Advanced 508 Accessibility

1. Advanced 508 Accessibility Shauna Fjeld Senior Internet Developer National Renewable Energy Laboratory 12/5/02

2. Overview • All new Web sites developed at NREL are 508 compliant (or at least as compliant as we can make them) • Some Section 508 requirements are more difficult to meet than others • Doesn't help that many of the requirements asked for things not well supported by most browsers, assistive devices and creating programs. • Today, we'll take a look at a few of the biggest 508 stumbling blocks • Complex Data Tables • PDFs • Flash Sites

3. Data Tables • As R&D organizations we tend to publish a lot of statistical data • Typically this kind of data is displayed in an HTML table • 508 standards have very specific rules regarding data tables • Markup must be used to associate data cells with header cells • "So what do they mean when they say "markup"?

4. Simple Tables • Just add a <TH> <TABLE border=1> <TR><TH>Coffee</TH><TH>Drinkers</TH></TR> <TR><TD>Maxwell House</TD><TD>John</TD></TR> <TR><TD>Folgers</TD><TD>Pete</TD></TR> </TABLE>

5. Complex Tables • Use new tags defined in HTML 4 such as headers, IDs, colgroups and rowgroups • Until recently, not recognized by any assistive device • Latest version of Jaws (4.5) supports some of the newer table coding • How do you code when you can't test? • Code to the standards, don't code to the assistive device

6. <table> <tr><th colspan="4">Efficiency Recommendation</th></tr> <tr><th rowspan="2" id="speed">Fax Speed</th> <th id="recommended">Recommended "Sleep" Mode</th> <th colspan="2" id="best">Best Available "Sleep" Mode</th></tr> <tr><th headers="recommended" id="types">All Types</th> <th headers="best" id="inkjet">Inkjet</th> <th headers="best" id="laser">Laser, LED</th></tr> <tr><th headers="speed" id="pages">10 pages/min.</th> <td headers="pagesrecommendedtypes">10 watts or less</td> <td headers="pagesbestinkjet">1 watt</td> <td headers="pagesbestlaser">2 watts</td></tr> <tr><th headers="speed" id="min">10 pages/min.</th> <td headers="minrecommendedtypes">15 watts or less</td> <td headers="minbestinkjet">2 watts</td> <td headers="minbestlaser">2 watts</td></tr> </table>

7. PDFs - Where We Started From • Since Acrobat 3, most single-column text documents are automatically readable by screen readers • Acrobat 4 added document structure which basically allowed a screen reader to read columns of data correctly

8. Acrobat 5 Adds New Accessibility Features • Allows for "tagged" PDFs • Enables a screen reader to read a PDF in a user-defined order • Includes paragraph attributes needed to reflow text correctly (for zoom magnification) • Ensures reliable translation of all text into Unicode -- a standardized approach to describing text characters regardless of font (e.g. screen reader more likely to read it correctly)

9. Authoring PDFs for Accessibility • Level of automatic accessibility greatly determined by authoring methods and authoring application versions • Get real bang for your buck with these applications • Office 2000, Framemaker 7, Pagemaker 7, InDesign 2 and GoLive 6. • Documents authored with other applications, such as Quark Xpress, must be tagged using the "Make Accessible Plug-In"

10. Authoring PDFs for Accessibility – General Tips • Use styles instead of applying font/paragraph attributes manually • Use paragraph spacing instead of <Enter> to space between paragraphs. • Use Insert Table or Draw Table tool to create tables • Define logical reading order by using columns instead of tabs

11. Authoring PDFs for Accessibility – General Tips • Use Alternate text descriptions for images • Applying certain security features to PDFs can inhibit screen readers • Our standard is not to include security on PDFs unless there is a real need for it • Group all objects in an illustration and apply single alt text description

12. Adobe's "Make Accessible" Plugin • Used for making legacy PDFs that were not created with a PDF friendly product • Limited functionality • Especially problematic with tables, footnotes, non-structured documents • Extensive tag editing usually required for alt tags, tables, navigational aids, and read order • Should always use "Save As" when using plugin as it makes irreversible changes to the PDF

13. Scanned PDFs • Scanned PDFs are not accessible • Use the Adobe plugin "Paper Capture" to convert to tagged PDF with OCR applied

14. Flash • Goal is to make content of Flash pages accessible • Reality is that they probably won't be for most disabled users • Include text script to ensure access for all users

15. Flash 6 • Macromedia Flash Player 6 can now make content such as • text elements • buttons • input text fields • movie clips, • and even entire movies available to screen readers through Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA)

16. Flash 6 • Text contained within a Macromedia Flash movie is exposed by default • Graphic elements are not exposed automatically • As in HTML, graphic elements require a text equivalent for the screen reader to read in place of the image

17. Accessing Flash with a Screen Reader • Macromedia Flash Player 6 • A screen reader that integrates the Macromedia Flash Player implementation of MSAA • The first of these screen readers is Window-Eyes from GW Micro. • Microsoft Internet Explorer browser • This is the only browser with support for MSAA.

18. Conclusion • When the Section 508 requirements were first released, the biggest challenge was simply trying to interpret them • The federal government provided very little guidance on how to implement standards that were not supported by current technology • However, in the last year, assistive technology and the tools to create accessible Web content have improved dramatically • We can finally see that our efforts can and do make a difference