Aware that a muddled website costs money, Jeff Benzos looks to history for an answer
When Jeff Bezos was looking for Inspiration for his online bookstore Amazon. In 1994, he never dreamt the allied air war of WWII could give him the answer.
But while reading accounts of dogfights over Nazi Germany, it dawned on him that by delving into history he might be able to solve a conundrum that was holding up his business plans - how to navigate a Website.
Bezos read about the difficulties facing pilots when using their equipment and learned how science and technology experts solved the problem; all aeronautical equipment was colour coded. He applied the technique to Amazon.
Moreover, the time spent making a user friendly Website paid off and Bezos now runs one of the most successful sites on the Internet - earning $79 million in the last quarter of 2003. Unfortunately, most owner-managers have failed to follow suit and many people are still unable to access the majority of company Websites, according to Colin Shanley, founder of Website accessibility firm fnx.
"I know many people that can't use a mouse, but around 99% of Websites require a mouse and will not support other devices such as a keyboard, " he said. "If the target area i s particularly small, such as a results list on google, then someone who either has Parkinson's (Disease) or blood pressure will find it difficult to click on those areas because their hands are shaking. "
In 1995, the government introduced the Disability Discrimination Act to eradicate all forms of prejudice, including Website accessibility and usability. The Discrimination Rights Commission (DRC) was subsequently set up to target companies with sites that fail to comply with regulations such as having keyboard short cuts, links that do not alienate colour blind people and legible fonts.
ZERO TOLERANCE
The DRC has rarely adopted strong arm tactics when dealing with companies that have inaccessible and unusable sites, but the UK government's determination to enforce the rule will see more company owners entering court battles, according to Colin Mason, company secretary at the Engineering Industries Association.
He believes human rights lawyers are ready to pounce on the perpetrators. "If you look at the Houses of Parliament, what do you have on both sides of the front benches: barristers and lawyers, " he said. "They are all chomping at the bit and every human rights lawyer you can imagine is on the hunt as they are all checking these Websites. "
Companies in the US have already been hit with legal action and UK businesses could be next, according to Catriona Campbell, founder of The Usability Company, a consultancy firm. "The DRC could start suing organisations that refuse to make their sites accessible, " she said. Indeed, a company's Website is expected to meet criteria set out by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) such as ease of entry to the site, ease of interaction and user experience.
But according to the law, owner-managers must either ensure that all W3C criteria is met or face t h e consequences. For Shanley, this grey area will prove to be the downfall for many companies. "If you are a business owner defending yourself against a disabled user who can prove that he is required to use a mouse to access your site even though h e is unable to, you will lose," he said.
SEE YOU IN COURT
Last year the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB) was involved in two civil cases against UK firms after members complained about Website accessibility.
The companies - which cannot be named for legal reasons - eventually settled out of court, but the RNIB digital policy development officer, Julie Howell, believes legal action can be avoided.
"If the Website is inaccessible, visually impaired people have no way of contacting the company to issue their complaint, so they usually come to us," she said. "By that time the situation has escalated to the point where the complainant wants to sue the company, but this can be avoided if businesses have contact details on their homepage and respond to their customers "
The government's concerns about this issue seem to be justified If analysts' claims that more than 90% of UK Websites fall short of W3C guidelines are correct. Yet company owners under pressure to address the problem are dragging their feet because the government has failed to lead by example, according to Mason.
He believes many UK bosses are unaware of t h e accessibility Issue because the government has not promoted it enough. " It's the government's fault because I t has not told anyone, " he said. "Every MP has a site. So If you're Ann Widdecombe It's the first thing that you look a t In the morning, but even these sites are under attack. "
Howell believes owner -managers will ignore the problem unless the government takes the initiative and stops being hypocritical. "The effort from the government has so far been disappointing. For reasons known to Itself, the government made an announcement a few months ago saying that around 80% of Its own Websites are not reaching the standard they have set," she sad. "This is clearly disappointing and there's a lot more the government could do to lead by example "
DID WE FORGET ANYONE?
Apart from the legal implications, company bosses are also alienating a huge proportion of the UK population by failing to improve their Websites Around 20% of adults - 8 5 million - In the UK are disabled and one in three people aged between 15-65 will have a disability before they retire.
The annual spend of the disabled adult population is around €50 billion a year, and companies with inaccessible and unusable sites could be missing out on a financial windfall, according to Campbell. "The Internet was invented to allow people to communicate with others around the world, but disabled people cannot use many SME sites, " she said. "Companies are cutting out a potential audience, so it makes sense for them to redo their sites to achieve customer satisfaction. "
But the disabled Web user will not be the only person to take his custom elsewhere if he finds it difficult to access and navigate a Website, according to Shanley. "Not only will you lose that person's custom forever but also 70% of his friends, family and acquaintances that he tells about your Website, " he said. "Every time you disenfranchise somebody you lose a high proportion of potential custom because they will not use you on moral grounds."
Nevertheless, while the threat of legal action and lost sales looms over company owners that ignore the government's warnings, Howell believes that bosses actively seen to be addressing the problem will not be a t risk. "If you receive an accessibility report and find there are 100 things wrong with your Website you shouldn't feel you have to change them over night," she said. "It is unlikely for a judge to say you have to make your Website accessible immediately. He is more likely to be looking for a plan of action and incremental changes.
CATRIONA CAMPBELL’S ACCESSIBILITY TIPS
Alternative (alt) text appears when you position your mouse pointer over an image on a web page. Visitors to your site with sight disabilities may be using screen reading equipment, which sends text displayed on the screen to be spoken by a speech synthesizer or reproduced In Braille. They will rely on the alt text to convey the same amount of information as the image itself. The use of alt text on all images is one of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Priority 1 checkpoints and is required for Bobby Approved status.
THE ALT TEXT SHOULD BE:
- A description of photographs, figures and pictures. This should be brief and not exceed more than about 20 Words. If this is not sufficient to get the message across, then a link should be provided to a fuller description elsewhere
- An exact wording or summary of text images. As above the number of words should be limited, where possible any more than a few words should be displayed as text rather than an image.
- An asterisk or empty quotation marks on images that have no content value such as dots and dashed lines. This tells the screen-reader that the image adds no information value to the page.
Use of Colour:
Using different colours for links already visited will prevent users following the same links repeatedly and benefit users with memory problems. Similarly, a variety of colours to distinguish between sections and types of content may improve accessibility, although part of your audience is colour blind and you should not rely solely on colour association to differentiate in this way. When combining colours, you also need to think about the contrast between text and background and whether this has.
Fonts:
It is common practice today to use small font sizes, 8pt and smaller, on web sites. This is perfectly acceptable providing they arc available. Browsers have font size controls and using relative font sizes permits the user to adjust it. Non-standard fonts can be attractive but can also be difficult to read.
This article appeared in the May 2004 issue of Advice for Growth.
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