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Basic Guide to Accessibility

Last updated: 01 September 2010
Published in: Creating new digital media | Managing your digital resources |
Tags: accessibility |

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This paper looks at the issue of accessibility. The topic is introduced and defined and then the term 'reasonable adjustment' is explained. The advantages of digital media for accessibility are discussed, followed by sets of guidelines and a basic accessibility check that can be performed on existing documents.

Note

This document is intended as a very basic introduction to the subject of accessibility. This vast subject is dealt with in depth by our sister service JISC TechDis. Pointers to various TechDis resources appear throughout this document: they should be considered a stepping-off point for exploration of the wealth of material TechDis supplies.

In a teaching situation, accessibility issues will affect not only the types of materials used but also how they are used. While such pedagogical aspects are dealt with in TechDis resources, they are beyond the scope of this document.

Introduction
What's 'reasonable adjustment'?
Why digital media makes it easy
Brief guidelines
1. Audio
2. Still images
3. Moving images
Accessibility check

Introduction

The term ‘accessibility’ refers to the extent to which a work can be comprehended by its audience. To increase the accessibility of a work is to increase the potential audience for that work. One way of increasing the accessibility of a work is to address the limitations of the medium used for the work, e.g. making paper copies of a web document for distribution to readers who do not have web access. However, the most common usage of the term ‘accessibility’ in the creation of media refers to addressing limitations due to various forms of perceptual or physical impairment on the part of the potential audience.

Creators of digital media may be reluctant to address issues of accessibility when creating or managing digital media. They may consider increasing the accessibility of media to be time-consuming and expensive and feel that the results of these efforts would be unlikely ever to be used. However, and particularly in the age of digital media, all of these points are wrong. Media may be altered or enhanced very easily and quickly in ways that increase their usability for a large percentage of the population.

Increasing the accessibility of media can mean providing alternatives for people who cannot use it in its original form. But this is not all. It can also mean making its use easier for those who can use it in its original form. Anything which makes usage of your media easier for anyone is increasing its accessibility, even something as simple as changing a background colour or switching to a sans serif font.

So accessibility can be increased in some respects with little effort or expense on the part of the creator. This still doesn’t explain why the effort should be made at all.

You may not know if your accessibility-enhanced work will be consumed. On the other hand, you don’t know if it will be ignored either. You don’t know who will need your work. What you do know is that you want to reach the widest possible audience and that increasing your work’s accessibility increases that audience.

Don’t forget, too, that some forms of impairment are quite common: 1 in 12 males has some form of colour blindness. 4 per cent of the population has some form of dyslexia.

But if these arguments aren’t compelling, here’s one that should be: you should increase the accessibility of your work because it’s the law. You are required to make “reasonable adjustments” in order to increase the accessibility of anything you create.

What's 'reasonable adjustment'?

'Reasonable adjustment' is a term which, if you have not already encountered it, you inevitably will when dealing with accessibility issues. Simply put, it refers to the changes you have to make in order to meet the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act. Failure to do these constitutes discrimination.

Pay particular attention to the word ‘reasonable’ – you are not expected to make all of your materials accessible to every single person on the planet. But neither are you permitted to do nothing.

Why digital media makes it easy

One of the benefits of creating and using digital media is that making reasonable adjustments often requires very little effort. Font, font size, colour, the size of images and the arrangement of the elements of the work can be altered very simply. Multiple versions of works can be created with ease. Works can also be converted to different media with little effort.

Works can also be enhanced with little effort to increase accessibility. One can add audio or still or moving images to documents, or to existing audio, still images and moving images. Text can be added to video, either as captions, description or subtitling.

In fact, there is such a wealth of things that potentially may be done to increase accessibility, it may feel difficult to know just what to do. Fortunately, TechDis has an extensive collection of guidelines which clearly explain what ought to be done.

Brief guidelines

Here is a short introduction to the guidelines for reasonable adjustment of digital media; for more detail, the relevant links to the TechDis website are given.

Audio

Any audio material should be an adjunct to, not a replacement for good textual material.
Where audio is provided, it should be accompanied by transcripts.
For more detailed advice, consult the TechDis document on adding value to audio based resources.

Still images

Any photographic material should be an adjunct, not a replacement for good textual material.
Confirm that the material works in black and white as well as in colour.
All still images should be accompanied by a detailed description (a caption, an ALT tag and/or an audio file) that can take the place of the image in cases where it cannot be viewed. This should not only describe the image but also explain what the material is illustrating.
For more detailed advice, consult the TechDis document on adding value to image based resources.
TechDis also provides a general introduction and a more detailed discussion about reasonable adjustment for still images.

Moving images

Any video material should be an adjunct, not a replacement for good textual material.
Confirm that the material works in black and white as well as in colour.
All moving images should be accompanied by a detailed description (a caption and/or an audio file) that can take the place of the moving image in cases where it cannot be viewed. This should not only describe the image but also explain what the material is illustrating.
Moving images can also incorporate such things as subtitling, audio description and transcripts.
For more detailed advice, consult the TechDis document on adding value to moving images.
TechDis also provides two documents which cover complementary issues concerning reasonable adjustment for audio and moving images.

Accessibility check

By performing a few simple checks and making the required changes, you can go a long way towards increasing the accessibility of your website. Note that this list is by no means comprehensive; however, it will serve as a good starting for achieving reasonable adjustment and giving you a good set of guidelines to follow in the future.

Check that all videos/photos work in black and white. All images should be clear and elements in them easy to distinguish. Any text in the images should be easy to read and not dependent on colour for its legibility. If all images work in black and white, they will work in colour as well.
Still images are normally indicated in HTML with the <img> tag, which has the following format:

<img src="ml.jpg" alt="The Mona Lisa, a woman smiling enigmatically at the viewer.">

You should ensure that all images include the ALT attribute. This is useful not only for situations where the image doesn’t load, but also if the document is read by a screen reader. Note that the ALT attribute is actually required for HTML to meet the standards for HTML. The ALT attribute has quite extensive guidelines regarding its content, but it will suffice here to say that it should not necessarily be a description of the image but rather a replacement for the image. This means that the content of the tag may vary depending on the context in which it is used.
In addition to the ALT attribute it is recommended that all images have a TITLE attribute. On modern browsers, this will provide text which appears when the cursor is rolled over the image. If a longer description or a supporting document is desired, you may also wish to use the LONGDESC attribute.
All videos in documents should be preceded with an explanation of the video’s intention.
The newest version of the HTML 5 specification includes a <video> tag, but it does not have an ALT attribute. In fact, the spec states that, “…content is not intended to address accessibility concerns. To make video content accessible to the blind, deaf, and those with other physical or cognitive disabilities, authors are expected to provide alternative media streams and/or to embed accessibility aids (such as caption or subtitle tracks, audio description tracks, or sign-language overlays) into their media streams.”
In addition to the suggestions made by the HTML 5 spec, add a description of the video’s content in the text before or after the video to perform the same function that ALT text does for images.
Depending on the content and intention of a video, it may suffice to provide a link to a transcript of the video’s soundtrack.

Last updated: 01 September 2010
Published in: Creating new digital media | Managing your digital resources |
Tags: accessibility |

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