Web accessibility for all

Why accessibility of web pages should be of concern to journalists and why information access technologies should be careful not marginalise people.

As a journalist operating in the new media age it is important that I ensure the content I produce does not marginalise people. In terms of online media, this means the web pages I create must be accessible to everyone: including those who are physically disabled, as well as those who are disadvantaged in terms of the quality of their internet connection and limited bandwidth.

Before reading on this topic, I have to admit that I had not considered users who have visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, and neurological disabilities and was not aware that organisations and initiatives such as that of the W3C existed to promote web accessibility for people with disabilities. In investigating web accessibility it became clear to me that “most web sites and web software have accessibility barriers that make it difficult or impossible for many people with disabilities to use the Web” [1].

These accessibility issues are a real setback for someone producing media which should be freely available to the whole public. When thinking about what the web has come to mean to people today I realise that it is an essential resource for millions of people, including those who are disabled. In fact, the web can be an even more valuable resource for a disabled person, because it can “help people with disabilities more actively participate in society” [1] as well as offers the “the possibility of unprecedented access to information and interaction” [1].

I am sure that media would form a (probably large) portion of the information which disabled people consume and thus as journalists we have a responsibility to take web accessibility for all into consideration. Thus as a content developer, I need to take different people with their different situations into consideration and design user-friendly and accessible web pages.

This can be achieved for example through using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) which allows the XHTML author to “have more control over their pages, make those pages more accessible to people with low vision, and by sharing the style sheets, will often shorten page download times for all users” [2].

Some other key tools can be used when striving for greater web accessibility such as text equivalents, user agents and non-text equivalents. Text content, which conveys the same function and purpose, can be provided instead of images. This helps those with sensory and other disabilities as well as helping users find pages more quickly. User agents such as screen readers and Braille displays present the information to the user. Lastly, non-text equivalents of text are helpful for those who may have learning or cognitive disabilities or those who may be deaf.

While the full span of web accessibility guidelines are too vast to discuss here, there is an important lesson to be learnt: journalists have a responsibility to consider their entire audience and think creatively and usefully about how to ensure web pages are accessible to the greatest number of people. It seems that learning XHTML as we are currently doing in our new media course at Rhodes, and through using this in tandem with style sheets, are steps in the right direction to greater web accessibility. As the W3C point out, we need to consider that many users are operating in contexts very different from our own [2] and we need to consider all possible users in an equal manner and cater accordingly.

Works Cited

[1] W3C Web Accessibility Initiative. 2005. Introduction to Web Accessibility. Retrieved on the World Wide Web on 07 March 2007: http://www.w3.org/WAI/

[2] W3C Recommendation. 1999. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. Retrieved from the World Wide Web on 07 March 2007: http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/