Workshop 3 Accessible Multimedia Web Content Accessibility Project Funded by BCcampus Natasha Boskic, Kirsten Bole, Nathan Hapke University of British Columbia

Workshop schedule Monday August 21 Basics of Web Accessibility Tuesday August 22 Coding an Accessible Website Wednesday August 23 Accessible Multimedia Thursday August 24 Creating Usable Content Friday August 25 Disabilities & Assistive Technology

The Plan Discuss accessibility issues of the following types of media: –Audio –Video –JavaScript –Flash –Java Applets –Online conferencing –PDF

The Golden Rule Make all the information available to all users –The media itself can’t always be made accessible Adding different presentation of content increases accessibility!

Audio Alternative for spoken word can be as simple as a transcript For music, lyrics If more complex, consider providing a description of why the audio is significant and/or important

Video Good news –Great for those with cognitive disabilities Problem areas: –Visual impairment Audio Description –Aural impairment Transcripts/Subtitles/Captions

Audio Description Narrated information about the visuals Tell non-sighted users what the audio soundtrack does not Example: “Family walking in the Rose Garden” aka Described Video

Captioning & Subtitling Subtitles: What was said Captions: What was heard –Subtitles, plus other aural cues E.g.: Knock on Door, Phone Ringing Open Captions –Captions directly ingrained into video Closed Captions

Closed Captioning Captions provided separate from video –User must have capable player For online video: W3C’s SMIL technology –RealPlayer –Ambulant Since July 1993, 13”+ Televisions have built in CC Decoder by law

Video: The Hard Part Provide enough information so your audience knows what is happening … but don’t overwhelm them! Tell the viewer that the people are in the Rose Garden if it affects the meaning of the video Don’t tell the viewer if a plane happens to fly by (unrelated to the scene) Same for captioning

JavaScript WCAG requires that web applications be usable without JavaScript Some screen readers completely ignore Some users disable JavaScript JAWS relies on Internet Explorer to render JavaScript actions –But JAWS isn’t able to tell the user about changes to the page made by JavaScript

Flash Great for those with cognitive disabilities –Interactive demos can often explain better than text Screen readers can interpret if the flash video is made correctly –“alternative text” on buttons etc. –Ensure reading order makes sense –Ensure user can navigate with keyboard Use flash for interactive content, not your whole site!

Java Applets Same issues as Flash Reading order Keyboard navigation Plain text (not graphical) Java works (slightly) differently on PC/Mac, test both

Conferencing (Horizon Wimba Live Classroom, Elluminate Live) Slides get converted to graphical format Can provide slide descriptions Can also provide closed captioning

PDF: Portable Document Format Good: Text is correctly handled by screen readers Bad: Users must launch external viewer Use tags to specify: –Alternative text on images –Headings –etc.

PDF: Tricks of the Trade Make sure text is textual (not graphical) –Use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) if scanning a document Ensure search tool works Google the URL –Output is similar to what A.T. can interpret Acrobat has a built in screen reader!

PDF: Correct Usage Use PDF only when you need functionality you can’t get from HTML: –“Enhanced” Forms –Documents for print E.g.: Order forms –Strict multi-columnar E.g.: Academic Articles –Special notation

Resources /pdfs/acro7_pg_ue.pdfhttp:// /pdfs/acro7_pg_ue.pdf pdf_accessibility/ pdf_accessibility/

Thank you for coming! Join us tomorrow for Creating Usable Content - 12 pm PST Natasha Boskic Kirsten Bole Nathan Hapke