So how accessible is your site’

Vic is a computer professional. He makes a good living for his wife and 3-year-old son. They have a nice house in the suburbs and she drives an almost-new Dodge Caravan. Vic uses e-mail, surfs the Web and even dabbles in programming.

However, if your Web site is like 95 to 99 percent of typical U.S. Web sites, Vic will never be able to make heads or tails of your site-its graphics, its services or its information. You see, Vic is blind, and poor Web design and development keep him and almost 54 million other Americans with disabilities from accessing most business Web sites.

More problems than you think
Ninety-five to 99 percent inaccessible? Most sites are designed without giving much thought to how someone with a disability would navigate a site.

The most obvious example is America Online’s “You’ve got mail.” If you’re deaf, how will you know? Take it one step further, though. I’ve seen a number of insurance company and agency sites that have audio clips of their CEOs in presentations. How are they going to be “heard?”

Graphics are another issue. With increasing use of graphic interfaces and JavaScript, visual navigation is mandatory for some sites. How does a blind person get around that site? Look at it from an insurance agency’s perspective. If you’ve got pictures of your staff to promote customer service, how does a person who cannot see get the feeling that this is a caring, smiling staff?

Even the whole site structure can cause problems. For example, take a look at a site that has frames. Take a piece of paper out and cover the screen. Now slide the paper down the screen one line of text at a time. Read the words from left to right, across frames, rules and tables. Does it sound garbled? That’s what most text-readers will do.

Two of the most common and persistent problems can be fixed fairly easily. The first problem involves copywriting. Instead of using a cryptic “Click here,” you can improve it by taking the time to describe what users are clicking and where it will lead. Provide transcripts of audio files, if needed, or descriptions of images and graphics.

The second area needing improvement is use of ALT or LONGDESC tags. ALT and LONDESC tags provide browsers with alternative information or longer descriptions about a graphic or a link. So instead of calling the image “pic002.gif,” the tag could read “question mark icon that links to the ABC agency’s help page.” This way someone using a text-reader can easily locate the correct pages.

Tools and information
There is still a lot to understand when it comes to accessibility. Major online services such as AOL use proprietary software, creating difficulties in navigation or in making their information more accessible. The browser wars have made setting standards for accessibility difficult as well. However, there are tools and information resources that can help you design an accessible site without having to sacrifice the aesthetics and interactivity.

The most used resource is probably “Bobby”-a tool developed by the Center for Applied Special Technology (www.cast.org/bobby). By running Bobby on your site, you can find out just how accessible your site is. It will rate the areas in which your site passes as well as where it needs work. This is a very handy and eye-opening tool.

Another is the use of “browser-sniffing” or “user agent information.” This lets the server or site determine which type of browser is being used and directs the user to the proper display of information.

To understand just what is being done in the arena of accessibility, there are information resources out there that give guidelines, tips, and even pointers on how to get started. Start with the World Wide Web consortium at www.w3c.org and the Web Accessibility Initiative at www.w3c.org/wai for their Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

Untapped market
Accessibility is a growing concern. Ask AOL about their lawsuit with the National Federation of the Blind. Ask the U.S. government as well as a number of state governments about the Federal Rehabilitation Act and Section 508 that require all federal sites to be accessible to all users regardless of whether or not they have a disability.

Designing accessible sites goes beyond disabilities. It’s about smart business. Sites that are designed to be accessible are usually clearer, and clearer means that you’ve thought through just how your site communicates-visually, functionally, and navigationally.

We’re moving beyond our PCs. Accessible sites means accessible by PDAs, smart phones, wireless pagers, and pocket PCs that don’t operate off of traditional browsers.

For those of you that need to see it from along the bottom line, let me put it this way: are you going to exclude 54 million Americans like Vic from using your Web site because you don’t want to spend the time making changes to your site? Remember, they buy insurance, too…

Technocracy is a regular column designed to examine and explain new technology and how it applies to the insurance industry. Readers are encouraged to e-mail questions or comments to John Chivvis at ijwest@insurancejournal.com.

Topics Training Development