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>From another listserve
Harry
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
http://www.pcworld.com/current_issue/article/0,1212,17690,00.html
Locking Out the Disabled
Office buildings have wheelchair ramps, TV has closed captions, but many
Web sites are inaccessible to people with disabilities. Things don't
have to be that way.
by Judy Heim
Every morning Marlaina Lieberg, who's been blind from birth, reads her
local paper, the Seattle Times, on the Web, with her guide dog,
Madeline, at her feet. Lieberg also taps into Web sites to research
corporations she'll pitch her consulting company's services to and
trades e-mail with clients. In her spare moments, she trades stocks
online and shops for groceries. Last year she bought all her gifts on
the Web.
Lieberg navigates cyberspace with a screen reader, a software utility
that
reads Web pages out loud, chattering like a robot as it recites links
and
text. Surfing the Web without seeing is time-consuming; Lieberg must
orient herself on pages by listening carefully to words rather than
scanning pictures and must navigate using her keyboard instead of a
mouse.
Even so, Lieberg exults over the freedom that the Web has given her.
"These shopping services are so important for people who are unable to
drive, and for those of us who are unable to peruse the aisles," she
says. "It is such a joy. I can even read package directions. I've never
done this sort of thing before."
Lieberg can't navigate every Web site easily with her screen reader,
though. The majority of Web pages are poorly designed for anyone who's
not surfing with a standard copy of Internet Explorer or Netscape
Navigator: Buttons can be hard to identify, Java applets can be
impenetrable, and forms tend to be indecipherable if they're not coded
for a screen reader.
Making Web sites accessible to all potential customers seems like common
sense. One in five Americans has some disability; as the country ages,
that percentage is expected to increase. A Web site that's navigable by
an assistive technology such as a screen reader is also accessible by
phones and palmtops, not to mention by old, slow computers. In addition,
suggests Mike Piper of PiperStudiosInc, designers of an accessible site
for Easter Seals, every site wants to stand out, and the goodwill
generated by maintaining an accessible online presence can be a powerful
way to do that.
Accessibility also makes sense legally: The Justice Department has ruled
that the Americans With Disabilities Act applies to the Web, not just to
places that can be accessed physically. A retailer whose Web site
doesn't
meet ADA standards can be sued under the act, just as a brick-and-mortar
store can.
But as the online world grows more graphical, it becomes less accessible
to disabled users. For years Rose Combs, a blind medical
transcriptionist in Scottsdale, Arizona, used the text-based GEnie
service, which was easy to traverse with a screen reader. When GEnie
shut its doors, Combs found that getting Web tasks accomplished could be
a struggle. "I can't count the times I have had to call my husband to
help me navigate a site," she says.
Web sites also hamper those with nonvisual disabilities. Jamie Berke,
who is deaf, says she has "waged losing battles" trying to convince
network-TV Web sites to provide closed captions for news Webcasts. Even
President Clinton's recent Webcast about government and the Internet
wasn't captioned, notes Berke, who runs a site called the Closed
Captioning Web. "It's hit-or-miss whether a site will be accessible,"
says Joseph Lazzaro, director of the adaptive technology program at the
Massachusetts Commission for the Blind and author of Adapting PCs for
Disabilities (Addison-Wesley, 1995). "If you're cut off from
information, you're not going to go to school, you're not going to get a
job. You're going to be left out of a lot that society has to offer."
Even being a good citizen may pose a challenge. Recently, Arizona became
the first state to let its citizens vote online. But Rose Combs couldn't
cast her cyberballot without assistance.
A Problem Ignored
In recent years, the physical world has adapted to the needs of the
disabled: wheelchair ramps, Braille markings, closed captioning. But of
more than 30 major shopping, search, auction, news, and financial Web
sites that PC World contacted, only a handful admitted any interest
in-much less any action taken toward-tailoring the sites for
accessibility. A spokesperson for one electronics retailer that asked
not to be named said, "That's not a market we've thought about
pursuing." Many Web retailers declined to be interviewed for this
article. Others did not return repeated calls.
Some sites expressed a vague interest in keeping all users happy; others
were dismissive. Anna Lonergan, a spokesperson for The Gap, told us the
company has no plans to make its site accessible. "We're aware of the
technologies but have no plans to implement them," she said. Asked why
not, she replied, "That touches in the realm of strategy, and we don't
discuss strategy."
A spokesperson at one of the country's largest computer retailers said
that the company's Web designers had not even considered the issue until
PC World brought it to their attention. That retailer isn't alone: Until
this article, this magazine hadn't examined the accessibility of its own
site, PCWorld.com. Since then, we've made plans for modest immediate
moves to improve access, such as using larger type and clearer directory
descriptions, as well as for more-substantial long-term efforts.
Why don't more firms keep accessibility in mind? Mike Paciello, a Web
accessibility consultant and technical director for WebAble, a resource
for accessible Web design, says, "They don't see the market. The moment
you tell a company how important it is to their business to make their
Web site accessible, they come back with statistics that the market
isn't big enough for them to spend the money."
Photography by Karen Moskowitz, Rick Friedman, and Katherine Lambert
Access Is Not So Hard
Inside This Article
Locking Out the Disabled
Access Is Not So Hard
Uncle Sam Steps In
Smarter Technology Ahead?
The Talking Web: How It Works-And Doesn't
Learn More About Web Accessibility
Related Stories
Talk Fast: New Speech Recognition Software (8/00)
WeMedia Unveils Equal Access Web Site (12/2/99)
Suing for AOL Access (11/4/99)
TextHelp Screen Reader
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