The format of the session was that each panellist was provided with a few minutes to present a position statement on accessibility in today’s practice, and this was followed by questions and discussion. In the short time available to them, my fellow panelists each took a specific angle on accessibility:

• Liam McGee (Communis) argued that usability is ‘accessibility for sissies’, and illustrated how he viewed accessibility as a term that covered many objectives of usability and search-engine optimisation.
• Amy Chen (Senior Usability Secialist at Oracle) described how a large technology vendor can adopt accessibility as part of the design, development and implementation of their technology products.
• Rolf Molich (DialogDesign). As a highly respected and highly influential figure in the usability and HCI field, Rolf took on the mantle of devil’s advocate, arguing that the message of accessibility advocates can sometimes be obfuscated, disguising general good practice in usable and user-centred design as complexly-worded accessibility guidelines.

The role of the accessibility specialist in the usability profession

I decided to focus on what I saw, based on my experience over the last 10 years, were the key roles that an accessibility specialist should perform – whether as a member of a web/software development team, or as an advisor to a large organisation procuring and implementing technology to help it perform its day-to-day activities. These were:

1. Technical advisor – someone who understands the principles behind and implementation techniques of accessibility guidelines, and how to evaluate whether they have been successfully met. Someone who is up to speed on the accessibility benefits and shortcomings of relevant programming languages and digital information formats, whether established or emerging.
2. Motivator – someone who generates empathy for the objectives of accessible design, by encouraging others to appreciate the diversity of ways in which people access and use technology, and the impact accessibility (or lack of) can have on them. Someone who shows that accessibility is something that can inspire innovation and spark creativity, rather than constraining what can be done to the mundane and unexciting. (at this point I had to yet again plug Graham Pullin’s excellent book Design meets Disability )
3. Translator – someone who can effectively present accessibility requirements in their appropriate context – from legislative requirements to practical, pragmatic design requirements. Someone who can ensure that accessibility requirements expressed in an invitation to tender or internal policy are achievable, unambiguous and, if met, genuinely lead to more inclusive technology. Organisations who express accessibility requirements in a coherent and appropriate way are more likely to encourage technogy suppliers to meet those needs. I recounted here examples of where I’ve seen poorly expressed accessibility requirements in a technology specification that could not feasibly be met let alone tested.
4. Gerontechnologist – perhaps my most left-field suggestion, I think accessibility specialists should recognise the particular benefits of involving older people in user centred design, for the added-value that they are likely to provide as participants in requirements gathering activities, and evaluators throughout the design lifecycle. Arguably accessibility guidelines focus on the more extreme end of impairment, at the expense of those with less severe, but multiple, impairments. Evaluating with disabled people is important, and rewarding, but recruitment and scheduling can sometimes be difficult. So the unpredictability of the presence of any age-related sensory, dexterity or cognitive impairments make recruitment of older participants for participatory design and usability testing a particularly attractive option, particularly if resources are tight (see Henny Swan’s comments on the value of testing a web browser with older people).

I offered these definitions as a way of helping people decide whether an accessibility specialist was indeed a specialist, or whether this was a role a usability professional could or should take on.

Discussion

The focus of the discussion with the audience was, from my perspective, largely focused on the challenge of selling accessibility, a topic that is always near the top of the discussion charts and which has received much attention in recent blog posts from Gary Barber and Vlad Alexander.

It’s hard to argue against the objective of accessibility, but in a financially driven context, we’re all too aware that accessibility can sometimes be perceived as a luxury, as a lot of effort for a small group of people. Several members of the audience gave examples of how they have found it difficult to persuade others of the value of investing in accessibility considerations.

Of course, one way to counter that argument is to downplay accessibility as a separate objective – most of good practice in accessibility is general good practice in user-centred design; the SEO overlap is also a powerful argument. That’s more difficult to sell when there is obvious additional work to do, like synchronised captioning.

We can also argue that for every group of disabled people who benefit from a particular accessibility intervention, there is another group of ‘situationally disabled’ people who will also benefit at a particular time and place. But how do we provide hard figures for the number of unexpected beneficiaries of accessibility interventions? And isn’t it an awkward dilemma for an accessibility advocate to be faced with: providing hard statistics that help to calculate cost-benefit of an accessibility requirement when that effort may actually lead someone to justify exclusion?

The most powerful tool seems to be more examples of how accessibility is done well, and in particular how it can spark or encourage innovation. There are plenty examples out there of where this has happened, and it was great to hear that WAI is collecting such examples for an addition to their suite of resources arguing for accessibility. We need to be able to show sceptics examples of where innovation in accessible web design can genuinely lead to benefits for end-user and provider, because if we can’t, it makes advocating inclusive design that much more difficult.

What does all this mean for the usability profession? Do we need accessibility specialists, or is this knowledge and skills that all usability professionals who acknowledge human diversity should expect to have? What do you think?

• a speed limit may imply that driving at, or just below, that limit automatically means ‘safe’.
• a safe driving speed depends on context – weather, time, road condition, surrounding environment, visibility, to name but a few factors.

The reality is that:

• if I break the speed limit, then I risk being caught, and either fined or charged with dangerous driving. So I try(!) not to break the speed limit.
• if I stick to the speed limit on an urban or semi-urban dual carriageway where there are two lanes and good visibility, but a 40mph speed limit, I can guarantee that at some point I’ll be overtaken by vehicles who are breaking the law yet who are overwhelmingly unlikely to be punished for it. (There are several roads round Dundee like this; the other day I was passed by a speeding bus, on the back of which was an advert for a road safety initiative illustrated by a large picture of a speed camera.)

So there’s a penalty for speeding, but it doesn’t stop people breaking the law, especially when they see little reason for keeping to it. I might get a bit annoyed, but so long as those other drivers are driving safely, is it really a big deal?

Which brings me to…the reawakened argument over web page validation and accessibility.

A post by Jeff Attwood questioning the merits of HTML code validity has caused a lot of debate amongst web standardistas, and on the GAWDS discussion list. Jeff’s debate revolves around the lack of code validity of home pages of high-traffic sites like Google. He concludes by encouraging developers and designers to aspire to validation but suggesting that few will notice the difference if it is achieved.

The dominant reaction on GAWDS is one that often occurs in this debate – accusations of the organisations concerned of a lack of concern for accessibility. That includes the employer of accessibility pioneers like T.V. Raman, a company with a home page that a very, very large number of people visit and use (including disabled people) without undue problem. Wouldn’t we have heard about it if it were not so?

Large tech companies have a history of embarrassing themselves by undermining their own accessibility R&D expertise with corporate blunders (see Google Chrome or IBM’s Sydney Olympics site). But as Matthew Pennell points out on the GAWDS list, there are most likely compelling commercial reasons why Google limits the amount of code on its home page (and has no DTD), so as to reduce download times as far as possible. I don’t have experience of working for a large tech company, so I’m in no position to question their motives for failing to achieve validation across the board. But, based on the validation errors found, Matthew challenges anyone to prove that these errors on their own lead to exclusion for disabled people. I’d also like to see that evidence.

We had this debate in the drafting of WCAG 2 and the role of validity within the guidelines. It also reminds me of the reaction to the DRC ‘s survey of web accessibility conducted in the UK in 2004. The survey carried out automated testing, expert testing and user testing with disabled people. It found that some sites which did not validate to WCAG 1.0 nevertheless could be used for the intended purpose by the disabled evaluators. Instead of a debate as to the validity of the guidelines, some people questioned the validity of the research. There seemed to be a preference to use guideline conformance over the experiences of disabled people as evidence of accessibility.

For me, the sensible position to take is that aspiring to have as few validation errors as possible is an excellent design principle. But let’s not kid ourselves that validity means universal accessibility for disabled people and non-validity means inaccessibility, or illegality (as one comment in Jeff Attwood’s blog appeared to assert). As accessibility advocates, we do our cause no favours by haranguing people for behaviour we object to based on points of principles rather than solid evidence. Mike Davies (@isofarro), who has criticised this approach for years, has recently made a similarly scathing attack on CSS evangelism, and in doing so identifies examples of where informed use of invalid code can enhance accessibility.

In both cases, the standards-based approaches are the way to go – as far as possible. But in the messy world of the Web, this may – for valid reasons – not be all the way.

Just like that 50mph speed limit on an open, straight stretch of rural road is no more making it safe than the 30 mph limit on the city road outside a school at 3pm when it’s raining, your wiper blade has stopped working properly, you’re tired, and stressed by the white van in your rear view mirror.