1 / 40

Proposed Guidelines for Web Accessibility in the Travel Industry

Proposed Guidelines for Web Accessibility in the Travel Industry. R.J. Zaworski, and K.M. Hunter-Zaworski, NCAT TRANSED 2007, Montreal, Canada. OUTLINE. Description of Problem Purpose of Guideline Guideline Structure. Background. Demographics: over 25% of people over 65 by 2030

mira
Download Presentation

Proposed Guidelines for Web Accessibility in the Travel Industry

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Proposed Guidelines for Web Accessibility in the Travel Industry R.J. Zaworski, and K.M. Hunter-Zaworski, NCAT TRANSED 2007, Montreal, Canada

  2. OUTLINE • Description of Problem • Purpose of Guideline • Guideline Structure

  3. 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

  4. 1. Description of Problem • Travel websites: • Large • Content driven • Two way • Existing Tools • W3C Guideline, Section 508

  5. 2. Purpose of Guideline • Tool for the web support staff • Increase level of accessibility of travel websites • Implement flexible websites

  6. 3. Guideline Structure • Addresses idiosyncrasies of Travel Websites • Content Driven • Page generation • Client Server Interactions • Process for Producing Accessible Websites

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

  8. Page Generation • Apply Styles and Formatting to content • Travel websites • Menus, Headers and Footers around content: flights, hotels, car rentals

  9. User UserAgent Server Content Database Client-side interactions Server-side interactions Interactions in Accessible Design

  10. Client Side Interactions • User ( Person with Disabilities) • User Agent: Software that retrieves and renders Web content for users and includes assistive technologies [W3C]

  11. Web Browser (User Agent) • More Public Friendly • Sites cater to human users • Browsers, Text Readers • Robots • Webcrawlers, Spiders and Aggregators

  12. 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

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

  14. User UserAgent Server Content Database Client-side interactions Server-side interactions Interactions in Accessible Design

  15. 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

  16. 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

  17. 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

  18. Server –User Agent Interactions • User Agent is server’s 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

  19. 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

  20. 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

  21. 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

  22. TEXT ONLY • Text only is ultimate fall back • Content Templates • Default – conventional audiences • Accessible template

  23. 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

  24. 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?

  25. 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

  26. 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

  27. 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

  28. 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

  29. Screen Reader and Source Code <body>The… • 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!

  30. Layout • Formatting should not replace HTML elements: • <p> “paragraph” element replacing <h2> “second largest header element” on a page header would not be seen as a header by a screen reader

  31. All Content Displayed by default template should be available to Accessible TemplatesExample of how this might work:http://www.csszengarden.com/

  32. 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

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

  34. Standards • Template: W3C for HTML, CSS and Accessibility, and Section 508

  35. 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

  36. 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!

  37. 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 Education’s 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.

  38. CONTACT US National Center for Accessible Transportation 220 Owen Hall Oregon State University Corvallis, OR , 97331-3212 Tel: 800-916-0099 ncat@oregonstate.edu http://ncat.oregonstate.edu

More Related