Section C·Page 18
The University Daily Kansan
Monday, August 21, 2000
Web surfers with disabilities face hazards to navigation
By Ryan Haga
Special to the Kansan
Johnna Godinez, a graduate student in special education, is lost on a sea of electronic text.
Godinez has retinitis pigmentosa, a type of tunnel vision that affects her peripheral vision. She can see only within a rounded oval. At the edges of that oval, she sees a constant strobe of flashing points of light.
To use the Internet, Godinez must use a program called Zoomtext that magnifies the letters on her screen up to 16 times their normal size. Even with this program, surfing the Web can be incredibly difficult.
"Colors are a challenge," Godinez said. "It is easier to read with contrasting colors. Light green letters on a white background slow me down because it is difficult to read. Black on white or white on black would be better. Graphics can also be very confusing."
People who have problems seeing or hearing,or have limited use of their arms and hands,have trouble getting on the information superhighway.
Robert Tabor, a Lawrence claims attorney, is blind. He uses a text-to-speech browser to navigate the Internet.
Web designers say too many people see the Web as a visual medium instead of an information medium. The same experts say that information retrieval is the main function of the Internet and that if more designers saw it that way, then everyone would be better off.
"But in reality," she said, "that philosophy makes surfing more time-consuming and harder to navigate for everyone, not just disabled people."
The browser reads aloud the text and links on a page. But when an image appears, all Tabor hears is "Image." If the page is composed mostly of graphics, he will hear "Image," again and again.
Carine Ullom, software trainer and documentation specialist at the University of Kansas, said people often thought visually oriented Web sites were the best.
Navigating without seeing
Ullom teaches a class to students and faculty about Internet accessibility twice a semester. The class gives an overview of accessibility issues and provides exposure to some of the quick, easy and basic things to do to make a Web site more accessible.
Last year, Ullom suggested that Academic Computing Services begin including accessibility training in its Web-authoring classes. ACS took her advice.
"We teach in order to promote accessible Web sites from the beginning, instead of trying to teach people to retrofit their page later," she said.
The class demonstrates what it's like to use a speech-only browser and navigate a Web page with only a keyboard and no mouse.
"We try to show how much more time-consuming and frustrating it is to navigate without the use of graphics," said Ullom. "It is very revealing to hear how a browser pronounces words and how a person can tell exactly where they are on the page."
Accessibility solutions
Internet accessibility became a major issue recently because of the threat of lawsuits against both government and private Web sites.
Ben Isaacson, executive director
Last November, the National Federation for the Blind filed a lawsuit against America Online, contending that the 'company's online software was inaccessible. As a result, the Constitution subcommittee of the U.S. House Judiciary committee held hearings to determine possible applications of the Americans with Disabilities Act to private Internet sites.
The Justice Department has said the ADA ought to apply to commercial Web sites. This interpretation of the law stirred criticism from some business and online groups, which said that Web sites would have to remove images, live video and audio streams to comply.
Isaacson told the Boston Herald that because the Internet industry will do anything to gain an additional market share, there was no need for government regulation for Internet accessibility.
Photo illustration by Kyle Ramsey/KANSAN
Isaacson seems to be right.
AOL already has announced that a new version of its software will be released later this year that will improve accessibility for disabled users. This could make the Federation for the Blind's lawsuit moot.
Graphics need not be abandoned, Ullom said, because providing alternative text for graphics actually is very simple.
"Lynx software (a popular speech browser) will only identify a graphic by saying 'Image,' she said. "With alternative text, the graphic or link can be described by
Room for improvement
Most Web sites still remain too dependent on graphics and inaccessible to impaired users.
The World Wide Web Consortium, which standardizes
the web, started the Web Accessibility Initiative. The initiative lists 14 guidelines to make a Web site accessible.
"Web sites change so often and vary so much from page to page that a sight-impaired user is often not able to skip through choices they know should be coming," she said. "This wastes a lot of time."
The other quick fix, she said, was to make links complete sentences or phrases so that users would have some context to understand where the link leads.
Ullom said she would add two additional guidelines to the list. One is keeping the page consistent.
"If a user chooses to listen only to the links on a page, it can often be very confusing, especially if the link reads 'click here' or 'info'. If the link takes you to a page about computer class schedules, the link
read 'computer class schedule' instead of 'schedule' or just having a link that says 'info,'" Ullom said.
Judy Brewer, director of the WA1 International Program office, said that Web accessibility solutions generally were inexpensive and easy to implement and that they represented good Web design.
Bright spots on the horizon Designers and Web masters are beginning to take note.
Christopher Ryan, creator of the School of Journalism's Digital Jayhawk, is attempting to make the Web site accessible to people with disabilities.
"While we are still in the building stages of the Digital Jayhawk and are not completely accessible to the disabled, we are working to separate the presentation from the information," Ryan said.
Ryan intends to have an alternative page with a more barebones presentation and to use alternative text for graphics and photos.
With the increased government and business awareness and the creation of the initiative guidelines, Internet users like Godinez and Tabor should begin to find the Web an easier place navigate.
Johnna Godinez said the site for The Council for Exceptional Children was especially bad, even though it deals with disability issues.
But when Robert Tabor went to Amazon.com to demonstrate its inaccessibility, he was surprised to find a page that was laid out simply and was easy to follow.
"I guess they have improved it since last time I was here," Tabor said.
- Edited by Mindie Miller
Student Employment Job Fair
Tue. Aug. 22, 2000
9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Kansas Union
4th Floor Lobby
Apply for on-campus and off-campus part-time jobs. Many campus departments will be there!
U C E
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