UD and ICT Archives - Page 4 of 10 -

Viewing products online with Coles

Anyone buying or selling online wants the best possible view of the product. Buyers want to see relevant size and shape and key information. Sellers want the maximum number of sales. Making visual information clear, and easy to read and understand is key. Coles supermarkets has devised an image guide for suppliers to make products more readily recognised. So viewing products online with Coles should get easier for everyone. eBay sellers should also note.

The Coles guide is based on work carried out some years ago by the Inclusion Design Group at Cambridge University. This work is updated as they continue their research. The Coles guide is easy to read and gives instructions about images that suppliers should send them. These instructions are good for anyone who has a product or merchandise to sell.

The guide covers the use of 2D and 3D images, out of pack images and lifestyle images. The Coles website will feature a first image with the brand with the option for further images with a click. This gives the opportunity to see front, back, left and right side of the product.

A previous post, Smart Phones and Shopping explained some of the background and has a video explaining how it all works.

Importance of accessible software

Few would argue the moral imperatives for web accessibility but actually doing it is another matter. And it’s not just about the warm fuzzies of inclusion – it’s good for business. Quintin Balsdon and Brian Best explain why software developers still don’t ‘get’ accessibility. They even go so far as to say some software developers aren’t even sure what it means. This means you can’t assume your new website will be accessible even if the developer says “it will meet access standards”.

According to Best, some businesses think near enough is good enough. They don’t realise the scale of the issues because they think it affects a really small number of people.

Apart from the moral benefits, accessible software creates a superior user experience for everyone. That’s a big business advantage when 80% of people just don’t come back to a difficult website or app.

Practical tips for accessibility

Balsdon and Best make three points.

Shift your mindset: Acknowledge accessibility is not niche and that it’s an opportunity for innovation.

Process change: Educate your teams about the importance and look at your testing procedures. Code review is not enough – include user experience.

Ask the experts: For example, Open Inclusion’s website has a framework and a network of testers with different access needs.

Every software team should have a network of people ready to discuss designs from the start and test as the software develops.

And another thing…

Non-tech people are happy to engage a web designer to take care of their website. But how do you design a scope of works to get a good job if you don’t know what to ask for? How do you know if the designer really knows about accessibility?

The designer needs to demonstrate understanding of visual, auditory, cognitive, neurological, physical and speech needs of users. If they have a network of people with different access needs and actually practice user experience design (UX), so much the better.

The title of the online article is, Accessible software solutions: Discover why inclusive software is so important for your people and your business.

Making Accessible PowerPoint Slides

People are gradually getting the hang of putting alt text for their images in Powerpoint slides, but there is more to do. Sheri Byrne-Haber provides advice on making accessible PowerPoint slides by using the inbuilt accessibility checker. Some of her advice is reproduced below the screenshot of the accessibility checker.

The screenshot below shows an example of the Accessibility checker tab in PPT

Screenshot of PPT slide showing accessibility tab for making accessible powerpoint slides. — Alt text is really important if the slide deck is being shared either in PowerPoint or saved as a PDF. It allows screen readers to access the picture descriptions. PowerPoint has a handy accessibility checker within the Review tab. It picks up any images without descriptions and a few other things.

Some presenters use only picture slides and in this case it’s essential to provide alt text descriptions. Providing the text of the speech in the notes section increases accessibility. The notes section is also the best place to put long descriptions rather than in alt-text.

Use the master template for repeated images such as company logos. This hides the information from the screen reader so it doesn’t have to swipe through every time. Graphics marked as decorative in the alt text box will allow screen readers will ignore them.

Captioning is essential for videos, but people need to have choice in whether to use it or not. Not all videos need described audio, but first running the video with eyes closed will give an indication. Byrne-Haber’s article has many other useful tips.

Human centred design is for humans

Almost all designing is done for human use. Even designs for animals and plants link back to human use or human benefit in one way or another. So based on that premise, all design is human centred design. Well, that is one way to define it.

In the world of technology the key question for human centred design approach is, what are people doing? Not, what can the technology do? Dr Peter Schumacher reminds us in a video below that humans were creating things for themselves in the Stone Age. However, digital technology isn’t crafted by hand like a stone axe where the maker is often the user. With artificial intelligence, technology can do amazing things. But are they the things that humans want?

Based on the Stone Age definition, Schumacher says human centred design is something we’ve been doing forever. From the moment we could, we’ve been making things we could use. We were creating technology for a purpose, for something we wanted to do. But technology, and the way we interact with it, is getting more complicated.

We are at a point where technology and the environment we live in is creating problems. Schumacher says that finding out what’s going on with humans and their relationship to technology is the key focus. It’s putting human back into the centre of the technology rather than saying what the technology can do.

So, you start with the question, “what are people doing?” This is followed by “what does the technology need to do in that context?” Then there is the question of what’s the right technology?

Human Centred Design Group

The Human Centred Design Lab at University of South Australia is focused on developing methods for the design of objects, environments, and systems for human use. They take a collaborative and trans-disciplinary approach to create products for human use. The Human Centred Design Group is a research centre for interactive and virtual environments. The video below explains a bit more and they invite other collaborators.

Also see their Design Clinic brings together researchers, industry and end users for co-design in healthcare. The Design Clinic can capture ideas and designs for new products, systems and services vital to the health and wellbeing sectors.

Model for ICT Procurement

Accessibility and inclusion begins with procurement for any project. Often a scope of works is done by a non-expert to get the expert. But if the scope isn’t targeted correctly, the consultants are committed to sticking to the scope in the contract. So, the consultants are “doing the thing right” but not necessarily “doing the right thing” for the intended outcome. Consequently, staff involved in procurement activities need to understand access and inclusion basics. That means co-designing of the scope of works to include accessibility requirements.

The G20 Global Smart Cities Alliance has a webinar and a model policy on their website about ICT Accessibility procurement. It states:

“Procurement policies are a critical lever in increasing accessibility. They set out the expectation, standards and criteria for how goods and services will be purchased, and through this the city can ensure the acquisition of universal designed products and services to safeguard the equitable development and participation of all.”

A procurement policy or code of conduct can:

- - clearly document and ensure compliance with national legislation on accessibility and procurement, or
  - define a clear approach for ensuring inclusive and accessible services that demonstrates alignment with globally recognized standards, even if national legislation does not exist.

While the focus of the advice is on ICT procurement, the principles are applicable to other types of procurement.

Model Policy

The model policy set out on this website looks very wordy and not an easy read. It’s aimed at city planners and policy makers in the context of smart cities. However, it does set out processes for tendering and contract management. It also includes a section on training, awareness and capacity building for all stakeholders.

The model policy is worded in policy-speak so that cities and local government can copy and paste sections. The website has various Standards in an annexe and includes Definitions and policy references.

The references include the UK Government policy and guide on accessible technology, and another from Chicago. Also included is the G3ict discussion guide for accessibility in public sector procurement.

The model policy is available in English, Spanish and Japanese. A five minute video with James Thurston explains.

Karen Tamley, “The adoption of a policy like this is going really help your city to make sure that accessibility is part of your DNA”.

Readability and colour choices

Colour contrasts can be deceiving because we are subject to optical illusions. The video below shows how two different shades of grey are actually the same. That’s why you can’t rely on judging contrast by eye. Fortunately there are colour checkers to help with colour choices especially for websites. And why do you need colour contrast checkers? Because more than 8% of the population has colour vision deficiency (colour blindness).

Colour choice is one factor in readability. Others include using sentence case. Using upper case or capitals does not convey important messages more urgently. The image shows that using upper case to indicate a low bridge did not stop a truck driver from driving under it. Upper case is harder to read because the shape of the words are unfamiliar.

The most accessible websites are those that have an Easy Read option. A good example is the My Allied Health Space. At the top of the home page is the symbol for Easy Read and this is where you click to turn it on.

Screenshot of Allied Health Space standard format. — My Allied Health Space home page with option for Easy Read at the top of the page

Screenshot my allied health space in easy read format. — My Allied Health Space with Easy Read option turned on

Thanks to Dr Em Bould, Senior Research Fellow at Monash University for the inspiration for this post. Dr Bould has great advice on this topic based on research.

AI for captioning

A speaker stands at a lectern and captioning sceen is behind his right shoulder — Dedicated captioning screen close to the speaker.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can take captioning to another level claims Microsoft. AI for automatic speech recognition removes the need for a human captioner for lectures in universities and elsewhere. The Microsoft AI blog article and video below focuses on deaf students, but more people are taking to captioning on their phones for convenience.

Captioning helps all students by adding another layer of communication and this point is made in the article. The captioning is turned into transcripts and students have a reference to read after the lecture. They can also have the lecture automatically translated into several languages.

This is a detailed article and covers automatic speech recognition, translations, and a growing demand for accessibility. This technology is not expected to take over from Auslan or ASL as they are languages in their own right. However, this is another example of how technology is helping humans by taking over from humans and bringing the advantages to more people.

Note on the image at the top: The image shows Dr Ger Craddock at the inaugural Australian Universal Design Conference in 2014. A captioner sat in the room to caption real time. Speaker names and place names were given to the captioner beforehand to prevent errors.

Accessible websites need accessible content

As our lives transition to digital formats it’s important to know some digital accessibility basics. Creating accessible websites is the first step. But accessible websites need accessible content too. If your Word or PDF documents end up on a website, will they be accessible?

Gregg Vanderheiden from the Trace R&D Center has developed an Accessibility Masterlist which has more detail on accessible digital design. The Masterlist acts as both information and a checklist for developers and others.

The Masterlist is helpful for anyone engaging a web designer because it shows what needs to be considered. Most web designers know about web accessibility and say they will meet the standards. However, standards are a minimum and tend to get tacked on at the end. Not the best solution – better to be integrated to avoid digital clunkiness.

Some Quicksheets

Here are some of the 33 Trace R&D Center Quicksheets that summarise information:

What are Learning Disabilities?

Quick Guide for Accessible PowerPoint presentations

PDF readers with Readability Features

Web Resources

Towards Accessibility for Cognitive, Language and Learning Disabilities

Readability

Accessibility and Universal Usability/Design Journals related to ICT

What is Photosensitive Epilepsy / Photosensitive Seizure Disorders?

Web Accessibility Legislation

What is Low Vision?

Social Media Accessibility

Disability Marketing

Making Images Accessible (Alt text and more)

Overview of Web Accessibility

What is Blindness?

Keyboard Accessibility

Web Accessibility Standards

What is Physical Disability?

Digital Literacy

What is Deaf and Hard of Hearing?

Cognitive Disability

Accessible content – everyone’s business

You don’t have to be a technical expert to do simple things such as using a clear font and ensuring colour contrast. Describing images using the alt-text feature helps people with screen reader. It also adds to search engine optimisation which means Google will like you more. Captioning videos is essential because it is useful for everyone – it’s universal design.

An easy-to-read magazine article from Canada explains more on their blog page, which is an example of clear text and plain language. The title of the article is, Experts calling on businesses to make their online content more accessible.

Web design is one part, uploaded documents also need to be accessible.Check out the WCAG for people who haven’t read them.

A related resource is the Handbook for accessible graphic design. .

Making online spaces accessible

Citizen action has never been more important and much of this is done online and through social media. This is due to the ease of technology, a pandemic and plain economics. Consequently, it’s important to make online spaces accessible for everyone.

On The Commons Social Change website, Manisha Amin provides some advice form making online spaces accessible. Here are some facts about the Australian population:

- - 18% living with disability
  - 70% of disabilities are invisible
  - 20% have a long term health condition
  - 28% live in regional and remote areas
  - 48% born overseas or have parent born overseas
  - 8% men are colour blind

These figures don’t include people who have a temporary loss of capability, such as a broken leg.

An inclusive social environment, online or face to face, is created through respect and listening. Being accountable for your own emotions and accepting all experiences are valid are important too.

Online meetings have benefits and drawbacks and not everyone needs the same features. For example, having video on helps people to lip read and see facial expressions. But some people with neurodiverse conditions find video distracting.

Live captioning is better than auto-generated captioning and provides a transcript later. Captioning is also good for people with limited English language skills or find different accents difficult to understand.

The article is titled, Digital Accessibility: Making Online Spaces Accessible. There’s more information about preparing for meetings and good advice about learning to be inclusive. Don’t worry about not getting it right first time – it’s a learning journey for everyone.

In addition, meeting facilitators need to be aware of the power dynamics in the room. Who holds the pen? Who has the loudest voice or the most influence?

Sheri Byrne Haber has also written about Zoom for people with vision loss.

Economics of universal design in ICT

It is often thought that economic arguments will win the day if social justice arguments are ignored. This may be partially true if these arguments are allowed to be heard. “On Assessing the Costs and Benefits of Universal Design of ICT”, is another attempt to show that universal design has cost benefits, particularly if you take the longer view. This research paper on the economics of universal design in ICT is from Norway.

Abstract: In the ICT and IT domains, universal design is typically viewed as a burden and an expense, and its application is often justified only by ethics and/or legislation. Advocates for universal design are arguing that it is cost-effective, but so far there are few studies that document this in a detailed way. In this work, we discuss related research and studies dealing with the costs and benefits of accessible and usable ICT solutions.

In particular, we discuss the findings regarding what is a universally designed solution, what is needed to make such a solution, how much does it cost, what impact can be anticipated by the extra effort, and how it can be measured.

Finally, we suggest an approach for carrying out cost-benefit analyses of developing universally designed solutions. There is a weak indication that the economical benefits of UD solutions are much higher than the initial and running costs.

I think it is problematic to talk “cost-benefit” because politically it seems it has to benefit those who are not excluded. “Cost effectiveness” is a somewhat different measure with a focus on outcomes rather than outputs. Schraner et al have developed a different model using assistive technology as a case study. Jane Bringolf, Editor.

Using AI to remove accessibility barriers

The latest CanAxess newsletter features a visual podcast on AI for Accessibility. The team from Global AI discuss how using AI to remove accessibility barriers can help people with cognitive impairments understand content better.

There’s a second video on Inclusive Design 24. This one is about using screen readers to evaluate a website. There is also a link to a repository of downloadable screen readers testing resources.

Other articles include automating accessibility testing and a list of useful links about usability. Jonathan Kaufman writes in Forbes magazine about how accessibility is a wake up call for the progress of business evolution. He writes:

“Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella said, “… top of mind for me… is how we must make Microsoft products accessible to the more than 1 billion people globally of all abilities… Universal design is central to how we realize our mission and will make all our products better.”

Discover more about accessibility in the ICT and Universal Design section of this website.

Category: UD and ICT

Viewing products online with Coles

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