Accessibility of Websites for those with Disabilities
Heather Sanderson
Eastern Connecticut State University
June 23, 2019
This past year our school informed us we were all going to redo our websites and make new Google sites in order to be accessible to students with disabilities. Since I was in the process of making a new Google site for my school I thought I would also change my Wordpress site for my Eastern graduate work over to a Google site as well. While looking through the WAI Evaluations a few suggestions stood out to me. Those suggestions were that an accessible website must have a page title that is brief and descriptive, the title must be different than other page titles, the images must contain text alternatives, and colors chosen must have a distinctive color contrast ( Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), 1994-2015).
I decided I wanted to research how I can improve both my school site and my ePortfolio. Both sites are in the construction process so they are not in their finished state. I was amazed at how many sites were available through WAI to check for the accessibility compliancy of web sites and I found some more helpful than others (WAI, 2016) I would first like to discuss my ePortfolio site. The first accessibility site I used was A-Tester. When I ran through the address of my website of my ePortfolio the results showed I was 74% compliant, but there were still many improvements I could make. The areas that needed the most improvement on my ePortfolio were providing alternate text for images and ensuring list items are found in a list container (Web Accessibility by Level Access, 2015-2016). I next ran my school website through the A-Tester program and it said that website was 74% compliant as well. My school website also needed improvement in the alternate text for images and I needed to ensure that links or controls that open new windows or frames do not open without a warning.
After trying out some other sites to check my website for accessibility, I found A-Checker quite helpful. When I put in my ePortfolio address in it came back with 1 known problem which was that my label text was empty, 1 likely problem which was suspicious link text, and I had a whopping 200 potential problems. My school website which contains more pictures and links had 9 known problems which were text alternatives for pictures, making it easier to hear and see content by separating foreground and background, and issues with navigation and input assistance. My school website had 2 likely problems and 96 potential problems (A Checker, 2011).
I then took a look at WCAG’s How to Meet WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) Quick Reference guide it was quite informative and helpful. The tips that stood out to me were non-text content must have a text alternative, use of color, text spacing, and making all content readable were all of great importance for an accessible website (WAI, 1994-2013). I next decided to make some changes to both of my websites. I first went to my ePortfolio site and I noticed I had two pages that were labeled bibliography, one was for my thesis, the other was for the whole Educational technology program. I immediately labeled the second bibliography which covers the most influential and important reading from my whole graduate program “Educational Technology Bibliography” to clear up any confusion between the two. I then went through to fix color contrast and text issues to make sure the text stood out enough to the reader. Next I went to my school website and immediately remedied the alternate text for my images. The process was very simple. I just need to click on the image, go to more editing options, click add alt text, and then enter the alternate text for the image.
The whole process of entering in my web sites to check for accessibility was eye opening. As I complete construction of both of my websites I will now go through with more knowledge of how to make my website fully accessible for those with disabilities.
My eportfolio link: https://sites.google.com/view/heatherseducationaltechnologys/home
My school website link: https://sites.google.com/glastonburyus.org/sandersonh/home
References
Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). (1994-2015). Accessibility Evaluation Resources. Retrieved from https://www.w#.org/WAI/eval/
Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). (2016). https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/
Web Accessibility by Level Access. (2015-2016). Retrieved from https://webaccessibility.com/
AChecker. (2011). Retrieved from https://achecker.ca/checker/index.php
Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). (1994-2013). Retrieved from https://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag