In 1995 a new era of accessibility for disabled people began. The DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) was passed, stating that:“It’s unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against a disabled person by refusing to provide any service which it provides to members of the public.”

A website is regarded as a service and the RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind) and DRC (Disability Rights Commission) have been quick to apply pressure on to organisations to push this law into practice. Indeed, the DRC has now published a report on its formal investigation into 1000 websites.

So, how do disabled people access the Internet?

1. Blind users

Internet users who have no sight at all may utilize a screen reader, which reads the content of the web page, or rather the HTML code of the page, back to them. These machines sift through the HTML code and the technology deciphers what needs to be read aloud and what should be ignored. You can download the IBM Homepage Reader for a free 30-day trial. Once you’ve downloaded it, go to your website, turn your monitor off, and try to navigate your website.

2. Partial/poor sight

To take full advantage of the Internet, users with partial or poor sight may need to be able to enlarge the text on web pages. Check if your website allows them to achieve this on Internet Explorer by going to ‘View > Text size > Largest’.If your site is accessible to this group of users then the size of the text throughout the page will increase. Text embedded within graphics isn’t resizable and may cause difficulties for this group of web users.Users with poor vision may also use a screen magnifier to enlarge the text size. Again, text embedded within graphics may cause difficulties as it can appear blurry and pixelated when magnified.

3. Colour blindness

It’s estimated that one in 12 men and one in 200 women have some form of colour blindness (Source: IEE). You can check how Internet users with different strains of colour blindness are viewing your website with Vischeck.

4. Deaf users

Deaf web users are often able to access the Internet in much the same way as able-bodied people, with one key exception - audio content. If it’s a key function of your website for people to be able to hear a message, then be sure to provide subtitles or a written transcript.

An additional disadvantage deaf users may face is that British Sign Language is actually their first language. As such, they may be unable to understand some advanced English words and sentences.

5. Keyboard/voice only users

Some of your site users don’t have access to a mouse when browsing the Internet. Try putting yourself in their position by navigating your website using only tab, shift-tab, and the return key.

6. Other users

Other people who may access your website that have disadvantages include:

1. Some epileptic users who must always be careful to avoid seeing flickering between 2 and 55 Hz
2. Web users from outside your industry who may not understand industry jargon or acronyms
3. Web users whose first language is not English and who may not be able to comprehend complicated language

To really put yourself in the position of one of these web users try out the DRC’s inaccessible website demonstration.

Trenton Moss

Webcredible

A client is interested in adding access keys to their
website particularly given the relevance to their
audience. I'm looking for best practice examples of
their useage.

Other than the Nomensa article here, is
their other examples or commonly accepted norms of
standards for access keys, other than sitemap (3),
contact (9), homepage (1) and accessibilty (0)

I found it bizarre that the cabinet office publish
information about suggested best practice for access key settings:

scroll down mid way the page of:

http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/e-government/resourc
es/handbook/html/2-4.asp

and then the very same mandarins flagrantly violate
their own standards. Click alt+0 from the above page
to reach:
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/e-government/viewing.
asp 

which shows a different set of access key settings!

It also seems a shame that london2012.org, otherwise
impecable website, whose winning bid was so
centered on inclusiveness, paralympics and
minorities, manages to offer a page not found 404
error, albeit with a pretty logo message, because of
html coding oversight.

Finally, is it possible to track the useage of access
keys in any web analytics way?

Thanks for your insightful info.

It seems that theory and practice of standards in this area is a murky one particularly given the conflict of other applications vying for the same keys.

Can you explain your rationale for the differing approach between M&S and Allied Domecq? The former uses mostly numbers and the latter mostly characters for the same category of pages. is it much the case that users of the keys will initially consult the alt+0 page to familiarise themselves with the navigation. And given the scale of your client websites can you offer any insight into user testing of these sites in that respect?

Thinking about this much reminds me of frequent instances of poor design: The peculiar quirk that the number pad on a keyboard/calculator, starting at 1 on the left bottom of the pad layout, is routinely re-arranged for a cashpoint, where the pad starts with a 1 at the top left. It makes for hell if you are used to intuitively typing your PIN numbers on websites and then try to get cash out of the bank. It's like we intuively know that the top left of a screen will get us the homepage, then some designer tries to break convention with a radical new design. It must be frustrating for disabled people to grapple with poor design on a daily basis.

Re accessbility keys I'm still racking my head if their useage can be ascertained other than looking at the logs for page views of the alt+0 page alone. Maybe the webanalytics can identify through other means if the browser agent is a screen reader or assistive technology.

It would be interesting to hear from other industry agencies, particularly those publishing multilingual websites. This is where I favour the number route rather than the characters. 

For example:
118 is becoming pan european wide accepted and i believe there are efforts to unify emergency  numbers (away from 999)

It seems the UK leads on disability compliance for web publishing and while there maybe limited scope for access keys versus assitive technologies it would be encouraging for leading consumer websites and the trade to converge in their approach to further promote the web as an inclusive medium for all users.