Homepage Accessibility
Following the launch of the new BBC Homepage in February, it was great to read this blog post on Unintentionally Blank (The BBC Does Web 2.0 accessibly and validly).
I thought it might be worth a few words here to talk about how we made the new homepage work for disabled users.
The accessibility team in BBC FM&T is looking at new approaches to accessibility, which truly put usability for disabled users at the heart of everything we do, but also help usability for non-disabled users.
The idea that the new Homepage should be a widgetised page - like Facebook, iGoogle and Netvibes - presented a challenge. How could Ajax and JavaScript be used to make the page dynamic and customisable, without causing a disastrous user experience for access technology users and alike?
Firstly, we looked at ways to make the page friendly to users with motor, cognitive and visual impairments.
For example, we ensured that font sizes and the use of colour met our Accessibility Standards & Guidelines, and that links were not too spaced out (for screen-magnifier-users), too close together, or too small (for those with motor impairments).
But the main challenge was going to be for screenreader-users. They are often confused by dynamic content changes on a page because they are not aware that a part of the page's content has changed. In many cases, it is down to the user to go through the frustrating process of trial and error, in order to become familiar with the specific behaviour of a website.
To identify the full extent of any potential problems for disabled users, we invested heavily in a process of regular user testing with participants with various cognitive, motor and visual impairments. To ensure against problems with screenreaders and dynamic content we also commissioned AbilityNet to test the site against several screenreaders, including: Jaws (versions 9.0.552, 8.0.2173 and 7.10.500), Hal (v8.03), Window-Eyes (v6.1), Thunder (v1.0.25) and WebbIE (v3.3.5).
As predicted, the main issues arose with the customisable content section.
For example, un-focusing a link visually (when a button is clicked on by a user it changes appearance to show it has been activated) normally sends screen readers to the top of the page.
After much experimenting with Jaws 8 and JavaScript, our developers managed to find a solution that worked for screenreaders and that worked visually. We eventually managed to send the focus to the new content for screenreaders using JavaScript, and then added more JavaScript to unfocus the link when a user released the mouse button, based on the assumption that screenreader users will be using a keyboard to navigate the page.
Using the results of our user-testing we made semantic markup of the page a priority, ensuring that each panel of the homepage design could be treated and navigated consistently. For example, the H3 heading always applies to the title of the content panel whether the content is in a table, a list or paragraph, and a logical structure of headings follow underneath.
[NB: H3 headings are those with the +- at the end of them on the homepage. For example: "More Top Stories" in the News Panel; "Most Popular" in the iPlayer panel.]
Another interesting lesson that we took away from the testing was the use of visual labels to signify changes in the state of content boxes. Originally the content boxes featured links labelled "Collapse this box". We realised that "collapse" and "expand" hold little meaning to blind users and so relabelled them to "Open the News box" and "Close the News box" etc.
We are delighted that because of all that we learned on this project, our disabled users will get a better experience of using the BBC homepage.
Credit needs to go to the homepage developers and designers, and the accessibility team in User Experience & Design which focuses on research, testing and policy creation across all of the BBC's web, mobile and interactive TV services, encouraging a culture where accessibility is a given.
But it's not just disabled users who'll benefit from this work.
The fact that the BBC Homepage is customisable without JavaScript (it's the only page "within the dynamic website arena" that we know does this) ensures that choosing content boxes, customising content, and changing the page colour are all possible for users with mobile devices and older browsers too.
Jonathan Hassall is Acting Head of Audience Experience & Usability, BBC Future Media & Technology.
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Comments
WAI-ARIA (http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/aria)
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Too many colours and it keeps changing colour. Big problem.
Robert, so disable the colour changing and choose a colour you're happy with?
Robert - it doesn't keep changing colour if you go into the settings and choose your own colour - I have it permanently set to black - it doesn't change for me.
If I want to enable settings to keep the colour then I have to store information such as cookies on my computer. I don't do that, will never do that and think it is appalling that I should be expected to.
Why do people preach about internet security and then ask you to do all sorts of things that could compromise your computer.
I'm fed up with having to use flash, javascript, cookies as well as having to give people my email.
When will people understand and accept that cookies DO NOT compromise your security in ANY WAY if they are from a trustworthy source such as the BBC?
The ONLY information stored in the cookie is the customizations that you have chosen yourself, and this information can only ever be sent to the server that set the cookie, no-one else.
Cookies cannot compromise your computer either; they cannot read any data on your hard disk drive. They cannot access any data other than what was chosen and specified by you.
Get with the times. Cookies are safe from trustworthy sources, and if you don't like them, you will just have to put up with the changing colours.
Robert
The web is a stateless environment - the only way you can keep any personalization settings between visits is if the browser tells the site you're you and what those settings are. That means cookies.
Yes, it requires that the user exercise good judgment and a modicum of awareness of what is being loaded onto their computers, but that's the state of the 'Net. If you want personalization, it's up to you to accept the necessary components to maintain that personalization.
If you don't want to, then you always have that option - but you can't then turn around and complain the sites you visit aren't psychic.
*Good* sites degrade gracefully if those components that use javascript, AJAX, Flash, etc are declined (such as can be done if you're using FireFox and NoScript).
But decrying sites that offer those technologies is like complaining about the switchover to digital TV. It's not far removed from internet ludditeism.
I'm far more irked at those lazy coders who jump into new interactive tech without considering accessibility than I am they're *using* that tech.
You should be far more concerned with how Kontiki co-opts your computer to serve the BBC if you're using iPlayer's desktop version than the BBC's website loading a few cookies onto your computer so it knows how you'd like to view the site.
I've read the featured article about the BBC website redesign on .net magazine, so I decided to take a look myself. Excellent job!
I must say I am really impressed and happy to see that one of the big news sites like BBC decided to improve their website by allowing users to personalise their own BBC homepage.
My only complaint is that you don't seem to allow user accounts! I use three different computers between work and home, and often more than one browser, so I'd like to be able to keep my customisations regardless the PC or the browser I use. I understand that implementing user accounts may be a big step for such a big website, but it may be necessary... did you consider this?