Providing analysis, reporting, training and guidance on web accessibility of over 40 government agency websites.
While working on the 511.org website, which is managed by the Metro Transportation Commission (MTC), I became a local resource on web accessibility. Based on MTC's requirements, I would explore automated tools that would assist me in scanning and creating reports on the accessibility levels of compliance for over 40 websites under MTC. In addition to the website assessments, I helped to create documentation and training for the design and remediation of accessible Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF documents.
MTC wanted to ensure that their websites would be in conformance with the American Disability Association (ADA) Section 508’s guidelines on web accessibility, which is based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.0 Level AA. A high-level analysis and planning document was provided by my colleagues at CivicConnect, and with my experience in PowerMapper’s SortSite Tool on analyzing 511.org’s website, I provided insight into the details of each of WCAG's criteria for web accessibility.
Now that planning was complete, the next step was finding the appropriate software to scan all 40+ websites. I reviewed various available tools online, including a few demos, that would work both for the needs and budget of the organization. With a spreadsheet of pros and cons, I recommended using Little Forest because of their ability to scan PDFs for no additional cost, allowing a few extra sites to be added later - also at no additional cost - and their amazing service.
One of the most common barriers to accessible content is being able to understand it. In addition to accessibility reports, I provided documentation and training for content owners to understand both web best practices to keep text simple and short, as well as other accessibility guidelines on content structure in documents and on web pages.
Being able to navigate and recognize the structure of content on a web page is a key to both good UX and accessibility. Once the tool completed the scan of all web pages, I would manually review key page templates such as the homepage, landing pages, forms and other secondary pages for any major issues. With my design instincts, I could also offer additional UX recommendations that would improve usability and accessibility.
The top accessibility issue I found - and the easiest to repair - was the low color contrast of the text, which made it difficult to read. I provided suggestions in unique circumstances where the automated tool couldn't determine the contrast based solely on the code. As a preventative measure, I created a reference guide on when color contrast for text, graphics and icons.
The second issue was missing alternative text for images so that screen readers can describe what is being shown. In my reports, I would suggest when to add an appropriate description for the alt text, but also when to provide a blank alt text so that screen readers would skip images that were decorative or repeated text. For more complex graphics such as interactive visualizations, I created documentation on how to describe them - both with code and what terminology to use.
As part of ADA Section 508’s new guidelines in 2017, documents such as PDFs, Word documents, and Excel spreadsheets on a website need to be accessible. I prepared documentation and training on dealing with the metadata, content structure, layout design and various components of a document that needs to be accessible.
Accessibility is about what and how content is presented on a web page, and therefore relies mostly on front-end web development. When analyzing the results from the automated scans, I helped to provide context and suggestions such as when to use a <button> tag vs. an <a> tag, as well as educating on the changes to HTML code that affect accessibility such as the use of the <em> tag instead of the <i> tag for italics, which became an issue between performance and accessibility when the <i> tag was used for icons instead of the <span> tag.
I documented the scan results into final reports with a supporting spreadsheets filtered by fix type and level in addition to Little Forest's categories of Errors, Warnings and Notices, and I allowed room for web managers to add priority and other notes.
Once web accessibility is incorporated into the workings of an organization, it stops becoming an afterthought. I recently set up scans and provide manual testing of several beta sites for MTC. I find these requests to be a sign of success that accessibility is not just a trend, but a key component of building websites.
As websites are updated with new designs and new content, accessibility testing will always be needed to ensure compliance with 508 guidelines. I continue to scan the MTC websites each year.
