1.3 Accessibility
The reason why this master thesis is implemented as a website rather than a printed report is accessibility. Text written on paper can only be read by people who can see. Thus, it is not "accessible for all".
At first, one might be wondering why a website should be better accessible. How should anybody be able to read a website if he or she cannot see?
The crucial point is that in websites information is available in digital form. And there are assistive technologies that are able to convert such information to other channels of perception. For instance, a tool called "screen reader" can read aloud text that is available in digital form. Thus, a blind person can actually "hear" a web page by using a screen reader.
Blindness is only one example of disabilities. There is a multitude of other types, such as amblyacousia, physical or cognitive handicaps etc. True accessibility must support all of these as nobody should be left behind – no matter what set of abilities and possibilities they have available.
Web Accessibility
The way to achieve accessibility in websites is to follow the guidelines of the W3C Consortium, i.e. the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.
In addition, in this website a few mechanisms have been provided to further accessiblity, resp. usability:
Icons in the upper left corner (marked with a small and a large letter "A") let you enlarge the text size.
The third icon in the upper left corner is special. It switches to a view optimized for myself (colors, text sizes and spacing). I am well aware that for many others this view is less accessible (in fact it even conflicts with WCAG). Yet for me the text is far easier to read because I am also visually impaired, not only phisically.
You can use the arrow keys on your keyboard to easily navigate through this website: left/right to switch between pages, up/down to scroll with pages. The icons in the upper right corner also let you switch pages in case you are more comfortable with using a mouse.
Please also note the fact that this website essentially is more like a scientific paper than a regular website. Readers are expected to read it rather sequentially. For this reason, there is no typical navigation menu. Instead, you may click on the (vertical) "Table of Contents" button, which opens a navigation aid. Alternatively, you can navigate via the "Sitemap".
Through my research I realised that in order to access a multitude of websites, I had to use several assistive tools (software applications on my computer). In particular «Read and write», «Voice over» (on Mac OSX) and «Inspiration» (mind map tool). Combined, these applications work quite well for me, yet unfortunately there is not one tool that fulfills all my requirements.
Documents in PDF format are generally a problem regarding accessibility: although, it is possible to make them accessible it is not an easy task and requires specific software and a considerable amount of expertise. Far easier is to turn those documents into (accessible) web pages and publish them as such.
The topic of accessibility is not down to individual people anymore. The UN (United Nations) has created a convention that Switzerland has signed in April this year, with the aim of introducing general standards to create accessibility for all, disabled and non disabled people.
In Switzerland, websites run by the government must be accessible for disabled people since 10 years. Now by the efforts of the UN Convention the goal is to obligate private companies to do this as well. In many cases, the goal of accessibility for all is not yet reached.
For further information please consult:
a video by the NZZ (Neue Zürcher Zeitung) dealing with accessibility mainly for blind people and mentioning the strategy of the UN and its adaption in Switzerland:
http://www.access-for-all.ch/about the challenges of website accessibility on mobile devices:
http://www.einfach-fuer-alle.de/Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 by the W3C. This is essentially the global standard and is widely accepted:
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/
