Accessibility And Usability Regulations

Preamble

The Special Education Needs and Disability Act 2001 (SENDA) removes the exemptions from the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) which gave colleges and universities more time to make their campuses and teaching facilities compliant with the accessibility legislation.

The Disability Discrimination Act 2005 (DDA) builds on and extends earlier disability discrimination legislation, principally the DDA 1995.

The SENDA and the DDA state that we must make:

• provision of accessible institutional services, including departmental, faculty and institutional web sites,
• provision of accessible educational services, such as Virtual and Managed Learning Environments (VLEs and MLEs), digital resources, online teaching material and handbooks etc.

For more info on SENDA and the DDA please see the TechDis website.

Usability is a separate but linked aspect of accessibility.  A site can be technically accessible to users with disabilities, but may fail to do its job of providing information if it has been poorly designed.  Web authors need to ensure that their site has a coherent and easily understood structure embedded within a well designed user interface (We recommend that web authors take some time out to familiarise themselves with the writings of Jakob Nielsen).

It is with these things in mind that we have put together the following set of accessibility and usability regulations for web authors to use.

The Accessibility And Usability Regulations

Wherever reasonably possible you must make sure that:

1. pages comply with all priority 1 checkpoints of the W3Cs Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (and ideally the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 DRAFT).  This gives web-sites a conformance level of "A", which is the most basic level for an accessible site.
2. frameset pages (including inline frames) are not used in a website (REASON: They cause confusion for users running speaking web browsers).
3. the minimum font size is 8point (10pixels at 72ppi) high.
4. the text colour has a high contrast against its background colour, and that you do not use an excessively patterned background for web-pages (REASON: dyslexics find reading text against a patterned or a low contrasting background difficult).
5. you break text down into easy to read sections (REASON: A wall of text is deadly for an interactive experience; intimidating, boring, and painful to read).  Write for online, not print. Break long pages down into separate short pages with a table of contents on an introduction page (REASON: Long pages take a long time to download, and users hate to scroll).  If you must have a long page, use well placed target or bookmark points.  To draw users into the text and support scan-ability, use well-documented tricks such as:
   • subheads,
   • bulleted lists,
   • highlighted keywords,
   • short paragraphs,
   • a simple writing style.
   • follow our editorial regulations.
6. you keep URLs short and to the point.
7. table based layouts are not to be used in any web-pages (REASON: Tables make web-pages almost impossible to read if you are using a speaking web-browser).  Tables are only to be used for tabular data.
8. multimedia files such as video, animation and audio must have a text based transcript or alternative HTML content available alongside them.
9. you don't just rely on JavaScript to do form field validation.  You should also use server-side validation (REASON: Not everyone has JavaScript turned on in their web browser, especially those with sight disabilities using text or speaking browsers).
10. you don't use JavaScript to create pop-up windows (REASON: those with sight disabilities using text or speaking browsers find it difficult to navigate between multiple windows.  Their web browsers may also not be JavaScript enabled).
11. you don't use JavaScript DOM manipulation or Shockwave Flash as the only means of accessing pages or site navigation.  You should always provide an alternative method of navigating a site that is accessible to users with disabilities.
12. you don't assume that everyone accessing the site will be using a mouse to navigate.  Some people can only use a keyboard to select links.
13. in navigation, the link target area is significantly large enough that someone with reduced mobility will be able to click the link.

We suggest that:

1. pages comply with all priority 2 checkpoints of the W3Cs Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (and ideally the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 DRAFT).  This gives web-sites a conformance level of "AA", which is the recommended level for an accessible site.
2. we recommend that 10point (12pixels at 72ppi) high text is used whenever possible.
3. you avoid PDF for on-screen reading.  Only use PDF for documents that users are likely to print.
4. you avoid putting non standard or proprietary formatted files on our web-servers.  These file-types include (but are not limited to) MS Word (.doc), MS Excel (.xls), and MS Access (.mdb) documents.  If you must put a file on the server you should place an HTML version of the document online alongside it describing (and where possible reproducing) its content.  (REASON: Not all users have the software to play or load every type of document, so you should put it online in its most basic format - HTML).
5. you keep mailto: links out of blocks of text.  These links are better suited to web profiles and separate "contact details" pages.