff. The final review before new content is published is done from an an editorial perspective — the webmaster doesn’t know HTML, and the chances of her learning it are slim. When we loaded the original batch of content on behalf of the client, we converted as much as possible to plain HTML. Unfortunately, due to a variety of factors, not everything could be converted, and there are many documents posted as PDF files.

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CMS Do's and Don'ts

Have you made peace with your Content Management System yet? If you’re like most CMS users, the answer is ‘no’ (or a steady stream of expletives that could easily be understood as a ‘no’). For many, CMS has become synonymous with the word ‘failure’.

There seems to be a widely held perception that CMS is a losing proposition. As a result, many corporations and government agencies have hesitated to make a commitment to CMS. A surprising number of corporate and government websites use no CMS at all, or a mixed up assortment of homegrown tools that can only loosely be referred to as a CMS.

Depending on their circumstances these organizations may not be able to resist the lure of a true CMS for much longer. There are hundreds of CMS vendors competing for the available market share. If you are not yet using a CMS it’s only a matter of time before a key decision maker in your organization gets sold on the idea. You know how it is when management latches onto buzzwords.

CMS doesn’t have to be synonymous with failure. There is no doubt that the right CMS, properly implemented, can offer real benefits to organizations of all sizes. The catch seems to be that it’s not always easy to find the right CMS, let alone a qualified team with the skills needed for a proper implementation.

As businesses of all sizes embark on their first CMS project they need to realize that they are venturing into territory that in many ways is unique. A CMS implementation is not quite like any other technology project. If for no other reason because the end result is a system that is used to manage what will essentially become the public face of your organization.

With this in mind I offer a few do’s and don’ts that could help you minimize your chances of joining the ranks of those who are unhappy with their CMS.
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Businesses Agree to Make Websites Accessible

Yesterday, Elliott Spitzer, Attorney General for the State of New York, announced a settlement where Ramada.com and Priceline.com have agreed to make their websites accessible to the blind. The settlement came because

[t]he Attorney General opined that the Americans With Disabilities Act requires that private web sites be accessible to blind and visually impaired Internet users. The ADA generally dictates that all “places of public accommodation” and all “goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations” of places of public accommodation, must be made accessible to disabled citizens, absent undue hardship. New York law provides similar civil rights protections.

Priceline and Ramada will reimburse the state for its costs as well as make necessary changes to their sites. Priceline has reportedly already begun work to make its website more accessible, and, according to the Washington Post sought to reassure investors that the settlement is not a blow to the company’s bottom line.

[Priceline’s Brian] Ek said the firm encourages other firms to do the same. He said the firm isn’t releasing the cost of making the entire site accessible for the visually disabled, but said it won’t be enough to reduce earnings.

Our Analysis of The Settlement

This settlement is particularly interesting in light of a previous ruling that determined the opposite. That case (02-21734-C1V – Access Now/Gumson vs. Southwest Airlines) turned on the fact that the web does not occupy physical space; the judge believed Congress’s specificity in defining public accommodations limited the act to physical space. That Spitzer believed otherwise is precedent setting. As the businesses in question clearly engaged in commercial operations, they can be defined as public accommodations. The Internet was not contemplated when the ADA was written, but in 2000, a Congressional hearing concluded:

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Muddling Through

True story: During a recent ad hoc user survey, I quizzed my sister-in-law about her browser preferences. Given the fact that she’s happily using OS X on a late-model iBook, I wasn’t surprised to hear that her primary browser is Safari . . . except when she checks the weather. For that, she uses Internet Explorer. At first I thought she might be getting weather updates from some strange source that only works with Internet Explorer. Upon further questioning, I learned that Internet Explorer is set to use My Yahoo as its start page. Since My Yahoo reports the weather for her hometown, she knows she can easily get the latest weather report by simply opening Internet Explorer.

I explained that she could easily set My Yahoo to be her Safari start page, but she wanted no part of that idea. She only uses My Yahoo when she needs to check the weather — all she has to do is open Internet Explorer. She acknowledges that she could probably setup a bookmark or a toolbar link, but her current approach works, so she’s not going to spend too much time worrying about it. She gets the desired results even if her approach isn’t logical or streamlined. I should also mention that, as a recent Stanford grad, she’s not a dumb person. In fact, my guess is that she’s a pretty typical web user.
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The Sad State Of Accessibility On Municipal Websites

I created my first government website in 1995. In those days the Woody Allen quote was pretty much accurate: 80% of success was just showing up. Having a web site earned a city bragging rights, even if the site was nothing more than a home page with a few links.

As the decade progressed and web authoring tools became commonplace, most cities advanced to the point where they had at least a token web presence. While the sites were primitive when compared to commercial websites, local government saw the Internet as revolutionary. Suddenly there was this great tool that could be used to quickly disseminate all kinds of information to the community. Best of all, the medium was relatively cheap. There was incredible excitement about this new high tech, cost effective information delivery method.

Needless to say, accessibility was not a consideration in the early days of the web. As we discovered in our recent survey of municipal web accessibility, it’s not much of a consideration today, either, despite the pressing needs of each agency’s constituency. Of the 408 California cities we tested, 91% failed to achieve Section 508 compliance. The numbers were nearly as bad for the WCAG guidelines, with 89% of the sites failing to achieve WCAG’s Priority 1.
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