I’m in the very early stages of putting together accessibility improvements for an e-commerce web site. The site is several years old, and while it isn’t a complete accessibility disaster, there are many ways it can be improved. The markup was constructed decently enough, but it’s safe to say that accessibility wasn’t so much as even a fleeting thought.

My efforts are part of an overall project to improve and refresh the look and information architecture of the web site. From both a design and user experience perspective, we’ve advocated refreshing the site through gradual enhancements, instead of a massive, all-at-once redesign.

I’m excited at the chance to steer some real accessibility improvement on this project. This is a chance to get in there and make immediate improvements.

Some of the things I aim to do right out of the gate are:

These are easy “quick wins” that can be done without massive amounts of effort.

Not every accessibility undertaking — or redesign/refresh overall — needs to be a huge undertaking. For one, there may not be a budget to completely overhaul a site. Also, such overhauls can potentially be too sudden and startling a change for visitors who have been there before.

You don’t have to wait for the big, all-encompassing project to make improvements. You can tackle it piece and piece and, incrementally, improve the accessibility.

As I knock off each of those bullets above as well as whatever else I find, the site will become better and better for those who visit via screen readers, keyboard navigation or whatever means they need to. The site will become better and better, period.

Tags: accessibility, alt tags, color contrast, header tags, keyboard navigation, screen readers, usability, user experience

I normally focus on web site accessibility, but after one of my favorite video games of 2009 recently won an award for its consideration to disabled players, it got me thinking about the subject.

First off, kudos to Dragon Age: Origins from Bioware (easily my favorite game maker) for earning 2009 Accessible Game of Year, from the web site Ablegamers.com. The roleplaying epic scored a 9.8 out of 10.

I’m somewhat embarrassed to say that despite web accessibility and video games being two of my greatest interests, I hadn’t really given the concept of the two together much thought.

Without having done a lot of research on the subject (yet!), my initial hunch is that a lot of game developers probably don’t pay a lot attention to disabled gamers. I hope that’s an unfair assumption.

Some may say, “How can you make a computer or video game accessible for everybody? There are just some things you can’t do if you have a disability.” Some games more than others can’t be made universally usable.

But as I think about it, there are more than just subtitles that can make games easier to use for those with sight, hearing or physical limitations. And like web surfing, there’s no doubt a vast range of disabled people who love playing computer and video games. If something happened to my sight, hearing or dexterity, my love for games wouldn’t wane.

Some things that come to mind that are similar between web browsing and game playing:

In short, while you cannot make all games universally playable for all people regardless of limitations, there are plenty of ways to up the accessibility. And like web accessibility, many of these features are useful even if you don’t have a disability.

For example, I don’t have a hearing impairment, but I always play games with subtitles on. In part, I play games at night when my wife is asleep and I don’t want the noise bothering her. Also, I just plain enjoy having the text to read along with the audio.

All I know is that Dragon Age: Origins is a phenomenal game, and they found numerous ways to address some of the issues above as well as others.

I’m not about to change this blog to “the art of web and game accessibility”, but this is a topic that I’m going to further explore.

Tags: bioware, computer games, dragon age, game accessibility, Video Games

I’m excited to mention that there will be an accessibility presentation right here in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area this month.

On January 18th, “Multiple Facets of Accessible Design” will take place at IndependenceFirst. Shawn Henry from the W3C and Scott Mayer from the American Family Usability Department will be the guest speakers.

Those of you who follow this blog may recall the three-part interview I conducted with Carol Voss from IndependenceFirst last July. I really enjoyed that experience and am very much looking forward to making my first visit to their facilities. Part of the evening’s events includes a tour of IndependenceFirst.

The event is being held by MilwauCHI, the Milwaukee-based chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction.

For more information, visit the MilwauCHI web site.

Related Links:

Tags: association for computing machinery special interest group, computer-human interaction, IndependenceFIRST, milwauCHI, milwaukee, Scott Mayer, shawn henry, usability, W3C

I was just recalling a recent firsthand experience with web accessibility ignorance, and thought I’d share, to kick off 2010.

Not long ago, I was involved in a conversation about incorporating security measures to a registration process on an e-commerce website. One solution that emerged was using CAPTCHA.

For those of you not familiar with the term, CAPTCHA is a process used to protect web sites from automated agents (bots, scripts, etcetera). This is most often done through adding a step in which a user must decipher distorted or obscured characters, or solve a puzzle.

The traditional implementation of CAPTCHA has met with significant outcry from the accessibility minded. Quite simply, how can a blind or visually-impaired user be expected to discern garbled characters on the screen? In such cases, the visually disabled are simply unable to do whatever it is that the CAPTCHA stands in front of, such as registering on a site before purchasing and accessing information.

Alternatives have emerged such as providing an audio equivalent, like reCAPTCHA does.

Anyway, when CAPTCHA came up in my scenario, I quickly pointed out that, whatever solution we seek, we must ensure we’re using a security method that doesn’t render the site inoperable by the visually disabled.

One person responded by pantomiming being blind, finding himself to be hysterical in the process. Another person said — and to get the full effect, be sure to insert dripping sarcasm — “Yeah, because blind people use the Web”.

Even as I typed that, it sounded ridiculous and made up. Needless to say, I was floored by such over-the-top ignorance. I don’t expect everybody to suddenly embrace accessibility because I have, but still hoped that my insight would be taken somewhat seriously, not met with jokes and quips.

I’d like to think that such reactions are rare and will only decrease in the web industry, as accessibility becomes more and more a hot button issue. Some businesses and web services are better than others.

My response, by the way, was something to the effect of, “I imagine there were people at Target.com who made light of accessibility before the multi-million dollar lawsuit.”

Tags: accessibility, CAPTCHA, reCAPTCHA