Alt Tags

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The Invisible Web: A Survey Of Municipal Web Accessibility

Alt Tags recently conducted a series of accessibility tests on 408 municipal websites throughout the state of California. Ninety-one percent of the sites tested failed Section 508 compliance. Eight-Nine percent did not pass WCAG Priority 1. While not surprising, our findings were not encouraging. It appears that web accessibility is not yet on the radar of most municipalities.

Our complete report details our findings and recommendations for municipalities wishing to improve the accessibility of their websites. We’re presenting our report in a PDF format and encouraging readers to pass this on to interested parties in hopes that we can raise awareness of this important issue.

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Does Microsoft Care About Web Standards?

The question must seem absurd. After all, Microsoft is a member of the W3C and an active participant in the development of web standards. Each new Microsoft product announcement seems to include more standards compliant buzzwords than the last. True, Microsoft doesn’t always deliver complete standards compliance, but nobody’s perfect. At least they’re trying. Or are they?

While Microsoft may pay lip service to web standards, a look at their product line suggests they have no interest in supporting the standards they’ve helped create. Face it, xHTML and CSS just aren’t as sexy as .Net and web services. Microsoft clearly has other priorities and a closer investigation of the facts seems to indicate that support for web standards is hardly a blip on their corporate radar.

Allow me to elaborate with a few examples:

Microsoft.com: Any discussion about Microsoft’s support for web standards should begin with their corporate website. If Microsoft cared about web standards, you would expect them to use those standards on their own website. You’d probably even expect their home page to validate (or at least come close). Instead, Microsoft can’t even be bothered to declare a doctype.

I realize valid HTML is a controversial topic. We all know how hard it is to keep a site valid. One day your site validates, the next day some stray entity or attribute throws your site out of compliance. My point is that those of us who are serious about web standards make an effort. Microsoft’s failure to declare a doctype on their home page indicates they’ve made no effort.

Dig deeper into the source code of Microsoft.com and you’ll find one coding atrocity after another (font tags, nested tables, and embedded images that simulate a styled list, etc.). It’s as if the developers of Microsoft.com have no clue what CSS is, let alone how to use it. To Microsoft’s credit, they seem to be using their own tools to create and maintain their website. My problem with those tools is that they encourage the worst sort of design habits. They certainly don’t encourage the use of web standards. Which leads me to . . .
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Do You Care About Accessibility?

It was a moment that is quickly becoming legendary in certain web design circles. The first of many accessibility panels at the 2004 SXSW Interactive conference was well underway when Jeffrey Veen stepped onto the stage just as it was his turn to present. Unexpected travel delays had prevented him from arriving on time for the Accessibility is For Everyone session. As a result, Veen missed the initial presentations by a panel of noted accessibility experts and appeared to walk into the room cold to deliver his portion of the session.

Against a backdrop of hyper sensitivity to accessibility issues Veen steps up and announces, “I don’t care about accessibility.” Veen’s proclamation was met with a few nervous chuckles followed by an uncomfortable moment of silence before he began to build his case.
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Opera Announces Voice Activated Browser

Opera Software has announced a voice-activated browser. The new browser, launch date not yet announced, incorporates IBM’s ViaVoice software and will respond to voice commands from the user. As with other voice recognition programs, the software must be trained to learn the user’s speech patterns and voice. The initial version will be targeted toward the English language market, and Opera predicts the browser will increase accessibility for those individuals with difficulties working a mouse or keyboard.

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Suddenly Accessibility Is Beautiful

The HiFi Design with CSS session generated a fair amount of shock and awe at this year’s SXSW conference. The CSS Zen Garden continues to raise awareness of the amazing possibilities that web standards present. Accessibility advocates are awed by the beauty of standards based design and simultaneously shocked that so many leading designers are citing accessibility as one of their primary goals. Suddenly accessibility is cool (and beautiful too). It’s every accessibility advocate’s dream come true, except some of us seem to be sleeping in.
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