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Customising the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ website
- 19 Jan 07, 03:33 PM
Under cover of darkness, I was smuggled into the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ yesterday to take a look at the top secret Accessibility Tool Kit, which you'll soon come to know and love as the ATK. It will be making its debut at the end of January, and will be rolled out across all the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ websites in due course. Having had a sneaky peek at it, of course, we thought we would share.
The ATK is a tool that allows you to change the appearance of web pages on the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ website. You can customise how the page appears on screen by changing the page background colour, font colour and so on.
The first step in making this possible was to design a new range of templates for the pages. To most people, there won't be much of a visible difference between what a page looks like today and what it will look like with the new templates. But for screen reader users it should ensure that content is presented in a meaningful and logical order. For the techies amongst you, the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ is moving from a table-based layout to css-p templates.
After changing the templates, the next step was to create a page for users to customise the appearance of the website the ATK proper.
In short, the ATK gives you the facility to customise the appearance of the website. There are a series of preset schemes to choose from. One 'high viz' setting, for example, changes the background of the page to black, and text to yellow. Font sizes are also increased. On the other hand, selecting one of the 'comfort' options turns the page background powder blue, and makes the font colour darker to ensure that there is still sufficient contrast. The former should help users with eye conditions that require high contrast to read a page, whilst the latter should help users with reading difficulties like dyslexia.
The Accessibility Team have worked hard to make sure that users will be able to customise page appearance so that it is how they want it. If you like a preset, but need a bigger font size, then you can do that. And if you like black text on a white background but want a different font, then you can do that too.
Things you can customise include changing the font, adjusting font size, line height, and even word and letter spacing, so that users can make the page display suit their needs.
The ATK looks like impressive stuff and I wouldn't mind betting that the customisation it offers has a wider appeal than to just users with accessibility issues. There are some other websites out there that let users customise presentation, but not to this extent, and not from any organisations of the size of the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ. Print designers turned web designers are often too concerned with controlling appearance as a legacy of their former careers. The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ has truly left that kind of thinking behind with the ATK.
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these types of solutions are obviously a good thing in many way, but...this doesn't solve the fundamental problem, only patch it (and only on a single-site basis). most of this type of functionality is already built into today's browsers (setting alternative stylesheets, changing text size, etc); problem is that browser manufacturers haven't seen fit to make these options easy to use, or even easy to find. in addition (or, as a result) most users are ignorant when it comes to the amount of customisation they could be imparting on their entire web surfing experience. sure, they'll now find it easier to use the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ sites, but will again face the same problems when exiting the walled accessibility garden and out into the big wide web. give a man a fish...etc
there is undoubtably a responsibility on browser developers to make their products more usable in this respect (tellingly, almost nobody ever mentions UAAG, while we always hear about WCAG); and, as difficult as it may be, there must also be an onus on users themselves to learn about the options available to them in their browser, and how these options can be used to customise the browsing experience to their specific needs and requirements. MyWebMyWay is a good start, but i'd love to see far more activity from organisations such as the RNIB to actively go out and tell their stakeholders: "these are the tools that are freely available to you, this is how you use them"
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Patrick: Couldn't agree more, and, for example, I believe there has already been talk of taking the chosen settings from the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ ATK and providing users with a downloadable personal stylesheet and instructions on how to use it as a pan-internet default in various browsers. It may take a while but they're certainly aware of the potential (nay, responsibility) the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ has in this regard.
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To state the obvious, if there wasn't a big problem we wouldn't even consider a patch like the ATK. However producing a prototype such as this allows us to explore more potential accessibility functionality beyond that which is currently available on browsers. Over the last few months we've been asking some fundamental questions about accessibility and the ATK is one of the projects that, seeing as there isn't a Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ browser, will allow us to explore new ideas.
If some of what we discover works, such as optional High Viz highlighters or a single handed and more efficient form of keyboard navigation, and this is adopted by browser or assistive technology manufacturers then it will all have been worth the effort. In the meantime we have the responsibility to our users and a combination of guidance published on My Web, My Way, improved and recently published Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Accessibility Standards /guidelines/newmedia/accessibility/ and the willingness to innovate we feel we can bring about positive change.
A Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ only patch isn't the ideal solution, but it is a step in the right direction and over the coming months and years there will be many more steps.
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The ATK is very much a prototype. In developing it we realised we simply had to make assumptions, just to get something out there to test just how effective the ideas were. I'm hoping with the launch of the newly recoded Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔpage (which launched just minutes ago), we'll get some good feedback. Hell, I don't care if its negative, as long as its constructive feedback we can use. We spend far to much time worrying and arguning about this topic, but what we really need is real world research and feedback so we can make it a useful system. So, dear readers, please try it out, break it if you want, just let us know what you think by using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔpage.
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The best advice I can give is to get good grounding in the basics of journalism.
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