This is the sort of headline that I particularly enjoy reading, given my recent focus on web accessibility – “2009: The year websites become accessible to all.”

Opera’s Bruce Lawson recently wrote an article for ZDNet UK discussing the prospects of web accessibility gaining prominence in 2009. He cites some key factors that are converging to paint a promising immediate future for the accessibility.

One, as we discussed in “Accessibility News: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Become W3C Recommendation“, the aged Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 were at least updated formally to 2.0.

Also, standards are expected to be pushed forward this year for Web Accessibility Initiative Accessible Rich Internet Applications — with its goal of Web content and Web applications that more accessible to those with disabilities.

Lawson cites as a factor the hot button issue of legal ramifications as well. Target having to settle out of court for its accessibility lawsuit certainly drew much attention. As as covered my last post, “Accessibility News: Expedia / Hotels.com make considerations for disabled travelers,” Expedia recently announced accessibility strides in response to a lawsuit.

Lawson points out that the British Standards Institution is fast at work on drafting a standard for website accessibility. Such a standard will carry a lot of weight on both sides of the pond.

Read Lawson’s article and his compelling points. Web accessibility has been around for years, but its undeniable that its importance and focus are only elevating.

Tags: aria, british standards institution, bruce lawson, bsi, lawsuits, opera, WCAG, web accessibility initiative accessible rich internet applications, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, zdnet uk

In a settlement of a California-based lawsuit, online travel juggernaut Expedia and its Hotels.com will add content and search capabilities to their online reservations systems for would-be travelers with disabilities.

The lawsuit stemmed from two California women who claimed that Hotels.com discriminated against them by having a shoddy experience regarding wheelchair-accessible rooms. There was no clear-cut means of guaranteeing such a room.

Expedia has been working with Disability Rights Advocates to provide greater accessibility for disabled travel shoppers.

Source Materials:

• Expedia’s hotels.com settles lawsuit over wheelchair access (Deseret News)
• Expedia and Hotels.com agree to provide information for disabled travelers (Internet Retailer)

Tags: accessibility, Expedia, Hotels.com, lawsuit, wheelchair access

Admittedly, I have been and always will be an Apple devotee. With that disclaimer aside, during one of my many ventures through the Web looking for interesting web accessibility topics, I came across extensive coverage of the topic of accessibility on Apple’s website.

To cover the highlights briefly, Apple claims the iPhone has these accessibility features:

For the Visually Impaired:

• Physical buttons for commands such as sleep, ringer and home
• Zoom ability for viewing content
• Font size increasing for Mail
• Alert and ringtone customization based on audio, visual or vibration

For the Hearing Impaired:

• Support for open and closed captioning, as well as subtitles
• Using Safari, ability to use web-based instant messaging services such as Meebo
• SMS texting
• Headset options including hearing-aid induction ear loop
• Visual Voicemail feature
• TTY support (with a separate iPhone TTY Adapter)

They similarly point out some of these features — like the tactile buttons, voice dialing, and assignable ringtones — as being accessible to those with physical disabilities as well.

Furthermore, AT&T has a Text Accessibility Plan for iPhone, which offers unlimited messaging and data usage and pay-per-use voice and Visual Voicemail.

There are conflicting views, not surprisingly, on how successful Apple’s accessibility efforts with the iPhone are. Some laud Apple and AT&T for considering those with disabilities and providing growing options. Others feel that these features aren’t enough.

For example, Touchscreens, from the inability to feel buttons to supplying multiple levels of menuing, provide significant problems for those unable to see. See TechNewsWorld article “Is Technology Accessibility the New Green?.”

Again, like website accessibility, it is not always practical and feasible to make something for absolute everybody? The challenge is continuing to push the technology envelope in making cool and useful new innovations, while doing as much as possible to enable those with disabilities to enjoy the experience as well.

Does the iPhone have further to go? The answer seems to be yes, but I would say that Apple at least appears to take the subject of accessibility seriously, and all signs point to them doing better with future releases.

A sampling of differing viewpoints in the blogging world:

• Forget the iPhone: accessibility trumps trendiness from Computing Unplugged Magazine
• iPhone Accessibility: But Not For Me from ShellyBlog
• AT&T Intros iPhone Text Accessibility Plan; Phone Still Not Accessible to Blind Customers from Disability Nation

Tags: accessibility statement, apple, iphone, safari, sms, tactile buttons, text telephone, touchscreens, TTY, zoom

Experienced web designers and developers control their own destiny when building sites from scratch, as it relates to web accessibility. How much (or how little) they choose to adhere to accessibility standards depends on their coding acumen and knowledge.

That’s fine and well for web site development from the ground up, but many people are opting to use trusted content management systems (CMS) for blogging, site upkeep, etcetera. I myself have been in the web industry for over a decade, but opted to use WordPress for this blog instead of taking the extra time to come up with something from scratch.

When you utilize such products, accessibility is at the mercy of their developers, not you, especially when it comes to custom templates.

For starters, let’s look at three of the big players in free CMSs, and see how they tackle the issue of web accessibility. At a later date, I’ll cover some of the bigger commercial tools, such as SharePoint.

WordPress
(accessibility statement) 
WordPress states that it is, out of the box, web accessibility compliant. However, and it perhaps should come as no surprise, it cannot stand behind how well or how poorly people who create their own WordPress templates keep that accessibility intact.

Their accessibility standard then proceeds to do a nice job providing basic guidelines for template creators, covering topics such as alt and title tags, color blindness, browser and mobile considerations, and testing for accessibility. 

Joomla
(accessibility statement)
 Joomla’s accessibility statement appears to be somewhat dated. It states that Joomla’s front end will be web accessibility compliant, as it pertains to WCAG and Section 508, by version 1.5 (which has been out for some time now). However, beyond that, there is no confirmation or detail about the efforts they have or will make.

It then explains how the coding necessary to make the back-end WCAG compliant is intensive and requires ground-up rework, and therefore is targeted to be tackled in the 2.0 versioning.

Like WordPress, Joomla cannot stand by the accessibility of templates that 3rd parties create.

Drupal
I was unable to find an accessibility statement for Drupal, but there is an Accessibility Group. Therein are articles and posts discussing various accessibility tips and topics. Drupal by its nature is very clean and simple — so while I haven’t ripped the cover off enough to get a true feel for its accessibility, the prognosis is positive.
 

If you have any experiences with these or other free CMSs, as it pertains to web accessibility, please feel free to share. I myself have used WordPress (as this blog would indicate!), and soon will be using Drupal and/or Joomla for projects. I’ll delve deeper in a follow-up post later on.

Tags: CMS, Content Management, Drupal, Joomla, WCAG, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, WordPress