I have just read and article on the BBC News web site that has got me well and truly 'wound up'. 'Most websites' failing disabled' describes another report that shows most web sites are not accessible, again focusing on basic guideline conformance. I say 'another' because AbilityNet's reports on the State of the e-Nation have provided a detailed analysis of the UK situation over the last year or so. This time the oh so depressingly message is that

Ninety seven percent of websites did not provide even minimum levels of accessibility

But was has me so steamed up are the comments by one Mark
Gristock. A large part of the article is given to his grossly innacurate statements that I can only assume are crude self promotion or an attempt to deflect blame by bouncing it back. For example

Building dull, technically compliant websites is easy but building commercially successful sites that are also accessible is not

Yes that's exactly why so many have been lobbying web designers to stop just thinking about eye candy and make their sites usable and accessible. Dullness is not the issue, fair access to information, services and entertainment is.

Accessibility consultants and organisations for the disabled clutch their knowledge of user requirements to them like they are the key to future profits - which indeed they are.

If they had any interest in raising standards, they would be sharing their findings with the world and opening dialogue with the design and business community about how best to integrate techniques with standard processes

Sorry? I needed to re-read that. What absolute twaddle. Is that some form of projection of guilt or something more calculated? For many years web accessibility proponents have been freely promoting best practices and almost begging web designers to open dialogue  and even just listen to them. Some examples of the many that come to mind from my very limited experience include AbilityNet, Ability Magazine, BCS Disability Group, GAWDS members, WebAIM, Roger Johansson, Jeremy Keith, Jon Gibbins, Aaron Leventhal lead of Mozilla Accessibility (including Firefox  web browser) and Frank Hecker executive director of Mozilla Foundation. Oh and the W3C themselves tirelessly promote accessibility via Open Standards and their WAI work. 

Yes, web designers need to work with accessibility experts and usability gurus in order to learn the skills which are not trivial. No, the accessibility guys are not holding out for profit. They want to to see a step change in accessibility of web sites and services, including those using cutting edge features. The W3C are working on new WAI-ARIA standards to support accessible sites using the highly popular Ajax technology (as in used Google gmail). That does not exclude attractiveness; but attractiveness is not only a matter of visual glitz. It does mean ensuring all can use and enjoy your site.

[Update 19 Dec 06] Roger Johansson over at 456 Berea St. has a post and lively discussion that picks up on the main (and saddening points) raised by the BBC article.

The Beta of Firebug 1.0, the Firefox web debugger is looking 'Mighty fine'. Get it at GetFirebug.

A version is available for other browsers, if you really have to.

Here's what Roger Johansson has to say about it (I think he likes it too).

The Accessibility Research Centre (ARC) at the University of Teesside have an interesting  project to make a VLE that is accessible to both symbol and switch users. It seems the project was originally created by the Portland Partnership which has now closed.

Portland Project: Design and implementation of an accessible, adaptive and innovative Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)

This is an innovative project as there is little or no access for students with severe learning difficulties to online leaning materials and no VLE fully accessible to these users

The VLE can be accessed via mouse, keyboard and a range of assistive devices, such as switches. It has built-in scanning for one or two input devices and has an adjustable scan speed setting.

Text is accompanied by symbols; the VLE currently supports PCS and Widgit Rebus symbols. The symbols can be displayed in a choice of three language levels: nouns, nouns and verbs, and nouns, verbs and adjectives.

There is built-in audio throughout the VLE, which can be heard through the scanning process or with a mouse-over. The audio can be presented in a male or female voice and can be turned off.

An online demo is available but the license is not made clear. As presented it seems to have quite limited functionality but uses it to good effect. It is not clear how the more usual VLE and social activities could work but it does demonstrate some good ideas. It appears to be rich client so a  web client version would be useful. Perhaps similar features could be added to Moodle? 

The Free Standards Group (FSG) are now the stewards of IAccessibility2 the new standard Windows Accessibility API that gives Assistive Technology powerful access to programs. It has been donated by IBM from their existing products and impressively is the result of collaboration between program developers and Assistive Technology (AT) vendors, including groups from both open and closed source projects. This is set to have a great impact on how easily Assistive Technology tools will be made to work with programs on Windows, Linux and the Web, and thus make many more facilities accessible to people with disabilities.

Accessibility Application Program Interfaces (APIs) are the 'glue' that allow assistive technologies such as screen readers to monitor and control programs running on a computer. They work by making the program's user interface available to other programs, allowing for interaction that is not bound to the usual mouse, keyboard and screen combination. This technique is proven to be effective for the kind of programs users want to access with AT though it is not perfect as it can only use information presented via the user interface, which is also subject to large changes with new releases.

So why is this important when solutions already exists (MSAA, AT-SPI, Universal Access) and Microsoft have 'released' UIAutomation as a replacement for MSAA on Windows Vista? And why will a Windows standards help Linux accessibility?

• An Open Standard means freely available to everyone. See below.
• Extends MSAA on Windows providing a easy upgrade path for developers and not requiring extensive software rewrites or new platforms as is the case with UIAutomation.
• Provides advanced features needed to to avoid complex work-arounds and to access upcoming technologies such as web 2.0.
• Based on proven APIs used in Linux Assistive technology.
• Close to the Linux AT-SPI and W3C WAI ARIA specifications so transferring AT to work with Linux and Web will be easier.
• Developers and AT vendors worked together to specify needed features.
• Well tested in complex working programs and AT.
  
• Designed with Accessibility and AT as the prime use even though Accessibility APIs are very useful for testing programs.

A standard means everyone is using the same rules and so programs and AT can easily be matched up. An open standard API is important as all parties can use it 'freely' and contribute to its improvement. This has happened already with IAccessible2 as although it is based on the closed Microsoft defacto standard MSAA it has evolved in an open manor to include many advanced features from the already open Linux AT-SPI system. Cross platform means that AT will be more easily made to work on Windows, Linux and Mac leading to more choice for users.

This exciting development is a result of the State of Massachusetts' decision to require that it's documents are in the open standard ODF format. IAccessibility2 provides a vital component for enabling 1st class access to documents from any program including Open Source.

To reiterate the benefits here's the summary from the FSG IAccessibility2 Overview:

• IAccessible2 complements and augments MSAA responding to new requirements.
• IAccessible2 was designed to enable cost effective multi-platform development.
• IAccessible2 supports Web 2.0 (AJAX, DHTML).
• IAccessible2 is a proven solution. Its effectiveness has been demonstrated on both sides of the interface; by large applications like the IBM Workplace Productivity Editors and Firefox and by the leading AT vendors.
• IAccessible2 is a royalty free and open standard; free for use by all; open for review and improvement by all.

There's lots more comment on the ConsortiumInfo.org Standards Blog and Rich Schwerdtfeger's blog. Rich has provided a detailed explanation of how IAccessibility2 compares strategically to UIAutomation.  Peter Korn gives a personal view of the history behind iAccessibile2.

[Update 16 Dec 06] Ian Murdock explains why the FSG who are a primarily a Linux standards group have taken on a Windows standard. Dana Blankenhorn puts it well in his ZDNet post Microsoft stranglehold on disabled market is broken.

[Update Dec 19 06] Richard blogs on why IA2 and not UIAtomation.