Digital Accessibility

The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative gives three examples of auditory disabilities:

• Hard of hearing: refers to a person who may experience mild to severe hearing loss in one or both ears. People in this category communicate with spoken words. Often reliant on hearing aids, assistive technologies, and captioning.
• Deafness: usually refers to significant hearing loss that there is very little or no functional hearing.
• Deaf-blind: individuals that are deaf-blind have profound, irreversible hearing and visual impairments.

Auditory solutions

Techniques undertaken when users have an auditory disability can vary, depending on the type of disability users may also have individual preferences.

Subtitles and transcripts are often associated with hearing and visual disabilities. Though people with cognitive impairments may also prefer to read the information, on its own or as the media plays.

Transcripts for Audio and Video Content

Text transcripts should be easy to locate, near the audio or video including links to the audio or video file(s).

The transcript should be thorough and descriptive with the speakers identified. Including key sounds such as footsteps or door knocking, and on-screen information captured.

Transcripts should provide all video and audio information, to the point it will make sense as its own document. Providing the transcript in HTML will also enhance accessibility for users and search engines.

Adding subtitles to Video

Subtitles are vital for ensuring videos are accessible for users with Auditory disabilities. There are two types of captions: open and closed.

Open subtitles are text embedded into the video which can't be changed or removed by the viewer. This will give full control over how these subtitles will look. However, these are more difficult to change as this requires a re-edit of the video itself.

Closed subtitles are often used by media platforms such as YouTube. They have the benefit of editing closed subtitles separately from the video and uploaded.

These conditions or impairments may be momentary, temporary or permanent and impact how people process information. This is inclusive of perception, memory, attention, problem solving and comprehension. The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative gives several examples of cognitive and neurological disabilities inclusive of:

• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): involves difficulty focusing on a single task, focusing for longer periods, or being easily distracted.
• Autism: refers to impairments of social communication and the ability to interact.
• Mental health disabilities: Including anxiety, delirium, schizophrenia and mood disorders. These conditions may cause difficulty focusing, processing, and understanding information.
• Memory impairments: involves short-term memory, missing long-term memory, or limited ability to recall language. Dementia is one among many different causes of memory impairments.
• Perceptual disabilities: This involves impairments in reading or dyslexia, writing or dysgraphia, managing mathematic concepts or dyscalculia.
• Seizure disorders: inclusive of different types of epilepsy and migraines. This is often in reaction to visual or audio stimulation.

Cognitive and Neurological solutions

Users with a cognitive disorder rely on certain factors to ensure they understand information on the web or within applications.

Specific elements such as semantic markup, alt tags and colour contrast are often discussed. Whilst these are essential techniques, consider what is showing up on the screen. Consistency, page layout, navigation and focus are some of the most common issues:

Consistency

Users should be able to learn what to expect from each new page of one site. Features should be consistent with previous pages, in respect of style, location and function.

Page layout

Adding structure to web content makes it more readable and comprehensible to everyone.

Users with certain cognitive or neurological disorders may find it difficult to read long sections of text. Placing all text within smaller sections with appropriate headings will improve readability.

Navigation

After website content site navigation is possibly the most important page element. It should be easy to identify with intuitive menu options, its position and functionality should not change across a site.

If the navigation is too complex, it can be very confusing for people with certain cognitive disorders.

Focus

Colour contrast, unexpected sound, motion and pop-ups are key aspects that influence the ability to focus on the page content.

A common issue for dyslexic individuals is text with too much contrast. While high-contrast text is a requirement of accessible design, too much contrast can make text blur on a page for some users.

Unexpected sound on a webpage can be startling or distracting. Sounds that play without the user interacting with the source may cause confusion.

Motion, animation and flickering content can induce seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy. Movement on a page can be distracting if it happens automatically, particularly when there is no warning.

Pop up windows and automatically loading content in new tabs moves attention away from the whole page — thus causing confusion.

The best strategy for cognitive and neurological users is to provide clear content in an easy to use interface with few distractions.

The cause of these impairments can result from two scenarios and may be permanent or temporary. Congenital conditions where the user is born with their physical condition or may emerge over time.

Whereas acquired conditions may originate from infection, disease or accidents. This can also occur due to a medical condition or the side effects of medication.

The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative gives examples of physical disabilities inclusive of:

• Arthritis: most common among the elderly but can also occur in young people. Joint pain caused by advanced arthritis can lead to fatigue when using a mouse or keyboard and may prompt a user to switch to alternative controls.
• Cerebral palsy: a brain abnormality resulting in a loss of muscle control. The condition can cause spasms in the muscles, involuntary movements and speech impairments.
• Limb loss: loss or damage may impact a user's ability to operate a computer when the injury has occurred to the arm or hand.
• Multiple sclerosis: symptoms vary widely and tend to change over time, including tremors, weakness, numbness, unstable walking, slurred speech, muscle stiffness, impaired memory, and partial or complete paralysis.
• Parkinson’s disease: a central nervous system disorder causing both muscle rigidity and muscle tremors. Users with advanced cases may be unable to use a computer mouse, keyboard or voice interface. They may be reliant on complex assistive technologies to navigate the web.

Assistive Technologies

Assistive technology(AT) describes devices and software that help disabled user's live more independently.

This includes screen readers, braille displays, screen magnifiers and screen readers. Devices more closely aligned to motor impairments may include head wands, sip-and-puff devices, eye-tracking devices and adaptive keyboards.

Physical Disability solutions

Assistive technologies alone are insufficient to make the web accessible to physically disabled users. Consider some of the following techniques, Focus & Hover, Forms, Time limits and Skip links when designing or upgrading digital products:

Focus and Hover

All browsers display a visible outline around the element that currently has keyboard focus.

Focus styles are essential for people using keyboards and keyboard emulators. Default styles alone are insufficient as they may be difficult to see or are not noticeable on dark or saturated backgrounds.

Hover may show something is interactive when using a mouse, though may not work on touch devices.

Often new content only displays when the mouse pointer hovers over the trigger element. The same elements must also trigger when using focus for keyboard users.

Forms

For some users not just the mouse is hard to control, but the keyboard too. Though they may not be able to control either of these devices with a high level of precision.

Thus, it is important that all website forms are tolerant of any errors. For example highlighting submission errors or data entry errors.

Highlighting errors with clear visual indicators and clearly written instructions is essential.

Time limits

Online forms and surveys are often designed without physically impaired people in mind. Users may need more time than others to complete a task.

Generally people with physical disabilities need more time to complete these tasks.

If security concerns require a time limit its important to warn users in advance before the time limit expires.

Skip links

Keyboard only users interact with a website by using the tab key to skip through all links. Often a webpage may also include navigation down the left side of the page.

Mouse users can ignore the links and go directly to the main content. Though for keyboard only users fatigue can set in by using small muscle groups for every action.

The Skip links are always positioned at the top of the page. By using Skip links this enables the user to bypass navigation links to get to the main portions of the page.

Some conditions may cause slurring or stuttering, preventing individuals from expressing themselves.

People with speech related disabilities may use communication boards or other assistive devices. They may also be accompanied by a communication support person. Several conditions include:

• Dysarthria: weakness or paralysis of the muscles required to speak, including lips, lungs, throat, and tongue.
• Stuttering: speaking with continued involuntary repetition of sounds, especially initial consonants.
• Mutism: Characterized by a person’s inability to make any speech sound, this is the most extreme type of speech disorder. This can happen naturally at birth or may be genetic.
• Apraxia: where the neural pathway between the brain and a person's speech function is lost or obscured. The person knows what they want to say but the brain is unable to send the correct messages.

Communication solutions

Voice activation and interaction is becoming more common within technology. One of the more common tools is the voice command in applications, websites and devices.

This may be convenient, though users with speech impairments will need alternative options.

Alternative options for speech-based commands are essential, always offer the choice to type information as opposed to speaking only (e.g. text-based chat, e-mail and feedback forms). Keep in mind that not every user will be able to speak to a representative or interact with AI in the same way.

As well as low vision, there are many other sight impairments which make it difficult for people to see websites. The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative gives several examples of visual disabilities including:

• Colour blindness: difficulty distinguishing between colours. Generally red and green, or yellow and blue and sometimes the inability to perceive any colour.
• Low vision: includes blurry vision, seeing only the middle of the visual field, seeing only the edges of the visual field, and clouded vision.
• Blindness: substantial loss of vision in both eyes.

Visual solutions

Visually impaired users often rely on assistive technology to access the internet. Familiar devices include screen readers, screen enlargement tools and braille displays.

Users with visual disabilities vary by the type and extent of their condition and may have specific preferences. HTML layout, Heading structure, Colour contrast, Keyboard accessibility, Non-HTML content, Navigation links and alt text are some of the more common issues:

HTML layout

Screen readers rely on HTML with no styling though some readers can be influenced by CSS styling of a page. This can create issues when the screen reader is determining what should be read first on the page.

Structure HTML in the same way as a printed document, in a logical order from left to right and top to bottom.

Heading structure

Sighted users often skim pages by reading the visual headings. Though a screen reader user also skims the page by quickly traversing the headings.

Heading (h1 to h6) elements are used to structure content. There should be only one h1 element per page, and no gaps in the heading structure. For example there should be no h3 heading element if there is no h2 element.

Keyboard accessibility

People with visual impairments may find the use of a mouse difficult, so use the keyboard to navigate.

Any interactions and information that can be accessed with a mouse, must also be accessible with the keyboard.

Non-HTML content

Non-HTML content including PDF files, PowerPoint presentations or Word documents must be accessible. Tags can be added to PDF files for navigation by a screen reader, whilst PowerPoint and Word offer an Accessibility Checker function within the software.

If the original intention of a Non-HTML document was for print only, as soon as it is either emailed or put on a website accessibility standards apply.

Navigation links

If navigation is not coded well screen readers are unable to detect navigation if not coded well. And when the screen reader does find it on a page it won't know whether to skip over it.

Visually impaired users would have to listen to the navigation every time they load a new page. The addition of skip to content link and accurate assignment of ARIA roles will benefit screen reader users.

Alt text

The alt text should be the most concise description possible of the image’s purpose. Where appropriate a short phrase or sentence is necessary for screen readers to decipher. The empty text alternative (alt="") is used to hide decorative images.