Relaunched Recovery.gov Fails Accessibility Standards

"It is unfortunate that recovery.gov, in its technical implementation, fails to meet long-standing, widely understood accessibility requirements."

I didn't think much of the previous version of recovery.gov, and it looks like I likely won't like the new version either. They're quite pretty, but poorly handled data tables and image maps really doesn't sound promising for accessibility.

Interested in testing the accessibility of your site? Here's a couple of free online tools that will get you started.

• Total Validator Service - Tests Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1 (1-3), WCAG2 (A-AAA), and Section 508
• EvalAccess - Tests WCAG1 (1-3)
• Section 508 web accessibility checker - As the name would suggest, tests Section 508
• Cynthia Says - Tests Section 508, and WCAG1 (1-3)

You might also try the Firefox Accessibility Extension by the Illinois Center for Information Technology Accessibility, or the Web Accessibility Toolbar by Vision Australia.

A friend recently asked me about the accessibility of a new US government website he'd seen. He knew I'd been following the various discussions about federal government accessibility. Like others I've looked at, IT Dashboard doesn't do very well.

At first glance, you might think it was going to be accessible. Nice clean layout in a modern style... it should be accessible too, right? You might think that, but you'd be disappointed. Let's take it from the top.

• First thing I noticed while testing is that it seems to be forcing compatibility mode in Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) As of this posting it's not yet on the IE8 Compatibility View Blacklist
• Skip links: present, but invisible and don't work for me in Internet Explorer 8. (compatibility mode?)
• Text resizing: Nice clean text resizing links at the top of the page, but they don't seem to work in Internet Explorer or Firefox. I can see a refreshing of the screen, but I can't see any text changing.
• Page headings: Should have at least one H1 heading. It has none. The home page has one H2 heading.
• Default language: not defined
• Alternative text: Purely decorative images are given alt text, they should be put in the CSS.
• OnClick handler does not have focus-able element
• Color contrast: with a 4.5:1 ratio being a minimum value for AA rating this site has links with a 2.35:1 ratio. Unacceptable.
• Screen refreshing: There is no means that I can see to stop the screen from refreshing whenever the home page graphs reload. While this isn't particularly noticeable in normal browser viewing, my testing software resets about every thirty seconds. I have to think that accessibility software and add-ons would do the same.

While this is by no means a complete evaluation, it does show an alarming number of problems, some of them quite serious. My final problem with this site is the accessibility page. In my opinion this is the place where you explain how to use the accessibility features of a website. This is not the place to make political statements. This site's page begins with:

The Obama Administration has a comprehensive agenda to empower individuals with disabilities in order to equalize opportunities for all Americans.

It's only in the eighth paragraph that actual web accessibility features are mentioned. These three sentences are two little, and they are seven paragraphs too late. This is as good a summation of my opinion of the site as I could write.

Who cares about accessibility? The short answer is you should. If you don't, you're not alone. A lot of people don't give a lot of thought to accessibility, but they should too. Why should you worry about accessibility? For this discussion, let's leave the legal implications out entirely, they're important too, but that's another discussion. Let's just consider your audience. Who is your audience? Do you like your audience? How would you feel if I told you I was going to take some of them away? Lack of accessibility might be doing just that.

• Low color contrast? You could be losing the one in twelve adults that are color blind.
• No alt text? you're losing anyone who is visually impaired or has images turned off for bandwidth reasons.
• No captioning of audio? You've now lost anyone who has difficulty hearing.
• Didn't bother making keyboard navigation possible? You've lost anyone with manual dexterity problems, as well as people using some types of accessibility software.

I could go on. Each type of accessibility you ignore, is a portion of your audience that you aren't reaching. You'd never consider ignoring clients you talk to in person, but you're doing just that to your potential online clients.  Why accessibility? Because if you make your site accessible, you reach all of your audience.

I linked to Jim Thatcher's post Accessibility of the White House Web Site, so I thought it only fair to link to his update as well.

I have updated the report on the Accessibility of Whitehouse.gov because there have been significant improvements there. It is gratifying and encouraging. Specifically, I think it is fair to say that the major issues reported in that news item have been fixed. Furthermore, in the arena of machine detectable errors detected in a depth one scan, the White House site has gone from an average of three errors per page to an average on one per page in less than two months. Congratulations! - Web Accessibility News

My business site, RivenDesign.com, has a new look. As well as the new style, I've improved the accessibility with better skip links and a better use of headings. It also has an updated version of Drupal.

There are two good accessibility discussions going on right now, and you need to be following them. The first is Glenda Watson Hyatt's Four Parties Contribute to an Accessible Blogosphere. Glenda is pushing for more accessibility in blogging platforms and on blogs themselves. This is an idea whose time has come. Blogs by design are dynamic and adaptable. Let's adapt them toward accessibility. The second discussion is accessibility in the US Government. This discussion is being driven by Jim Thatcher and Joe Dolson

• Accessibility of the White House Web Site
• Accessibility of Recovery.gov
• Postscript on Recovery.gov
• Obama’s Web Transparency: not for everybody.

I have also managed to put in my own two cents worth a couple of times.

• Accessible Recovery?
• NY Senate, Drupal, and Accessibility

The one tragic similarity that I'm seeing in these government site's being discussed is that they're all very close to being accessible, but they fall short. How close? Joe Dolson suggests that WhiteHouse.gov could be significantly improved by the addition of five short lines of CSS. By my count that's about 83 characters. The addition of that CSS wouldn't solve everything, but the other changes aren't much more significant. To come so close to being truly accessible, and still falling short. It's like running the perfect marathon and walking off the course a few feet short of the finish line.

I just noticed at Dries Buytaert's site that New York State Senate is using Drupal. It's now a very stylish looking Drupal site. Its' visual style is quite nice, but what lurks below the surface?

• No skip links to bypass blocks of content for screen readers or keyboard-only users
• Links not clearly identified
• No hover or focus effects on links to assist in navigation and link identification
• No level one header (h1) on home page to identify the page
• Drop down navigation is useless for keyboard-only navigation. It leaves some content extremely difficult to reach, if not completely beyond reach.

Why the half measures? Making a site accessible is more work. Making a site this un-accessible takes an active effort. The default CSS property for a link is to have an outline. This site has a focus outline property of zero. It's turned off so that a link with focus is not visible. An active effort to remove one property that identified focus, without adding another in its place. The default link property has an underline text-decoration. This site uses links with no text-decoration. A property helpful for identifying links was actively removed without replacement. I'm happy to see a very good platform like Drupal being more widely used, and this site is a good place for it. Dynamic content, multiple RSS feeds, press releases and more. All features with which Drupal excels. Unfortunately this is a bad example of Drupal theming. A good layout, a good overall design, but no thought to accessibility. What could have been a beautiful site, unfinished.

I wrote a quick post on the lack of accessibility of Recovery.gov back in February. Jim Thatcher has now done an in depth study of that site as he recently did with WhiteHouse.gov. As I noted before, the Recovery site is surprisingly inaccessible. I'll let you read Mr. Thatcher's evaluation yourself, but I think there is one feature on recovery.gov that really shows how low a priority accessibility is on this site. The keyboard-only link to WhiteHouse.gov is a JavaScript based link that requires a followup mouse click to function. That sort of defeats the purpose now doesn't it?Go read Mr. Thatcher's Accessibility of Recovery.gov in full, it's worth the time.

Jim Thatcher has written what I hope will be the first of a series on the Accessibility of the White House Web Site. About a month ago I wrote a quick accessibility note about the new recovery.gov site. A pretty site, but not particularly accessible. As I summed it up then, "I see this site as a wonderful opportunity... missed." I wasn't pleased with my initial mechanical testing of recovery.gov, but I haven't had the time to follow up. Fortunately, Jim Thatcher has now taken the time do a quick audit of WhiteHouse.gov. It looks like the White House site isn't any more accessible than the Recovery site appears to be. The two sites share the same problems with the skip links, and the same poor use of headings. Serious accessibility issues with simple solutions. Another opportunity missed.