Web Accessibility 3.0: Learning From The Past, Planning For The Future

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Web Accessibility 3.0 Learning From The Past,
Planning For The Future
http//www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conference
s/addw08/

• Brian Kelly
• UKOLN
• University of Bath
• Bath, UK
• Email
• b.kelly_at_ukoln.ac.uk
• Blog
• http//ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/

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Co-author Liddy Nevile
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Scenario Planning

• Let us critique the first two scenarios in order
  to explore their limitations (their benefits have
  been well documented) and see if a third scenario
  might address such limitations

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WAI Approach
WAIs Approach

• WAI model relies on conformant Web sites,
  conformant authoring tools, conformant user
  agents
• and conformant users!
• A common complaint of standardistas the user
  needs to take responsibility
• There is value in this argument but there are
  practical shortcomings
• And user technophobia/laziness/lethargy is only
  one obstacle
• How many users know they are disabled?

Also note importance of evidence-based research.
Various UK accessibility studies seem to find
that lack of evidence of accessibility of Web
sites for PWDs and conformance with WCAG
guidelines!
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WCAG In Context
WAIs Scenario

• WCAG 2.0 states that Web resources must be
• Perceivable Operable
• Understandable Robust
• But this should apply after weve decided what
  our purposes our, rather than constraining what
  we can or cant do
• Super Cally Go Ballistic, Celtic Are
  AtrociousNot universally understandable, now
  universally accessible, culturally-specific but
  witty
• Adobe Flash, MS Word, Are these formats
  essential to your corporate infrastructure and
  workflow?
• Web 2.0, Ajax, Blog, Wikis, UGC, Do these
  provide useful services to your users?

Legislation take reasonable measure .. Is
bankrupting your company reasonable? Is failing
to satisfy your user community reasonable? Is
dumbing down the English language reasonable?
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Holistic Approach
Holistic Scenario

• Kelly, Phipps Swift developed a blended
  approach to e-learning accessibility
• This approach
• Focusses on the needs of the learner
• Requires accessible learning outcomes, not
  necessarily e-learning resources

Follow-up work awarded prize for Best Research
Paper at ALT-C 2005 E-learning conference
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Universal Accessibility?
Holistic Scenario
Normal Cancer
Man against snow, Austrian Tirol 1974, reproduced
with permission of the photographer Professor
Paul Hill

The Duck-Rabbit CRAFT BREWERY
The Great Masturbator by Salvador Dali (1929)
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Articulating the Approach
Holistic Scenario

• The "Tangram Metaphor (Sloan et al, W4A 2006)
  developed to avoid checklist / automated
  approach
• W3C model has limitations
• Jigsaw model implies single solution
• Tangram model seeks to avoid such problems

• This approach
• Encourages developers to think about a diversity
  of solutions
• Focus on 'pleasure' it provides to user

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Accessibility 2.0
Holistic Scenario

• Need to build on WAIs successes, whilst
  articulating a more sophisticated approach.
  Accessibility 2.0
• User-focussed Its about satisfying users needs
• Rich set of stakeholders More than the author
  and the user
• Always beta Accessibility is hard, so were
  continually learning
• Flexibility Theres not a single solution
• Diversity Theres also diversity in societys
  views on accessibility (e.g. widening
  participation, not universal accessibility)
• Blended solutions Focus on accessibility and
  not just Web accessibility

But do scenarios 1 and 2 scale to the size,
complexity and diversity of todays Web?
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The Web is Agreement
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Where Are We In This View?
IT
Web
Web
WAI
WCAG

• WCAGATAGUAAGuniversal accessibility
• Motherhood and apple pie?
• Demonstrably flawed after 10 yearse.g. Lilley
  99.99999 of the Web was invalid HTML. W3C
  pretended that didnt exist.
• So 99.9999 of Web isnt WCAG AA conformant!

• WCAGother guidelinesuser focusblended
  accessibility widening participation
• Not yet proven wrong, but ignores scale of Web

The Holistic Hamlet
The Pixel of Perfection
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• Kevin Kelly

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Accessibility 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0
Accessibility 3.0 Scenario

• Accessibility 1.0
• Handcrafted resources made accessible
• Accessibility 2.0
• Institutional approaches to accessibility

• Accessibility 3.0
• Global approaches to accessibility

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A Fresh Look At Accessibility
Accessibility 3.0 Scenario

• We acknowledge that
• Not everything on the Web will ever be accessible
• Accessibility may not cross cultural, linguistic,
  national and discipline boundaries
• An individual does not need a universally
  accessible resource rather s/he wants a resource
  which is accessible to them
• Different communities may have different needs
• Same person may have different needs at different
  times and places
• Lets not talk about the accessibility of a
  resource
• We find the term inclusive more useful than
  accessible to people with disabilities

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Getting There
Accessibility 3.0 Scenario

• Web 1.0
• Focus on resources published by institutions
• Focus on management of resources (CMSs)
• Web 2.0
• Focus on users and user-generated content
• Focus on reuse of resources (syndication,
  embedding, )
• Focus on user comments and discussions
• Trust and openness
• Accessibility 1.0
• Focus on accessibility of published resources
• Focus on software to support publication
  processes
• Accessibility 2.0
• Focus on accessibility of use of content rather
  than content
• Blended accessibility cf potential of social
  networks to facilitate discussions
• Trust and openness orgs taking reasonable
  measures involvement with users in design
  processes cf Kelly et al on design for people
  with learning disabilities

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Alternative Resources
Accessibility 3.0 Scenario

• Public library example
• Presentation at national Public Library event
• And heres a Flash-based game weve developed.
  Easy to do, and the kids love it
• What about accessibility?
• Oh, er. Well remove it before the new
  legislation becomes into force
• Blended approach
• Whats the purpose of the game?
• To keep kids amused for 10 mins, while parents
  get books
• How about building blocks or a bouncy castle as
  an alternative? This is an alternative approach
  to problem, which doesnt focus on disabilities

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Library Standards on Alternatives
Accessibility 3.0 Scenario

• Use Case
• Catalogue records for books available in multiple
  formats
• Book, large print book, abridged book, cassette
  tape, Braille, CD, MP3,
• Need for standards to facilitate retrieval of
  resource which satisfies end users needs
• MARC 21/RDA Developments to established library
  standard
• AccessForAll ISO/IMS Standard aimed at
  describing alternative for learning resources
• DCMI Accessibility metadata work

Recognition of challenges of the multiple
standardisation routes described in
Personalization and Accessibility Integration
of Library and Web Approaches, Chapman, Nevile,
Kelly and Heath
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Web 3.0
Accessibility 3.0 Scenario

• Web 3.0
• Data working with data
• Direct intervention by people not always needed
• Software can make heuristic assumptions
• Can get better as more data made available
• The Semantic Web / Linked Data vision which
  exploits connections on the social graph

Its not the Social Network Sites that are
interesting - it is the Social Network itself.
The Social Graph. The way I am connected, not the
way my Web pages are connected. Tim Berners-Lee
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Semantic Approach
Accessibility 3.0 Scenario

• From Kevin Kellys One Machine perspective
• It doesnt matter where the content is
• It doesnt matter who owns the contents
• Challenge is to exploit the connections

I express my network in a FOAF file, and that is
a start of the revolution. It is about getting
excited about connections, rather than nervous.
Tim Berners-Lee
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Accessibility 3.0
Accessibility 3.0 Scenario

• Were already seeing computer software giving us
  hints on resources which may be of interest to us
• Note how improvements can be made
• By system gathering more data
• By user providing preferences and other hints
  clues
• By others providing data
• By author metadata

Challenge Can such developments be applied to
provide benefits to people with disabilities?
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Initial Experiments

• Project work to explore ways of enhancing
  accessibility
• FLUID project
• A community, a product, and a collection of tools
  created by an international team
• Provides an infrastructure that enables rich
  customisations of an application's user interface
  appearance and behaviour based on the needs of
  both institutions and individual users.
• Tools which can be integrated into popular
  education software (Uportal, Moodle, etc.)
• Iterative design and agile development process

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Semantic Web Principles

• Principles which may be required
• Persistent URIs for resources
• Metadata in RDF
• Accessibility metadata schema published on Web
• Accessibility terms published in public
  ontologies
• Applications to allow user tagging
• Applications to provide links to equivalent
  resources
• Openness of software, content and metadata
• Encouragement of vendors to support
  personalisation

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Learning From The Past
Accessibility 3.0 Scenario

• Were starting to explore an Accessibility 3.0
  vision
• But what lessons must we learn from Accessibility
  1.0
• We dont want a theoretical solution
• The dangers of standardising too soon
• The dangers of legislating too soon
• The dangers of ignoring diversity
• The need to get market acceptance for tools
• The difficulties of getting market acceptance
• Standards-based solutions may not deliver

Note that the Accessibility 3.0 vision is based
on W3C Semantic Web principles. A challenge for
W3C and user community is reconciling WAI and SW
visions and how they are interpreted.
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Conclusions

• Accessibility 1.0
• WAI model is flawed
• Evidence shows WAI approach is a political
  success, but not implemented significantly
• Accessibility 2.0
• Holistic approach takes pragmatic view of WCAGs
  successes applies it in a user-focussed context
  based on institutional framework
• But neither approaches scales to the World Wide
  Web
• Accessibility 3.0
• Builds on Social Web and seeks to apply social
  graph to enhance accessibility of user services
• Very early days

But can this view be sold to organisations,
governments and individuals who have bought a the
view of WAI delivering the answer? These
conclusions are aimed at the accessibility
researchers and practitioners to persuade them
that a rethink is needed
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Another Interpretation

• Accessibility 1.0
• Based on encoding of HTML resources
• Accessibility 2.0
• Based on mix of the HTML (and other) resources,
  the services, the context,
• Accessibility 3.0
• Based on mix of above plus 'intelligence' of the
  Web in its behind-the-scenes applications e.g.
• Semantic Web applications
• Use and sharing of tags etc across applications
• More atomic resource components so easier to
  mix-and-match
• Microformats and lots of tags
• ...

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Conclusions

• Theres a need
• For accessibility researchers to gather evidence
  on proposed solutions to accessibility
• To explore ways in which changes in our
  understandings can be adopted and deployed
• This paper
• Explores limitations of current approaches
• Suggests alternative approaches
• Future work
• Need to critique the critique
• Need to develop better models for change control
• Need to learn from the past

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Questions

• Questions are welcome