by Doyle Burnett, education specialist, SESA
In recent years, the Internet has become a substantial research tool used by
educators, parents, and students of all ages. The so-called, “Electronic
Highway” has come of age and educators are continually exploring new avenues
that can be embedded into sound teaching practices. The Internet is a powerful
tool, but as the old saying goes, “you cannot believe everything you see
and hear.” The focus of this newsletter article will, in fact, speak to
the notion of seeing and hearing. The multimedia rich environment of the Internet
for most of us is a wonderful “thing” but some individuals are being
denied access.
Imagine not being able to hear and happening upon a web page full of your favorite
elected officials’ political addresses presented in video. Go one step
further to realize that there is no associated captioning synced with the video,
nor a separate typed version of the speech anywhere to be found. Effectively,
a person with a significant hearing loss does not have access to Internet presentations
that use sound alone as a means to get a message across.
On the other hand, a person with a vision related disability may not have sufficient
vision to see the pictures on a particular web page. There may be some readers
wondering how a person who is blind can access the Internet in the first place.
Essentially, visually impaired individuals can use a screen reader to read text
on web pages. The problem occurs with a screen reader when there is no text
to describe a picture or other web graphic. Those of us without vision impairments
have all seen beautiful pictures where no written description is provided. After
all, we’ve learned, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” but a picture is useless to a blind individual without a written description
is not provided.
Looking at a third type of access issue, we might want to consider the challenges
faced by individuals who use a simple switch to access their computer and ultimately,
the Internet. Again, some readers are wondering how that works and for brevity
sake, the topic of how that works will be reserved for some other newsletter
article in the future. Simply put, the switch can be assigned a computer keyboard
function that would allow a user to navigate web pages. In some cases, there
are available software packages that allow voice input (voice recognition) to
be used for web page navigation. Web page designers may want to consider the “tabbing” order of links on their pages and, most importantly, the
use of good layout and a design free of visual clutter.
If you are a web developer/designer working for a governmental agency or organization
(local government, state, or federal), you may be required to follow certain
web accessibility guidelines. There are many web sites rich with information
for web designers about the many aspects of web accessibility. One particular
web site that should be of interest to those who want to assure their site is
progressing toward accessibility is the World Wide Web Consortium better known
as the W3C (www.w3c.org). Here you will find all the information you need to
make your web site accessible or if your organization is required to follow
accessibility guidelines.
The purpose of this article was meant as a dialogue starter so that web developers
and designers can ask themselves – is our web site denying access to valuable
information to some individuals? In some cases, United States federal law, under
the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act,
mandate that web sites and information technology be accessible and available.
It is highly likely that private web sites, especially those working in the
area of “E-commerce” may be required (at some point) to comply with
some level of accessibility.
The thing to remember is developing accessible web sites is not difficult. Type
the words “web accessibility” into your favorite search engine and
visit web pages devoted to teaching others about this important issue.
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