Special Populations
Bobby Doesn't Approve of Your Web Presence: Making Your Web Site "Disability-Friendly"
April, 2002
Earl, a crusader against the Digital Divide on behalf of the disabled, is explaining why she doesn't have a picture of a little red-haired man on her Web site. His smiling face currently adorns over 4,800 private Web sites and many times that number in government pages, but like many others, Earl has not put him on her site. She thinks Bobby doesn't go far enough.
Who is Bobby? Does he have an e-mail address? Why should you care?
Bobby is a Web authoring tool first released in 1998 by CAST, a nonprofit group dealing with disability issues, in particular those related to technology.
| "I think the assumption is that visually impaired people wouldn't be interested in what (most Web sites) offer," says Crista Earl, Director of Web Operations at the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB). |
The tool, which may be used remotely over the Web or purchased for use on servers and PCs identifies obstacles that people with disabilities may encounter when browsing a Web site. These obstacles may be as small as an unnamed image - frustrating visitors using voice-web applications, or misidentified javascript - making your site a virtual maze for text-sizing technology.
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When these problems have been fixed by a webmaster the page achieves Bobby-compliance and receives a Bobby-approval button, alerting users with disabilities to its sound design:
Try typing in your Web address at http://www.cast.org/bobby. More than likely your site will appear as a fumbled collection of question marks and misplaced HTML tags. Forget about that slick design you paid so much for - to a Web-user with disabilities your site isn't even worth exploring.
"I know that it's only been in the last two to three years that a blind student could comfortably navigate the Net," says John Hernandez, webmaster at New York City's Blindness Resource Center.
When his site went live four years ago, Hernandez had to build it using only the simplest frame-design, a large print/high-contrast text option, and a "no images" option to be accessible. Since then advancements in assistive technology have made Web sites written under Bobby's watchful eye equally accessible. But even now very few private Web sites are accessible to the more than 54 million U.S. citizens who are disabled.
Bringing Your Web Site Up to Code
A recent regulation called Section 508 has brought Bobby-compliance (ostensibly) to every government Web site. But the commercial and nonprofit sectors continue to lag behind.
A cursory search of the most popular Bobby-approved Web sites in New York reveals an unfortunate gap. Of the top ten visited sites, five are nonprofits dealing specifically with disability issues, three are obscure government sites and two are state universities. Where are the city-service sites? The family service agencies? The public library?
In many ways this is a classic failure of technology's distributive potential, akin to the economic barriers that keep whole neighborhoods off the digital grid. The assumption may be that a minority population won't be interested in donating to a cause or taking advantage of agency services so the necessary build-out of basic technology never happens.
| But making products and services accessible is always good business. Americans with disabilities have an estimated $175 billion in disposable income. Anecdotally many development offices tell of large donations coming from individual donors who 'just happened' upon a Web site or brochure. |
The value of Bobby lies in his ability to tell you exactly what is wrong and how to fix it.
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Additionally, achieving Bobby-approval means your site has also met several national and international requirements for Web-page accessibility. Since it is based on WAI guidelines for accessible Web development Bobby-approval brings a Web site in line with the highest international standards. If you are creating Web-based software these standards are the law under the American Disabilities Act.
The cost associated with implementing Bobby is relatively small. Many of the changes needed to make your Web site Bobby-approved are minor, for instance, adding
You don't need to dumb down your site either. CAST's site is built with innovative Cold Fusion modules. The AFB uses a specially designed ASP to create their award-winning pages.
Winning Bobby Approval
Obtaining Bobby's blessing is as simple as logging on to Bobby Worldwide (http://www.cast.org/bobby) and following his instructions when your Web-page reveals its true colors. Most of the changes can be accomplished within an hour for small Web sites and only require basic knowledge of HTML.
But why doesn't the AFB Web site have a Bobby-approved button? Instead the site sports two other buttons:
These verifications demonstrate not only Bobby-approval, but concordance with the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C's) standards for proper HTML and CSS-based Web design. But what Bobby lacks in restrictive rules he makes up for in coherence. To qualify for the buttons shown above, one must meet the guidelines set by the W3C validator (http://validator.w3c.org) a daunting mechanism to anyone not boasting a computer science degree. The validator rarely explains itself in plain English and often gives only the line number of problematic code. Bobby's power lies not only in his eye for detail but in his ability to tell you what needs to change.
The Bobby program doesn't address large design issues but this doesn't mean that you can't do so. Earl's AFB site is a veritable "best practices" for smart design and innovative function. The first link on every AFB page provides users the ability to change the color-scheme of the Web site from low to high contrast. The text is also scalable, meaning that its size can be changed to match the screen of the user. This is especially pertinent to users with low vision using Netscape, as the popular browser has no limit on text size.
"Design approach to us is very different for a blind user and a sighted person," says Earl. As a result, issues such as keyboard versus mouse navigation and contrast and size issues dictate many aspects of the AFB site and its kid-friendly counterpart, Braille Bug. But even more changes are on the horizon. Soon Earl hopes to implement a user-driven Web site with a configuration page allowing the individual to select colors, contrast, image-control and text placement.
This user-centric design may not be possible for every webmaster and not every organization has the budget or know-how to operate an ASP. But anyone can use Bobby-approval as a basic standard of usability.
Obtaining Bobby-approval is a simple way to commit to universal access and allows an oft-neglected minority the opportunity to broach the Digital Divide.
Bobby Worldwide: http://www.cast.org/bobby
American Foundation for the Blind: http://www.afb.org