Accessibility of the Web - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

The accessibility of the Web , it is, according to Tim Berners-Lee, director of W3C and inventor of the World Wide Web:

To place the Web and its services at the disposal of all the individuals, whatever them material or Software, their infrastructure network, them Native tongue, them Culture, their geographical location, or their physical capacities or mental.

Thus defined, it appears that the accessibility of the Web represents an aspect of the numerical Accessibilité.

Introduction

In order to achieve these general and generous goals, W3C created recommendations through the project WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) in 1996. These recommendations are organized according to three points of view of;:

the production equipments of contents must be able to be used by tous ; it follows that they must follow policies particulières ;
the contents put on line itself must be accessible ;
in order to as well as possible benefit from these accessible contents, the tools for consultation (for example the navigators Internet) must be usable by all.

Recommendations for the production equipments of contents

The most up to date policies for the Software S of edition of HTML, the editors of Software page or of publication of Web site creating the code HTML, are those of Authoring Tools Accessibility Guidelines in their version 1.0, going back to February 2000. A translation (nonofficial) is available in French.

Since the publication of the ATAG 1.0, the management systems contents and the blogists left for which the ATAG 2.0 are in building site. A French-speaking version of the ATAG 2.0 candidate is announced at the foot of the page.

Recommendations for the contents

The recommendations with regard to the contents address to all the distributers digital contents on Internet. These directives name the Content Web Accessibility Guidelines. Their official last version in date is the WCAG 1.0. Work continues, and a version of work of the WCAG 2.0 is opened with comments on the site of the W3C.

Recommendations for the tools for consultation

In order to benefit the best from the accessible Web sites, it is essential that the tools for consultation of these sites are themselves usable by handicapped people. It is in the intention to define recommendations on this subject that were written to them User Agent Accessibility Guidelines, which are currently with their version 1.0 (in).

Legislation

Introduction

Even if to make a Web site accessible is interesting for all the public ones, the solutions of accessibility aim only one restricted market (mainly handicapped people and, in certain cases, elderly). The market evolution was not enough to make take into account this obligation Citoyen. This is why from many countries came from there to take legislative measures.

In the United States

A law was voted to force the federal agencies to respect the standards in force in this country. This law, Section 508 thus does not apply to the local public services.

In Canada

In May 2000, the Council of the Treasury of Canada approved the Standards and directives on the Standardization of Internet sites (NSI). They impose at all the institutions aimed to Parts 1,1.1 and 2 of the Law on the management of public finances to conform to the rules of accessibility of the cell Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI/W3C WCAG 1.0) of priority has and AA.

In the European Union

The accessibility of the Web enters within the more general framework of the numerical Accessibilité, on which the European commission works.

Several States of the European Union established, or are about to establish, of the more or less constraining legislations as regards accessibility of the Web.

In France

In 2004 opens a first phase of incentive to the accessibility of the sites of the services of the State, territorial collectivities and publics establishments;: the Agency for the Development of Electronic administration (ADAE) adopts a “Reference frame accessibility of services Internet of the administration”. This one is resulting from work of the resource center and Accessiweb research created by BrailleNet association on the basis of international standard WCAG1.0, supplemented by ergonomic recommendations. It is not obligatory.

The obligation of accessibility is legally created by article 47 of the law of February 11th, 2005 (n° 2005-102) for “ chance and equal rights, the participation and citizenship of the people handicapées ”, which énonce : “The departments of communication public on line of the services of the State, the territorial collectivities and the public corporations which depend on it must be accessible to the handicapped people. ” The text on the site of the assembly or. For this purpose, a new framework of adapted reference frame is necessary.

DGME (Head office of the Modernization of the State) is the engine of the project, with the installation of the general Référentiel of accessibility of the administrations (RGAA). Complement of the general Reference frame of interworking, the RGAA is a method of progressive deployment and evaluation of the accessibility of the Web contents such as it is defined by international standard WCAG1.0, at the highest level (AAA).

In addition, of associations act to promote the accessibility of the Web to the handicapped people. They provide in particular guides helping in the realization of accessible sites or the solutions allowing the use of existing sites by people in situation of handicap. Let us quote for example, by order alphabétique :

BrailleNet ;
HandicapZéro ;
WebSourd.

Techniques of accessibility of the contents

A total step

The recommendations of WAI, of international significance, propose a whole of solutions to allow the realization of accessible Web sites. They however suppose a taking into account with each stage of the design: the accessibility of the contents is more one step integrated throughout the line production that a specific technical surcouche.

Some examples of rules WAI

to provide a textual alternative to the images and all Medium not textuel ;
to structure the document logically (beacons of titles, use of the marks out S meta in the heading, indications specific upstream of the lists,…) ;
to provide headings of relevant bonds and making direction when they are read except contexte ;
to separate the presentation from the contents and to avoid the diversion of the beacons structuring for effects of presentation (see CS) ;
to carry out a Web site usable without images neither style CS nor Javascript.

Assistances with the creation and the evaluation of accessible contents

Automatic tools

A certain number of the check-points of the WCAG being automatizable, of many tools were developed in order to facilitate the development, or the validation, of accessible Web sites.

Automation is partially applicable :

a priori , with the production equipments of contents like the editors HTML or CMS. During the seizure of the contents, controls can be realized in real-time, and established constraints, in order to facilitate the accessible production of contents (to impose the logical structure of the document, to separate the presentation from the contents, to force the seizure of textual alternatives, etc .)
a posteriori , using the tools for checking of accessibility.

In both cases nevertheless, the majority of the check-points like the relevance of the headings of bond or the textual alternatives, the changes of language, the harmonious degradation of the presentation and the contents according to the device of returned… are not automatizable, or are it only partially in the form of assistance with the human validation.

These automatic tools cannot thus be alone guarantors of accessibility.

Among the tools disponibles :

the “validator of accessibility”, in French and LPG.
Webexact. It replaced Bobby the famous Canadian engine resulting from the Public service. It functions in sheet feeder and two temps :

a general appreciation
of the specialized miters (safety, confidentiality, accessibility)

WAVE. Its appreciation is coloured many images.
Cynthia says Cynthia controls on page in page and request a one minute deadline before validating one second page of the same site.
OCAWA Developed in collaboration with France Telecom. Its free version on line does not detail the various levels of success, but it is fast and takes into account a maximum of rules. On inscription, one can control 10 pages in only once with a 24 hours deadline. He speaks French; it is quite pleasant and enough rare to be announced!
Have-Prompt is a free tool developed with the Université of Toronto, functioning under Windows, and making it possible to test a tree structure of files taking into consideration rule of the Web Accessibility Initiative or Section 508. It makes it possible to follow the actions of correction carried out on each file of this tree structure.
TAW Web Accessibility Test is a tool available in downloadable version, which bases its tests on the WCAG 1.0

To test the reception of the blind men and partially-sighted persons (in particular various forms of Daltonism, you can download Have-Designer free, a product which simulates various visual deficiencies and submits a report/ratio detailed for each one of them. This product functions in sheet feeder and tests from the point of view of only one deficiency at the same time.

See too

Software

Some software for the accessibilité :

under Linux (and Unix), in GNOME: software Gnopernicus, library AT-SPI (“ Assistive Technology Service ” - “ Provider Interfaces ”) and library ATK (ToolKit Access)
readers of screen for blind men (and partially-sighted persons): JAWS (Job Access With Speech) for Microsoft Windows, Narrator for Windows 2000 and Windows XP, Window-Eyes for Windows, VoiceOver for Mac OS X, SRCore (Screen Core Reader) of Gnopernicus for Unix (and Linux), BRLTTY (Braille TTY)

External bonds

Translation of the documents of the W3C

ATAG 2.0 Directives 2.0 on the accessibility of the tools of editions W3C - Outline candidate starting from November 22nd, 2004
Some easy ways for submission to the Webmasters Translation of WAI Quick Tips
List of the documents of the W3C translated into French in particular Comprising recommendations on accessibility

Random links:

Abbreviations in data processing NR | Mékhitar de Sébaste | Montefelcino | Tabgha | Xero