Frontend Usability InfoCentre: Text-only is not accessible [via iaslash, March 25, 2002]
Web site owners sometimes approach the issue of accessibility by providing two versions of the site. The full blown “bells and whistles” version might use images, colour, sound, complex layout, JavaScript, Flash and non-standard interaction elements. The alternative “accessible” version throws away all of this and contains only linear text and hyperlinks. This all or nothing approach is easy, but fails to take into account that users are infinitely variable combinations of abilities and impairments.
Also, if you missed them a month ago, read these two essays I wrote:
- CSS and Universal Design, which discusses the shortcomings of relying on separate text-only pages for accessibility
- What format do you want it in?, which makes the simple and undeniable point that separate text-only pages are not what people link to. Which means they’re not the version that people will find when they come in from an outside link. Which means Google won’t think the text-only version is important (since it ranks pages by outside links). Which means that when people search, they will be directed to the regular, inaccessible page, not the separate-but-accessible version.
The only solution to this problem, as the original linked article points out, is to have a single page which is accessible to all viewers: “one page to rule them all”, to coin a phrase. This is not as difficult as it sounds, because accessibility generally involves adding to the page rather than subtracting from it. I added tags to my calendar that make it more accessible to screen readers; visual browsers won’t notice the difference. I added ALT tags and LONGDESC tags to my graphics; visual browsers won’t notice the difference. I structured my HTML so the main content is read first; visual browsers won’t notice the difference, because I use CSS for positioning.
(Side note to those still stuck using tables for layout: a compromise is to include “Skip navigation” links to skip straight to the main content. If you don’t want a visible “Skip navigation” link, make the link an invisible graphic with an ALT tag. Put the link right after your BODY tag. CNN.com does this; after the page title, the first thing the screen reader reads is “Link: Skip to main content”.)
So is my site the be-all-and-end-all of accessibility? Of course not. Can I improve this site’s accessibility? No doubt. Accessibility, like security, is a process. But the important thing is that it was designed with accessibility in mind. Accessibility, like security, can be designed for, or it can simply be tacked on at the end. Guess which way works better.
