Proposed Guidelines for Web Accessibility in the Travel Industry

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Proposed Guidelines for Web Accessibility in the
Travel Industry

• R.J. Zaworski, and K.M. Hunter-Zaworski, NCAT
• TRANSED 2007, Montreal, Canada

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OUTLINE

• Description of Problem
• Purpose of Guideline
• Guideline Structure

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Background

• Demographics over 25 of people over 65 by 2030
• Agility and sensory capabilities decrease
• Travel demand will increase
• Access to websites essential
• Travel industry needs guidelines

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1. Description of Problem

• Travel websites
• Large
• Content driven
• Two way
• Existing Tools
• W3C Guideline, Section 508

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2. Purpose of Guideline

• Tool for the web support staff
• Increase level of accessibility of travel
  websites
• Implement flexible websites

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3. Guideline Structure

• Addresses idiosyncrasies of Travel Websites
• Content Driven
• Page generation
• Client Server Interactions
• Process for Producing Accessible Websites

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What is Content Driven

• Content Drive Website
• Focused on Content
• Eg. BLOGS
• Travel Sites
• Advertising, Marketing
• Real time schedule information
• Reservations

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Page Generation

• Apply Styles and Formatting to content
• Travel websites
• Menus, Headers and Footers around content
  flights, hotels, car rentals

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Interactions in Accessible Design
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Client Side Interactions

• User ( Person with Disabilities)
• User Agent Software that retrieves and renders
  Web content for users and includes assistive
  technologies W3C

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Web Browser (User Agent)

• More Public Friendly
• Sites cater to human users
• Browsers, Text Readers
• Robots
• Webcrawlers, Spiders and Aggregators

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User Agents and Accessibility

• Web browsers Firefox, Explorer etc
• Different interpretations of W3C
• User Agent must conform to set standards ( W3C or
  508) and deliver content to specialized agents
• Screen readers, text to speech etc

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Standards

• Conformation to Section 508 Standard central
  focus of accessible web design-most important
  step!

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Interactions in Accessible Design
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Server Side Interactions

• Servers take content from the Content Database
  and deliver in W3C compatible webpage
• Server Responds
• Finding appropriate template,
• Filling it with appropriate content
• Return to user agent as complete document

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Accessible Templates

• Website templates-visual appeal
• Accessible websites- content reaches all
  audiences
• OPTION provide server with two or more templates
  the best meet needs of audience

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NOTE

• In conventional web design
• the appropriate template is the ONLY template.
• The new approach
• preparation of multiple templates,
• server chooses the most appropriate one

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Server User Agent Interactions

• User Agent is servers best friend
• User Agent identified to Server knows what kind
  of agent it is interacting with e.g.
• Visual Bowser, Screen reader or indexing spider

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Content Database

• Database may not always be a database, but may
  also refer to repositories of text or HTML files
  for content generation
• OSU each file contains content of a single page
  
• Server places headers, footers and navigation
  menus around page

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Accessible Content Driven Website

• Accessibility issues in concept phase
• Improves content, layout and navigation
• Graphical Content- alternative text
• Interactive Content ( Flash, Java) use HTML
• Provide text-only alternative formatting is not
  universal

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Plain-Old Semantic-HTML (POSH)

• Website uses the simplest HTML markup possible
• Formatting done later with style sheets, rather
  than in the code itself.
• Code will still display in a predictable,
  hierarchical manner, regardless of formatting
  applied by server

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TEXT ONLY

• Text only is ultimate fall back
• Content Templates
• Default conventional audiences
• Accessible template

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User Input Forms

• Forms or specialized elements allows users to
  communicate with web server
• Form Consists of Text, formatting and
  controls, may collect user inputted information

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Accessible Forms

• Is form navigation organized logically?
• Do all form controls have associated label via a
  label element?
• Will the form work regardless of user agent
  accessing it?

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Form Design

• Predictable layout
• Screen readers rely on HTML Label elements
• Navigation essential
• Users must be able to orient and fill out form
  with keyboard only

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Form Processing

• Client Side scripting language Javascript not
  all user agents support java script - unstable
• Server Side carry out important form processing
  on server side

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Accessible Template Design

• Content and Navigation
• Many sites have accessible content that can not
  be reached!
• Important to realize that many internet users
  navigate only with a keyboard

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Page Layout

• Content layout not interpreted the same by a web
  browser as a screen reader
• Screen reader very linear from top of page source
  code to bottom
• Source code and visual display are not the same

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Screen Reader and Source Code
ltbodygtThe

• Screen reader reads the source code literally
• Visually, any code element placed anywhere but
  cannot alter the order in which the code is read.
  
• Important to ensure that your site/ content make
  sense before undertaking a 'civic beautification'
  project!

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Layout

• Formatting should not replace HTML elements
• ltpgt paragraph element replacing lth2gt second
  largest header element on a page header would
  not be seen as a header by a screen reader

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All Content Displayed by default template should
be available to Accessible TemplatesExample of
how this might workhttp//www.csszengarden.com/
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Notes to the Wise

• Styled HTML for horizontal list rather than a
  table
• Be careful not to repeat information extensive
  navigation material or provide a way to skip it
  or
• Locate menus at bottom of code and use style
  sheet to move to top

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Content Organization

• Title
• Breadcrumb navigation
• Main Content
• Previous, Next, Home Links
• Additional navigation
• Footer information

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Standards

• Template W3C for HTML, CSS and Accessibility,
  and Section 508

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Maintaining Parallel Templates

• Maintenance is a challenge
• If more than one version of a website exists then
  revisions require multiple updates
• Templates need to be updated but not content pages

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Thank you

• Thank you to Aaron Grey and RJ Zaworski for their
  leadership with this project.
• Thank you to RJ for trying to put this in simple
  terms!
• Thank you to the TRACE Center for their email
  advice!

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The Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center
for Accessible Public Transportation is funded
under grant H133E030009 from the National
Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation
Research (NIDRR) in the US Department of
Educations Office of Special Education and
Rehabilitative Services. The content of this
presentation does not necessarily represent the
policy of the US Department of Education, and you
should not assume endorsement by the Federal
Government.
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CONTACT US

• National Center for Accessible Transportation
• 220 Owen Hall
• Oregon State University
• Corvallis, OR , 97331-3212
• Tel [phone]
• ncat_at_oregonstate.edu
• http//ncat.oregonstate.edu