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Although it is not considered a major update, Microsoft (MS) recently released the latest iteration of its highly popular MS Office. To me, it appears most of the changes to this version (Microsoft Office 2010) are minor in nature and looks very similar to version 2007 – which WAS a major upgrade. That said, there are clearly things “under the hood” that have been revised and it is always fun to try and discover those new things.

I will not comment on the cost effectiveness of upgrading to MS Office 2010 except to say that if you are still using MS Office 2003, this is probably a worthwhile investment. But if you are responsible for ensuring that the documents coming from your organization meet accessibility requirements, MS Office 2010 might be an excellent investment.

Accessibility Checker

For the new version of MS Office (MSO), Microsoft has made accessibility a priority since one of the new features is the Accessibility Checker (MSO-AC) built into three of the core applications: Word 2010, Excel 2010, and PowerPoint 2010. According to the MS promo, the MSO-AC helps users create more accessible content “by identifying areas that might be challenging for users with disabilities to view or use, and providing a task pane to review those areas, users can fix potential problems with their content.” So far, my limited experience with the MSO-AC has been favorable and here is what I have learned so far:

1. To use MSO-AC, click on the File tab [or Alt-F], tab to, or click on Prepare for Sharing and then tab to or click on to Check Accessibility. The MSO-AC dialog panel will appear along the right side of your screen and show you Warnings, Errors or Inspection Results. The MSO-AC works dynamically (see 3 below) and will continue to run as you create or edit your document. To find the location of the error in your document, click or tab to the Warning statement and your screen will refresh showing the error location highlighted.

In the lower panel of the MSO-AC, there is Additional Information which explains the reason for the Warning/Error and step-by-step instructions on how to fix it.

In developing this tool, Microsoft apparently differentiated between accessibility issues that are minor and those considered critical. For example, including extra characters (Warning: Repeated Blank Characters) is considered minor – issuing a “Warning,” whereas the absence of ALT text for an inserted image is considered critical – issuing an “Error”

2. When creating new documents using the default version settings (not documents saved in pre-2007 versions of MSO), the MSO-AC seems to run smoothly as advertised. Documents created in older versions of Office, or saved in the pre-2007 format, may or may not work as expected. For example, testing some 2003 version Excel spreadsheets yielded an error statement: “Unable to run the Accessibility Checker – Cannot check the current file type for accessibility issues.” Attempts at saving the file in the current (2010) version had no effect on this. However, if the data is copied and pasted into a new Excel 2010 spreadsheet, the MSO-AC worked fine.

When using Word and PowerPoint, the MSO-AC worked essentially the same way (error when trying to check documents made by older versions), but sometimes simply saving the document in the new 2010 version allowed MSO-AC to work. Note to Microsoft: I found this to work inconsistently.

3. One of the best features of the MSO-AC is that once activated in the application it will run dynamically and continue to alert you to accessibility issues via the Accessibility Checker task pane (see image on this page) as you continue to create or edit your document. In other words, in PowerPoint, as you add features to a slide such as an image or chart, the MSO-AC immediately notes that the new object is lacking an ALT text description and provides directions and rationale on how to fix the accessibility error. And if you accidently – or purposely – remove an accessibility feature, MSO-AC will note this and provide a description of the issue, how to fix it and why it needs to be fixed. This dynamic feature allows the author to add the accessibility on the fly, as the document is being created. This feature alone has the potential of making the process of adding accessibility features faster and easier. The feature should be very helpful in enterprise settings, ultimately reducing the cost of training and accessibility auditing.

4. When adding ALT description text in MS-Office 2010, the procedure has been thankfully standardized across all applications. Right clicking with your mouse (Note: there are a series steps to accomplish this task using keystroke alternatives) brings up the Format Picture dialog box. Choose the “ALT Text” option at the bottom of the list and add the alternative text. Unfortunately, Microsoft has chosen to add an input box for adding a “Title” and/or a “Description” to this option. Even though the MSO-AC will “approve” an inserted image that has only a Title and not a Description, if you convert this document into another format (PDF or HTML) the Title will not pass as a valid description for accessibility purposes. In other words, for conversion purposes, the Description is more important than the Title. At this point, it is recommended that users add BOTH a Title and Description to their inserted image and make the content of the Title and Description the same.

Final Thoughts

One can only hope that the next version of MS Office will expand the Accessibility Checker to MS Publisher and all of the products within the suite. Hopefully MS will also include this feature in updates to its version of MS Office for the Mac OS.

As I continue to play with MSO-AC, I will no doubt find new and interesting features. I will post them as additions to this blog article or as separate entries. See the Resources below for links to what others have said about MS Office and accessibility.

Resources

MS Tutorial on how to use the MSO-AC

A blog article from MSO2010 Engineering (January 2010) describing the how the MSO-AC was developed and more about what it checks for.

WebAIM article about how to build accessible documents. Includes information about the new MSO-AC.

Another blog article from Microsoft on Office Web Applications accessibility

Media Access Australia blog about the new MSO-AC

YouTube Video on MS-Office 2010 Accessibility features

From the Access Board – The Department of Justice (DOJ) is moving to issue final rules that would update its ADA regulations, including standards governing the construction and alteration of facilities covered by the law. On April 26, DOJ submitted final rules to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for approval. If cleared within OMB’s standard 90-day review period, DOJ may publish the updated regulations in late July or early August.

DOJ’s new rules will update its ADA regulations for state and local governments under title II and those for public accommodations and commercial entities covered by title III. The pending regulations will implement with effective dates new ADA standards for title II and title III facilities that are closely based on updated guidelines previously issued by the Board. In addition, the final rules, which DOJ made available for public comment in 2008, will revise or supplement other sections of DOJ’s regulations, including those covering existing facilities, service animals, policies and programs, maintenance of accessible features, auxiliary aids and services, and effective communication. DOJ had planned to issue the regulations in early 2009 but delayed publication in order to give officials of the incoming Obama Administration an opportunity to review them. For more information, visit DOJ’s website at www.ada.gov. Visitors to the site can subscribe to email updates from DOJ on this and other Department activities.

DOJ’s standards apply to all facilities covered by the ADA except transportation facilities, which are subject to standards issued by the Department of Transportation (DOT). DOT has already implemented updated ADA standards for transportation facilities. Similar standards are also in place under the Architectural Barriers Act (ABA) for most federally funded facilities. Housing facilities covered by the ABA currently remain subject to earlier standards pending the adoption of new standards by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Further information on the status of ADA and ABA standards is available on the Board’s website.

It occurred to me while I was posting a response to a potential client that I didn’t have a resource I could point them to as an answer to the question in the subject line. Certainly, after doing this work for over 10 years, I know the answer to the question, but I had never written in down in exactly that form. Indeed, I have given innumerable workshops and talks over the years and always covered this in the first five minutes. But I guess I have always assumed that everyone already knew this. Silly me.

So here is my answer to the question: Why should my website be accessible? Feel free to comment as a way of adding to the list of reasons. The more (reasons) the merrier.

To begin, not everyone knows that a certain number of people with disabilities must use specialized hardware and software (called Assistive Technology or A.T.) to use computers and technology. For example, most people who are blind (and many people with visual impairments) use a application called a screen-reader which “translates” content on a computer (or other technology) into speech or Braille. The screen-reader software also provides a easy way for the blind person to use the various controls on a computer or device by providing audio feedback which tells the user what is being typed on the screen or what controls are being used. There are also “tools” built into the screen-reader application that allow the user to “scan” the information on the screen and navigate quickly through the content in a way that is purposeful and meaningful. Without screen-reading technology many blind people and those with visual impairments would not be able to use these technologies.  Here is a link to more information about Braille and how screen-readers works.

Consider for a moment all the people in the United States who have some form of visual disabilities – that is, all the blind and visually impaired folks. Recent estimates are that there are about 15 million people in the United States who have these disabilities (source Braille Institute). Can you afford to have your website not be available to 15 million people in the US alone?

If we also consider other people with disabilities, the numbers grow even larger. People with hearing disabilities frequently need to have video content captioned or audio files transcribed in order to be accessible. People with mobility impairments, that may not be able to use a mouse to navigate around a computer screen, need to have accessible websites that work with the various Assistive Technologies they use.

So the first reason your website should be accessible is because only accessible websites will work correctly and completely with Assistive Technologies. Those websites that are partially accessible or not accessible at all, will be partially usable or completely unusable by people who have disabilities. So, if you want everyone to have access to the content on your website, you should make sure your website is accessible.

The next reason for having an accessible website is because accessible websites meet the international standards for web design and for this reason will work in every “user agent,” that is, every browser, on every operating system, and in every mobile and handheld devices (e.g., mobile phones and small WiFi devices like iPods and iPads). There are literally thousands of different devices and configurations with new technologies being developed every day.  So, if you want your website to work with virtually all devices that connect to the internet, you should make sure your website is accessible.

The next reason to make your website accessible is because Google will love you for doing so. Well, not really, but if you want people to find and use your website, then you should be concerned about how search engines like Google “feel” about your site. The science behind this is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which is based upon a set of methodologies that search engine services use to rank websites.

The corporate world spends lots of money tweaking their websites in order to improve their SEO. They understand that the difference of 1% in traffic flowing to a website could mean millions of dollars of profit for their company. Simply put, accessible web sites rank higher on SEO because they are built better than non-accessible sites and Google likes that. So, if you want to improve your SEO, you should make sure your website is accessible.

The last reason I will give here is one that is not exactly universal – yet. However, the trends suggest that it is just a matter of time before it becomes universal. What I am talking about is the legal requirement to make your website accessible.

Currently in the United Kingdom, it is the law that websites be accessible to people with disabilities (here is a summary about the law from Royal National Institute for Blind People). While not everyone is yet in compliance, there has been a steady increase in the number of websites in the United Kingdom that meet accessibilty standards.

In the United States, there is no universal law requiring all websites to meet accessibility standards. However, there are laws on the books that require websites for all federal and state government programs to be accessible. Currently, there are several groups reviewing two federal laws that deal with accessibility and websites, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, with an eye on expanding these laws to cover more websites. In recent years, various advocacy organizations for disabled Americans have also brought numerous civil rights complaints against businesses for not having accessible websites. And, while there has not been a definitive legal ruling, it is clearly just a matter of time before website accessibility becomes the law of the land in the United States. So, if you want to get ahead of this and be ready when the laws and rules change, you should make sure your website is accessible.

Here are some links to some other folks who have addressed this issue:

• World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) – Web Accessibility
• WAI’s “Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization” (thank you Andrew Arch @w3.org)
• WebAIM
• Guild of Accessible Web Designers (GAWD)
• Disabled World
• Admixweb
• Hipertext.net

And if you think of more reasons, please pass them along by commenting.

I admit that I am old enough to remember an ad campaign many years ago for the soft drink 7-Up where they referred to the product as the “Un-Cola” (WARNING: YouTube uncaptioned video) .  I know, I’m showing my age.

This thought hit me as I was signing up to attend the Boston Accessibility “Unconference” a few weeks ago. After reading the introduction and description on their website, I found it strangely reminiscent of the “happenings” we engaged in when I was a youth in high school and college. Very avant-garde, I thought; I’m in.

So with open expectations and my colleague Steve Sawczyn (a.k.a. @steveofmaine) riding shotgun, I ventured the three hours down to Waltham, MA this Saturday to see what would “happen.” I will admit that I was surprised by some things and not others. There were good things and disappointments. The experience reminded me vaguely of the first Tweetup I attended about a year ago; meeting a bunch of people whom I knew only through digital correspondences, blog posts and Tweets. I was quickly putting faces with “avatars” and changing my impressions at a steady pace.

There will be a formal evaluation process for the Boston Accessibility Unconference and when that comes out, I will take the opportunity to provide my full opinions there. But I wanted to take a few minutes to reflect upon the experience and post that information here while it was relatively fresh in my mind. I’ve organized my thoughts into three statements. Feel free to respond or generate your own ideas. Here are the three statements:

• What it was
• What it wasn’t
• What I would like it to be in the future

What it was

The Boston Accessibility Unconference was a gathering of about 80 fairly diverse folks who were interested in the accessibility of information technology. Like me, most seemed interested in the vicissitudes of accessible web design, but there were a number of folks whose interests appeared to branch into other areas of technology. There were a fair number of people with disabilities among the gathering.

The setting was the beautifully modern Waltham facilities of the Adobe Corporation provided by host Andrew Kirkpatrick, Adobe’s product manager for accessibility. The building featured all the latest gizmos and the most high tech restrooms on the planet. If you haven’t had a chance to hear Steve Sawczyn’s report of the skin-removing hand dryers in the men’s room, you are missing a rewarding experience. I will think of this place when I sent a hunk of cash to Adobe in a few weeks to purchase CS5 (again Warning: I don’t know if this link leads to an accessible website)

The agenda for the day was pretty free-flowing: an initial warm-up-welcome activity to create an “agenda,” four breakout periods where topics were assigned through a groupthink process, and various breaks for social interaction.

Several of the sessions that I attended were rather free-flowing with no one really taking charge and a general open exchange of ideas and opinions (some included with “hand grenades”; sorry Andrew). On the contrary, several of the sessions I attended were somewhat controlled by one or two individuals who had brought a PowerPoint presentation and seemed determined to give it whether people wanted to hear it or not.

What it wasn’t

I have to be careful here. I don’t want to sound critical or petulant because overall, the experience was very positive. But I didn’t get everything I wanted. So, if I frame this as what I was hoping for – and didn’t get – may be no one will be offended.

I was hoping for a larger picture (big picture) perspective and understanding of accessibility. I spend a lot of time in my head thinking about this topic in very global terms and I wanted to meet like-creatures and compare notes. I think they were in the room, but I didn’t have an opportunity to find many of them.

I was hoping to learn new things about areas I was interested in. I sensed a general backward reflection process or “this is what I do” attitude and was hoping for more of a what do we need to do differently attitude.

Like Guy Noir, I was hoping to find answers to life’s most persistent questions.

What I would like it to be in the future

I would like there to be a professional facilitator or facilitators who are not knowledgeable or interested in the topic of accessibility who can keep things on target.

I would like there to be more in the way of preparation beforehand so everyone can hit the ground running.

I would like for there to be more time to socialize. I would like there to be more time.

I would like to narrow down the focus to a couple of topics (may be three) and deal with them – I would like this to have been done before I got there. In essence, I want a little less “un” in the unconference.

I would like folks to leave the PowerPoints at home and just talk about the topics.

I would like everyone to be an expert and no one to be an expert. Yeah, you can tell I’m a child of the ’60s on that one!

I would like (and am still hoping for) a continued conversation. Perhaps that’s why I wrote this.

Final Thoughts

I’d like to truly thank all those who organized this. It was a risky activity and I think it came off wonderfully. I would like to particularly thank the sponsors for their financial and in-kind contributions. I promise to do whatever I can to make this happen again.

I don’t think it is unreasonable to “pass the hat” or pay a few bucks to be there.

I hope we do not wait a year for another Boston Accessibility Unconference. The topic and the work is too important. I would like almost a monthly (daily, hourly) opportunity to converse – there has to be a technology that we can use to do this. We should make that the first priority.

How can I help?

What do you think?

Feel free to comment!

Last week (April 22, 2010) Samuel R. Bagenstos, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on technology accessibility, civil rights, and federal law. It is a long piece of testimony, so I decided to break it into parts to make it easier to digest.

In my first blog on this testimony, I described Mr. Bagenstos’ commentary on e-books and the rights of people with disabilities. In his testimony, he also briefly discussed the issue of website accessibility. But in this section, the message was less clear. He notes that the federal courts “have reached different conclusions” with regard to the issue of web accessibility for “private places of public accommodation.”

Mr. Bagenstos’ does make it clear that the websites of federal, state and local governments must be fully accessible to people with disabilities. However, he notes technical differences under Title I, Title II and Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) which lead to some of the confusion, particularly with “private places of public accommodations covered by Title III.” So, at this point, it is not clear as to where we are with regard to all websites needing to be accessible. It seems definitive case law is not quite there yet.

Here is Mr. Bagenstos’ testimony regarding website accessibility:

The Department of Justice Positions Regarding Website Accessibility

The Disability Rights Section of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division began to provide technical assistance to a host of public and private entities that were in the process of assisting federal agencies with Section 508 compliance, and much of its guidance on making Internet sites accessible developed from there. There are several sets of standards describing how to make websites accessible to individuals with disabilities. Government standards for website accessibility were developed pursuant to Section 508. Many entities elect to use the standards that were developed and are maintained by the Web Accessibility Initiative, a subgroup of the World Wide Web Consortium (“W3C7″).

Ensuring that people with disabilities have a full and equal opportunity to access the benefits of emerging technologies is an essential part of our disability rights enforcement at the Department of Justice. Because the Internet was not in general public use when Congress enacted the ADA and the Attorney General promulgated regulations to implement it, neither the statute nor the regulations expressly mention it. But the statute and regulations create general rules designed to guarantee people with disabilities equal access to all of the important areas of American civic and economic life. And the Department made clear, in the preamble to the original 1992 ADA regulations, that the regulations should be interpreted to keep pace with developing technologies. 28 C.F.R. pt. 36, App. B.

The Department of Justice has long taken the position that both state and local government websites and the websites of private entities that are public accommodations are covered by the ADA. In other words, the websites of entities covered by both Title II and Title III of the statute are required by law to ensure that their sites are fully accessible to individuals with disabilities. The Department is considering issuing guidance on the range of issues that arise with regard to the Internet sites of private businesses that are public accommodations covered by Title III of the ADA. In so doing, the Department will solicit public comment from the broad range of parties interested in this issue.

There is no doubt that the Internet sites of state and local government entities are covered by Title II of the ADA. Similarly, there is no doubt that the websites of recipients of federal financial assistance are covered by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. The Department of Justice has affirmed the application of these statutes to Internet sites in a technical assistance publication, Accessibility of State and Local Government Websites to People with Disabilities ( http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/websites2.htm ), and in numerous agreements with state and local governments and recipients of federal financial assistance. Our technical assistance publication also provides guidance with simple steps to ensure that government websites have accessible features for individuals with disabilities.

As to private places of public accommodation, only two cases – both in federal district courts – have specifically addressed the application of ADA Title III to their websites, and those cases have reached different conclusions. But the position of the Department of Justice has been clear: Title III applies to the Internet sites and services of private entities that meet the definition of “public accommodations” set forth in the statute and implementing regulations. The Department first made this position public in a 1996 letter from Assistant Attorney General Deval Patrick responding to an inquiry by Senator Harkin regarding the accessibility of websites to individuals with visual impairments. The letter has been widely cited as illustration of the Department’s position. The letter does not state whether entities doing business exclusively on the Internet are covered by the ADA. In 2000, however, the Department filed an amicus brief in the Fifth Circuit in Hooks v. OKbridge, which involved a web-only business; the Department’s brief explained that a business providing services solely over the Internet is subject to the ADA’s prohibitions on discrimination on the basis of disability. And in a 2002 amicus brief in the Eleventh Circuit in Rendon v. Valleycrest Productions, the Department argued against a requirement, imposed outside of the Internet context by some federal courts of appeals, that there be a nexus between the challenged activity and a private entity’s brick-and-mortar facility to obtain coverage under Title III. Although Rendon did not involve the Internet, our brief argued that Title III applies to any activity or service offered by a public accommodation either on or off the premises.