I said it does not cost more to build a WCAG 1.0 level 2 compliant website if your developer knows what they where doing. The two developers sitting either side of us ( one state government and one private enterprise) agreed, yet this person kept saying it costs more money.

The private enterprise developer then asked why don’t you include the requirement for WCAG 1.0 level 2 compliance in their website tender. The response it is too expensive. Asked if they ever tried, no it is too expensive was the response.

It is not 2000, when Maguire vs SOCOG decision was new and fresh and understanding of website accessibility amongst developers was limited. For the past 10 years, Australians website developers and Government Agencies have known the Disability Discrimination Act applies to websites. If you can not build a WCAG 1.0 level 2 compliant website in 2009, you do not need extra money to fix it, you need to look at website business practices and bring them into the 21st century.

However, with the State Library website, the audience is very different, < 1% use 1600px+ screen, over 10% use 800px by 600px (though half of these are within the library and due to be replaced soon), less tech savy, are generally older and more likely to need larger font sizes. Which is more likely to push the width of the design larger than the user’s screen and force the user to scroll horizontally or miss some of the content.

I am thinking instead of using ems for horizontal measurements, use percentages. With the exception of the page container, which is sized in ems. Then use javascript to reduce the width of the page container, to the width of the browser, if the user’s font size is larger than normal and would force the page wider than the browser window.

In theory it would work like this:

• If the browser is less 900px wide, or no javascript the user gets the base stylesheet.
• If the browser is great than 900px wide, an elastic design based on the user’s font size.
• If the user’s font size would force the page wider than the browser width. The page and design, scale to fit the browser width.

Or am I just over designing the issue, should I just use one design either for 800px or 1024px screens and use that? Your thoughts?

I am not just talking about outback Western Australia here, there are a number of what the Federal Minister for Broadband Stephen Conroy calls broadband blackspots areas in metropolitan areas of major cities in Australia. You just need to visit Whirlpool broadband forums to see this is a common problem. If you are not in an outlying suburb, you have an alternative in relatively inexpensive mobile broadband from providers like Three, Vodafone or even Optus. If you are unfortunate to live in a broadband blackspot in an outer metropolitan areas, like certain suburbs in and around Rockingham, a few kilometres from my house. Your choices are restricted to:

• Dialup and that is usually 28.8k, taking 5 minutes or longer to open the Premier’s home page;
• Telstra Next G network, you get very fast mobile broadband but at a cost, over $300 for a modem and at the casual download rate of $2.00 a Mb, hence the post title; or
• Get Mobile Broadband through Optus or Vodafone and use their 2G network, for a stunning maximum speed of 128k and a two year contract.

And if you live in regional Western Australia, you don’t even get the choice. It is dialup or Telstra and their prices. I will be using their $2.00 a Mb as a response, when people ask to put large graphics or PDFs on a site.

If you are building a website aimed at businesses in Perth, you can build heavy sites just for broadband. But if you want to reach all Western Australians, which you would expect with a site like the West Australian Premier, you need to cater for the small but significant number of people who can not get or afford broadband.

Up until a couple of years ago, I mistakenly believed that captioning was just a souped up version of subtitling. I was very wrong.

I learnt a lot about captioning working with a hearing impaired colleague to arrange captioning of a work video, a few years ago.

One of the main issues is there is no standard or even code of practise for captioning in Australia. Back then there was regulations (now legislation) on the amount of television that must be captioned, but nothing on the quality of captioning.

In 2004 the <a href=“http://www.deafnessforum.org.au>Deafness Forum of Australia started campaigning for improved quality of captioning and produced a Captioning Quality Code of Practice. While this appeared to gain some traction initially within the industry. 3 years later little seems to of changed, a quick visit to the free to air TV peak group, fails to find any mention of captioning (except a technical document on how to caption).

Joe Clark and others in the Open and Closed Project have started Captioning Sucks to try and get people to understand the problems with captioning and make some changes. Hopefully this will extend outside of North America.

WCAG WCAG+2.0

Joe Clark is using micropatronage to support the funding of a research project. Micropatronage is getting lots of small donations from many people. If you participate you will not be funding the Open and Closed Project, but supporting Joe as he tries to raise the money some $7 million dollars canadian for the life of the project (or at least CA$400,000 for the first year).

I participated, not because I am friends with Joe. From what I know about Joe, if we physically meet, violence (of a verbal nature) is the most likely outcome. But because I believe in what the Open and Closed Project is trying to do, write standards for captioning, audio description, subtitling, and dubbing. And know that Joe is passionate about the cause and is the best person for the task.

I am currently reading Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance and I am learning a few interesting things. I have been selectively reading chapters, the chapter I have found most interesting so far is Accessible Flash. Which says for flash to be accessible to a screen reader, the user must have:

1. Windows 98, 2000 or XP;
2. Internet Explorer 5 or better;
3. A recent version of one of five screen reader soft packages,
4. Flash plugin version 6 or better;

Any other OS or another browser and flash is not accessible to a screen reader. It has to do with the Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) API. MSAA works very well with Microsoft products and this is what Flash uses to make content accessible to screen readers. Firefox does not work as effectively as IE with MSAA, however, Mozilla have been working hard to make Firefox accessible to screen readers via MSAA and it does with both JAWS and Windows Eyes screen reading software (with some limitations). Adobe has yet to come to the party, Flash only talks to MSAA via IE not FF.

I do not know how much work Adobe have done with the Apple API used for Voice Over built into Tiger or the Linux screen reader API, but at the moment Flash is only accessible to screen readers that meet certain specifications.

Even if you have the hardware and software required, Flash is still not accessible unless the creators of the movie know how to make it accessible and then took the time to make it accessible. Even though I am a fan of Flash for some tasks, I will use HTML over Flash for accessible content, because it is quicker for me and does not place restrictions on the end user

I am sure it worked better as a presentation than it will as podcast or transcript reading exercise. The slides are available, but without the audio or transcript they will make little sense. I suggest that if you want learn more about accessible forms, almost all of the techniques I discussed can be found at:

• Derek Featherstone’s Simply Accessible
• Roger Hudson’s Accessible Forms

It was their presentations at Web Essentials 05 I used as a basis for this presentation.

Very few people make complaints about website accessibility in Australia. The Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission provide information on the complaints they deal with, and in the past six years since Maquire vs. SOCOG, HREOC indicated there has only been three complaints. All three were from people with visual impairments trying to access information that was significant to them. Most importantly all three were resolved to the satisfaction of the person lodging the complaint. Given the number of Australians with disabilities accessing the web and the number of inaccessible Australian websites, this number is very low.

So my advice for avoiding complaints about website accessibility in Australia is:

1. Build the most accessible website you can with the resources available;
2. Make sure the website works in a screen reader; you can get a demo version of JAWS to run on a USB stick.
3. Make sure if anybody has queries or problems about the website’s accessibility, be they clients, website visitors or anybody else. The can easily contact your “accessibility person”. A person in your organisation with great communication skills, who can identify what the problem is and arrange a solution.

The presentation slides are available, but without the podcast or transcript, they will little sense as they are just visual cues.

It would not surprise me, that it was one web development company that created a quote application for one insurance company and then sold the application to other insurance companies, the message stating IE was required was remarkable similar and condescending. It would of been a relatively easy sale, company X and Y are providing online quotes, you need to do it or miss out.

The problem is now you have the great majority of insurance companies fighting for 85% of the market. The 15% of internet users who use an operating system other that windows or a web browser other than internet explorer, and these are the tech savvy and with a higher income than the average internet users are only being served by very few insurance companies. The only one I found was www.australianunity.com.au

I am sure the bean counters behind the sites that require IE would argue that that at the time their site would provide quotes to 95% of all customers. But that was then, now if my sample of insurance companies is roughly right and only one in six insurance companies support browsers other than IE. You have 100% of the insurance companies serving 85% of potential customers and 15% (1 in 6) of the insurance companies serving 15% of potential customers (Mac, Linux, Firefox, Opera, etc users). Which mean companies like australianunity.com.au are probably doing twice the business online that the IE only companies are. It is simple mathematics 85% divided by 6 is %15 share + 15% not tapped by the other companies. Compare to 85% divided by 6, %15 share for the IE only companies.

There is also something called the Disabilities Discrimination Act, which makes it illegal to discriminate against disabled users in Australia. Maguire vs SOCOG anyone?. An insurance companies that requires a visually impaired user who chose a Mac or Linux computer because the screen reading software is free is required to purchase a new operating system, new screen reading software and to pay for somebody to install it (at least $1500) just to use the insurance company’ web site, really needs to assess what will happen if somebody makes a complaint.

Also had a few interesting experiences using various insurance companies sites but that is another post.

Ethical blogging note, I chose to link to one insurance company because they are doing the right thing as far as browser choice goes. They are not my insurance company, yet.

browser choice, good business , bad business