Assessment of Best Practices and Available Tools for Compliance Testing - Essay Example

? Assignment Accessibility I.D. of the Assignment Accessibility Assessment of Best Practices According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (2013), one of the best practices in ensuring Section 508 compliance is to apply Semantic HTML Markup. This helps particularly those website visitors “who use assistive technologies like a screen reader” (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs 2013). Therefore, it is always a good idea to carefully select and double check all the HTML tags used in the construction of a website. Choice of colors may turn out to be crucial in certain cases. For persons with low or weak vision, high contrast colors are necessary. On the other hand, persons who are color blind are benefited when different shapes are used instead of different colors to describe certain functions, features, and/or links. The developer must keep these factors in mind and select an appropriate color scheme (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs 2013). Device based website functions and control elements should be selected such that users with disabilities can utilize them. A multilayer approach can be helpful in designing such kind of interfaces. Multilayered interface helps the user with virtual three dimensional environments; wherein synchronizing device based controls can be relatively hassle free for the website developer. (Lazar and Olalere 2011; Seffah and Javahery 2004) Experts like Lazar and Olalere (2011) advocate for development of a comprehensive framework that would encompass the different activities necessary for designing a universally accessible website. “The combination of regular accessibility evaluations, ongoing training, and transparency, seems to be key in improving Web site accessibility” (Lazar and Olalere 2011, section 4.0). Evidently, this kind of framework can be implemented only by the administration of a government. Ensuring cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility is another imperative. The website must be workable in as many browsing situations as possible. For example, the website must be compatible with most of the standard Internet browsers like Internet Explorer from Microsoft, Chrome from Google, Firefox from Mozilla, etc. Not only that, the website must have a layout that would adjust with the specifics of the device through which it is viewed. For example, a website may have a wide appearance when viewed with the help of a computer; but it will appear in a sleek, oblong from when viewed with the help of a mobile phone. (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs 2013; Seffah and Javahery 2004) Section 508 and Its Impact In USA, Section 508 of Rehabilitation Act (1973) was legislated in 1998 by the means of an amendment. The main motive behind this law is to get rid of barriers in information technology (IT) systems, which people with disabilities confront in general. It also aims at developing techniques that would make it plausible and easier for people with disabilities to have equal opportunity to access information. Since websites are most rife at the technology interface available to general public, web development technology specific accessibility options are given special importance in the context of this rule. (Lazar and Olalere 2011) The Section 508 is having significant impact. Websites of both government and non government organizations, particularly those working in the sphere of human services, may call for processes such as live chat, online support service, video conference, etc. In absence of proper scope to use wider accessibility options, such websites may become useless to users who have disabilities. Section 508 articulates that how IT systems and applications can be made more user-friendly. Consequently, it sets a legal and technical roadmap before the website developers, which defines how they can ensure numerous and better accessibility options in the websites they design. Available Tools for Compliance Testing The World Wide Web Consortium or W3C provides an efficient Section 508 compliance checking tool. The tool is web based, and it is called the CSS Validator. The main benefit of using this tool is that it is directly maintained and continuously enhanced by the W3C experts. This means that besides the US specifications (as articulated in Section 508), user accessibility compliance is checked and ensured as per global standards which are relevant in other countries too (W3C.org 2013). However, the biggest drawback of this tool is that it cannot check a cascading style sheet (CSS) of the website when XHTML is used in constructing that CSS. What is more, it cannot validate the non CSS content of the website. WAVE is another reputed testing tool. It is provided by WebAIM, which stands for Web Accessibility in Mind. Particularly in the case of checking compatibility with the Section 508 standards, WAVE can be highly advantageous. This is so because several U.S. Govt. agencies themselves use WAVE. According to U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (2013), “It is a free Web accessibility evaluation tool, and we use it often in our testing process before we review the code, and test with accessibility tools.” However, the main problem with WAVE is that it is highly technical in nature. Consequently, amateur web developers and novice programmers may not benefit from it. Java Ferret can also be used to examine Section 508 compliance. This tool utilizes an object oriented mode of action and examines accessible information regarding the various objects of the website inside a Java Virtual Machine environment. In this way, it helps the developer to extensively experiment with the different events and functions of the website script in different ways (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs 2013). However, this advantage might become a problem in the case the website does not use an object oriented programming (OOP) language, or has elements of non OOP programs embedded in it. Multiple Interfaces versus Single Interface If a single interface is used for a website or web page, then there are several shortcomings from the viewpoint of harnessing universal accessibility. First of all, any scope of putting multiple controls for the same function becomes very much restricted. But without doing this, a website designer cannot ensure that a user can be benefited by available alternatives. For example, suppose a web page contains a button. Now, for a person with low vision, the button must be designed using a high contrast color scheme. For a completely blind user, the button should be such that when the cursor hovers over it, the button’s functions are conveyed by means of audio. For a person who cannot move mouse, the button might have to be designed as touch sensitive in a touch screen mode. Combining all these capabilities in a single button inside a single interface is difficult and risky. Single interface will call for multiple functions to be potentially triggered off only by a few controls. This will eventually make the website heavy, underlying script will be complex, and chances of runtime error will increase. For that reason, multiple interfaces are a better solution. If a website has multiple interfaces, then different user groups can be directed to different kinds of interface setting. This will simplify the scripts. The website will need lots of web pages. But these web pages will load faster and provide better user specific facilities with the help of short but targeted contents (Seffah and Javahery 2004). And the whole thing can be done through a lone entry point or a pre-loader for the website. Therefore, multiple interfaces are more beneficial. References Lazar, J. and Olalere, A. (2011). Investigation of best practices for maintaining Section 508 compliance in U.S. Federal Web sites. Universal Access in Human Computer Interaction, Design for All and eInclusion (pp. 498-508). New York: Springer. Seffah, A. and Javahery, H. (2004). Multiple User Interfaces. Hoboken: Wiley. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (2013). Developer Resources – Section 508. Retrieved on 12th October 2013 from http://www.section508.va.gov/Developer_Resources.asp W3C.org (2013). CSS Validator. Retrieved on 12th October 2013 from http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ Read More