Business Article - Compliance for the Disabilities Act
As a business owner, you probably realize that the potential for increased business is greater when you can make your business accessible to everyone that may have an interest in it. To do this, you must first consider the consumer. Who needs this product or service? If the answer to that question is possibly everyone then you now need to consider who everyone is. Consumers come in all shapes and sizes and many come with disabilities. Is your business up to par for dealing with the disabled? How about your website; is it fully functional and accessible to those consumers who may have a disability? Regardless of your answer, there are some major points that require your focus. You may learn something that could help your business implement a more disability – friendly atmosphere.
Around 43,000,000 Americans suffer from one or more physical or mental disabilities, and this number is increasing as the population as a whole is growing older (1). The number is alarming. Not preparing your business for this means that you are letting perfectly good customers slip through the cracks to be scooped up by a more disability - friendly company. There are many websites that can be viewed or listened to by those with vision disabilities using such tools as text to speech and magnifying software as long as the website is accessible by this software. Communication with those sites is also possible for this consumer by using Braille software. There are products for the mobility or ergonomically impaired such as interactive emulating mouse and keyboards, and touch-screen software. There is even a program to teach typing using only five fingers!
The Disability Discrimination Act, or DDA, has changed the way that many website owners set up, run, and maintain their websites. It is now a violation of the law for any service provider to refuse to provide services to the disabled which are readily accessible to those public persons without a disability. This means that these providers must attempt to make changes to websites that are unreasonably difficult for the disabled to use or face hefty fines associated with the noncompliance. Most service providers have turned to the internet to market their products and increase sales. This ultimately forces them to reevaluate their websites and add disabled user friendly options or more accessible pages so that the disabled can purchase their product or service. In all reality it is a win - win situation even though it is a pain in the behind.
The act requires service provider websites to be accessible to the disabled individual by making the website able to work with programs that are installed on the disabled individual’s computer. These programs are able to read the words on a webpage and digitally speak them to the user in order for the user to be able to listen to the content since they cannot actually read it. This law is not exactly the easiest to research on the internet and, in fact, you will find more businesses advertising that they can make your website compliant to the standards of the law than you can find information on what those standards actually are. You can contact the Division yourself and there is also a website where you can obtain more information: Section 508 website.
In an excerpt from the DDA: “Section 508 establishes requirements for electronic and information technology developed, maintained, procured, or used by the Federal government. Section 508 requires Federal electronic and information technology to be accessible to people with disabilities, including employees and members of the public.
An accessible information technology system is one that can be operated in a variety of ways and does not rely on a single sense or ability of the user. For example, a system that provides output only in visual format may not be accessible to people with visual impairments and a system that provides output only in audio format may not be accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Some individuals with disabilities may need accessibility-related software or peripheral devices in order to use systems that comply with Section 508” (2).
What this ultimately means is that website owners are required to make the necessary changes to comply with the laws governing the disabled. What is read by those without a disability must be able to be heard by those with a visual impairment and what is heard by one without hearing impairment must be able to be read by one with hearing impairment. This does offer some tax benefits for compliance.
The government will offer a tax credit of up to $5,000.00 to those who prove purchase of services or equipment to make their business more accessible to the disabled. This covers such products as computer diskettes, adaptive equipment, and even consulting services. This makes it more advantageous to service providers to make the necessary updates that are required by law.
The updates and changes required are many. It may seem overwhelming and somewhat irritating but this is information that you need. The information that follows will give you a guide to what needs to be done to change and maintain your webpage by the standards of the laws governing the disabled.
Text equivalents are words that replace a picture, icon, logo, or anything that is not represented by words, non – text, and explain to the person with visual impairment what and where it is on the page. This is required only when the non – text element is used to relate content in the webpage to the user. If it is just a space filling graphic or anything else that has no relation to the content of the page, it is not required that a text equivalent be used. This is also true for any audio files or presentations. They should also be put into a text equivalent. Alternatives that are equivalent to a multimedia presentation must be provided in sequence with the presentation.
Consider that you will have to have both audio and visual representation of the presentation for the hearing and visually impaired. However, if it is just a silent script, there does not need to be any changes made to the script; only descriptions or captions for any graphics that may be involved.
Any web page that conveys information in color must also be available with no color. This aids those with color blindness in reading the page. This does not mean that you can no longer communicate your message in color; it just means that there must also be a text label or some other identification method that accompanies the colored words. Any document should be able to be read and not interfere in the use of any user created style sheets. This ensures that a designer cannot override a user’s ability to view the page in a larger font thus enabling those with disabilities easy viewing of the web page.
Redundant text links shall be provided for each active region of a server-side image map (3). This is necessary, for the person who cannot visualize the actual map, to be able to know what link they are about to click on before they are navigated to a page that they did not intend to view.
Client-side image maps shall be provided instead of server-side image maps except where the regions cannot be defined with an available geometric shape (3). This allows the author to write text for each place on the map. People who may use screen readers will be able to easily pick out and go to the regions that they choose on the map. In any data table the column headers will be identified as well as the rows. This makes it easier for those using screen readers to easily understand the information being presented.
Markup shall be used to associate data cells and header cells for data tables that have two or more logical levels of row or column headers (3). Again, this is for those disabled that use a screen reader to read the information on the page and it makes it easier to comprehend.
Frames should have a title with words that facilitate the frame identification and navigation (3). This makes it easier for the user to identify the areas of frame so as not to confuse two separate areas of text. Greater navigability and overall ease of use for the user is the goal here.
Pages shall be designed to avoid causing the screen to flicker with a frequency greater than 2 Hz and lower than 55 Hz (3). These flashes can trigger seizures in the epileptic. It is, therefore, necessary to comply so that you do not feel responsible later for something that could have very easily been prevented.
A text-only page, with equivalent information or functionality, shall be provided to make a web site comply with the provisions of these standards, when compliance cannot be accomplished in any other way. The content of the text-only page shall be updated whenever the primary page changes (3).
When a page uses a script language to show contents, or to make interface elements, any information given in the script should be identified by a functional text so that it can be read easily with assistive technology. This allows those that use screen readers the ability to actually read the page contents other than trying to understand a big jumble of letters and numbers that is otherwise meaningless. T
hese are almost all of the requirements of section 508 of the DDA. It is strongly recommended that you access the information and compare it to your web pages to make sure that you are in compliance with the laws. There are many helpful suggestions that are available from the government but it is not for the novice. If you are still unsure of how to make your website compliant, you should consider retaining a consultant or service provider to discuss making the changes necessary to your site.
References:
1.) U.S. Department of Labor
2.) U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Disability Rights Section
3.) Web-based Intranet and Internet Information and Applications (1194.22)