You might wonder about the logic of designing a Web site for the blind and visually impaired. After all, Web designers seem to be moving toward visually rich sites that often embrace some sort of flash and dazzle to keep viewers interested - or at least to point them in the direction that they need on the site.

Yet those of us who are fully sighted forget that as we make the Web our main information vehicle, we may be cutting out millions of customers or potential customers. And these millions (5 to 10 million in the U.S. alone, by some estimates) have every moral and legal right to have access to that information.

For instance, Unisys, my employer, is a computer and electronic services company with support sites where we post our latest documentation. We also have scores of sales and marketing sites with information on our latest products. Are these sites accessible to an audience (blind or visually impaired) that cannot actually see the site but can only "read" it through the use of special software?

Obviously, the implication is even greater for consumer sites like Amazon.com or Buy.com. Are they ready to ignore a few hundred thousand customers who would use their site - but can't because of poor or incomplete design? If these companies would change their site design even slightly, they may gain 50,000, maybe 100,000, new customers all because their site design encouraged rather than discouraged viewers with impairments. And many of these impaired visitors stay loyal once they find a site that works well for them.

A recent article in PC World magazine (September 2000) compared two sites using screen-reader software. The first, Hewlett-Packard, did well. All links worked properly and were easily recognizable (Investor Information, Drivers, HP Store, for example). The second, Gap Online, did poorly. Many of the links sounded like programming gibberish (Link, shorts_men.asp?wdid=300, Map: wdid=301, Map:gapstore/cs_returns.asp). The Gap may have lost a large number of potential customers.

The Problems

The blind and visually impaired use what are called screen readers to navigate the Web. These software programs look at the HTML file that creates a Web page on a computer. Then they synthetically speak exactly what that file tells them. The better readers will ignore or "understand" specialized HTML codes and speak the content that a sighted Web viewer would see. The desired result is content as accessible to a blind person as to a fully sighted one, but problems exist.

Some problems occur when the Web designer includes graphics. If the navigation bar has the text link "software downloads," the screen reader will speak those words. But if the navigation bar uses graphic buttons with no "alt text" description, the reader will ignore it or just speak the word "graphic." If that's the case, then the visitor becomes lost on the page and will not know where to go next.

In other situations, poor or incomplete HTML formatting will confuse the reading software, causing it to skip content and links. Animation will cause the screen reader to jump around within text on a page, pulling words from different parts of the page and making nonsensical sentences.

The Law

We're starting to see the impact of three laws: the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, and Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act. More on these laws and their impact can be found at the Microsoft.com site (among others), but they are important for us all - especially when we deal with the federal government (Section 508, particularly). Companies such as AOL, H&R Block, Intuit (Quicken), and Bank of America have already been subject to government and legal action. Even the recent Sydney 2000 Olympics Web site was sued, because it was not accessible to the visually impaired.

Are Ugly, Text-Only Sites the Answer?

No, and neither are duplicate pages with no graphics. There are some very easy things that we, as Web designers, can do to make a graphics page work for the blind. Most include using the tools we already have to add some alternate text. Others are just a change in habits. With a little re-training, we can produce an accessible page with little additional work.

How to Fix it

Below are a number of quick tips.

Images and animation - Use the alt text or alt attribute function to clearly describe the function of each visual.
Image maps - Use client-side Map and use alt text for hotspots.
Multimedia - Provide a text description of video content.
Page organization - Use consistent structure and use cascading style sheets (CSS) for layout and style when possible. This allows users to modify their browser at one time to affect their entire visit on the site.
Formatting options - Use heading tags with font attributes, as opposed to calling out specific fonts in each usage. This allows visually impaired visitors to modify styles and font sizes to meet their needs.
JavaScript, applets, and animation - Provide alternative content in case the active features are not accessible through the screen reading software.
Check your work! Try your site using the validation tools, checklists, and guidelines available at http://www.w3c.org/TR/WCAG/

Additional information

The following sites offer a wealth of information, examples, and tips:

IBM Accessibility Center (with downloadable trial version of their Home Page Reader)
Accessible Web Authoring Resources and Education (AWARE) center (Web site accessibility news and resources)
Adobe Access for People with Visual Disabilities (and information on PDF accessibility)
Microsoft Accessibility (Web Guidelines)
Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), offering Bobby, a free program to check your site's HTML code
Designing More Usable Web Sites (from the University of Wisconsin at Madison)
Web Accessibility Initiative (W3C)

Guy is a senior technical writer and information engineer with Unisys in Mission Viejo, CA. He is also a senior member of the Society for Technical Communications. Guy also has been writing on Web accessibility for CityLine, Intercom, WebReview.com, and other publications.

March 12, 2001