2004: Improving your site's accessibility - experience from creating the BBC Accessibility Standards

Improving your site’s accessibility –
experience from bbc.co.uk
Dr Jonathan Hassell
Editor of Standards & Guidelines
BBC New Media

Presentation to
CITI “Accessible to All” conference
12/11/2011 11/12/2011 17/11/04 v0.17-full
jonathan.hassell@bbc.co.uk

What I’ll be talking about
• bbc.co.uk similarities/differences from your sites
• bbc.co.uk & accessibility – a brief history
• Accessibility as a partnership
• Overriding purpose of accessibility
• How to change the culture of your production teams / clients
• How to channel buy-in into producing a better site
– Identification/creation of standards & guidelines (& tools)
• incl. examples from standards creation
– UCD and user-testing
• Other useful additions to your site
• Feedback from audiences
• Questions

12/11/2011 jonathan.hassell@bbc.co.uk
17/11/2004 jonathan@hassellinclusion.com 22
© BBC 2004

bbc.co.uk similarities/differences from
the sites you create
• Similarities:
– must be excellent, user-
friendly
– must be cost-effective
– much use of multimedia
• Differences:
– for yourself vs. for client
– info vs. brochureware
– Size: bbc.co.uk = 2.5m pages
– cost
– many staff, different locations
& production systems
– wide audiences/genres
– interactivity (communities)

© BBC 2004

bbc.co.uk and accessibility – brief history
• BBC long-term commitment to making its output as accessible as possible to all
audiences to fulfil its public service remit
Experience within the BBC of disability issues – established programmes and
audiences from TV and Radio (e.g. See Hear, In Touch), moving towards mainstream
First attempts on the web – Betsie:
– filter program used to create an automatic text-only version of bbc.co.uk pages
– result of work between RNIB and BBC in 1998 as a result of feedback from screenreader
users
– made available for other sites’ use (e.g. Newcastle City Council)
– BBC News new “low graphic” version of News site (useful for PDAs as well)

© BBC 2004

Accessibility is a partnership
To make a website
accessible, you need all of
the following to work
together:
Website creators
Assistive technology creators
(e.g. Freedom Scientific,
ReadPlease)
Operating system creators
(e.g. Microsoft, Apple)
Disability assessment
agencies
(e.g. AbilityNet, RNIB)
Browser creators
(e.g. Microsoft, Opera)
comms via W3C-WAI…

© BBC 2004

Purpose of accessibility
• Always keep in mind…
• the purpose of
accessibility is to
make things easier for
all of your (client’s)
audience – start and
end with them in
mind…
• the internet can be a great
enabler for disabled people if
you use it right

© BBC 2004

How to change the culture of your production
teams / clients – awareness, motivation
• Start with your staff… then go to your clients…

• Make it personal: • Make it real:
– get an external
agency to do a survey – send all your staff on an
of the site’s Accessibility Awareness
accessibility, including course
video-taping of real
users using the site – provide background &
– See the Accessibility motivation for staff & clients
Study of bbc.co.uk for (DDA etc. – see Julie Howell’s
inspiration (available talk next…)
from:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ – provide experience of
commissioning/bbci/w assistive technologies
ebsites.shtml) – show the videos of real users
having problems using the site

© BBC 2004

How to channel buy-in into producing a
better site – standards & guidelines
• create/identify accessibility standards & guidelines for your sites
– good start: WAI or the BBC Accessibility Standards (from
http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/newmedia/websites.shtml)
– make sure your standards support your / your clients’ audiences
and production processes – get your staff to create them
• communicate them well:
– make sure your staff understand the standards and are
motivated to use them
• provide a group/someone who can answer specific accessibility
questions as they crop up in practice
• whenever possible, encode the standards in your production tools,
so that staff cannot get things wrong

© BBC 2004

Standards creation
- the discussions and practicalities

Be pragmatic - for each standard consider…
• is it “reasonable”?
• benefit: does it actually help disabled audiences?
– does it hinder other audiences?
• cost: what aspects of production does it affect?
– content production systems
• can they ensure its consistent application?
• will they actually handle it?
– manually-coded systems
• how can you ensure its consistent application?

© BBC 2004

Examples from standards creation (1)
• brochureware: to Flash or
not to Flash…
– do you really need to use
Flash?
• Flash can be totally
inaccessible to screenreader
users
– but if you need to use it…
• use Flash (MX-2004)
accessibility features (see
http://www.macromedia.com/macr
omedia/accessibility/features/flash
/)
• provide a non-Flash
alternative version which
should have the same content
and “fun”

10
© BBC 2004

• don’t ghettoise users with “text-
only” unless there is no alternative
– “text-only” site does nothing to
help those with low-vision using
screen-magnifiers, or those with
hearing impairments
– screenreader users would rather
use the main site anyway
– main site: requirements which can
be handled by accessible design
and coding
– alternative version: requirements
where the needs of one disabled
group clash with another
• text simplification for those with
learning difficulties etc.
• HTML alternatives to Flash
animations/games for
screenreader users
• remember: the purpose of
accessibility is to make things
easier for all of your audience

11
© BBC 2004

• use of heading tags…
– useful for screenreader
users
– but default visual
representation of these
wastes screen-estate
– solvable using CSS
– but, until recently, this was
difficult because of our
support requirements for
older browsers
– now being rolled-out across
bbc.co.uk

12
© BBC 2004


• tables…
– tables are more browsable
for screenreaders if they
are “linear”
• which is WAI level 2
– WAI level 1 doesn’t
produce “better tables” for
screenreader browsing
(requires knowledge of
special table-browsing
mode in JAWS)
– example: BBC weather site
– before and after…

13
© BBC 2004

• editorial/cross-
disciplinary standards:
– Vocabulary:
Plain English vs. language of
your audience
• e.g. 1Xtra
• News – broadsheet or
tabloid
– “Infoglut: how much should
you put on a page?
• is this too much information…?
• affects users with dyslexia,
visual & motor impairments
• can depend on design of page,
visual definition of sections,
editorial proposition etc.

14
© BBC 2004


• use of colour…
– make sure all info
being conveyed with
colour is available
without colour
• colour-blindness
(http://www.vischeck.com/examples/)

• e.g. diagrams…
• and colour contrast…
– restriction/challenge
for your designers…

15
© BBC 2004

• audio-video content
(subtitling)…
– any subtitling system must
be able to work within the
A/V production chain
– current BBC prototype
reuses existing TV
broadcast subtitle files
– BBC R&D are also
researching methods for
providing subtitles for live
A/V material
• BSL content via video

16
© BBC 2004

Checking it’s a better site – UCD & user-testing

• ensure your standards have produced a usable site
• listen to real people, rather than automated tools/checklists
“These tools are like spell-checkers; you wouldn’t send out a spell-checked document that
wasn’t manually proof-read as well”
(Bob Regan, Macromedia Accessibility Expert)

• create a user testing strategy
– … which includes testing of usability and accessibility
• and has a number of levels, so it includes appropriate testing for simple
page updates to full site tests for new/redesigned sites
– even better, adopt User-Centred Design practices and include
feedback from disabled users in your design process

17
© BBC 2004

Other useful additions to your site

provide accessibility help:
– include information on:
• browser/OS settings
• assistive technologies
– for inspiration, see:
• DRC’s “Access Options” (
http://www.drc.org.uk/accessoptions/index.
asp)
• AbilityNet’s “My Computer My Way!”
(http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/myway/)

– accessibility help for bbc.co.uk
on its way (link from every page)
ask for accessibility feedback:
– to further inform your understanding
of how people really use your
website

18
© BBC 2004

Feedback from audiences
• lots of feedback in the Accessibility Study of bbc.co.uk (see earlier)
• at the BBC, feedback goes with the territory…
– examples of feedback from Jaws users:
• feedback on a lapse in accessibility of Radio Player
– a small tweak to the interface had removed the linearity of the table structure
– it was fixed within hours
• many messages of thanks for introducing heading tags into the bbc.co.uk
home page
– we are now rolling these out across the site

– initial results from Usability/Accessibility tests of a new
www.bbc.co.uk/weather site have been very positive
• we expect and welcome more feedback in the future
– will be actively seeking it as part of our Accessibility Testing Strategy

19
© BBC 2004

2004: Improving your site's accessibility - experience from creating the BBC Accessibility Standards

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2004: Improving your site's accessibility - experience from creating the BBC Accessibility Standards