To: Indecision2000 <indecision2000@yahoogroups.com>Accessible Web Sites Still Three To Six Times More Difficult Accessible Society E-Letter 10/30/2001 EVEN "ACCESSIBLE" WEBSITES REMAIN DIFFICULT FOR PEOPLEWITH DISABILITIES, SAYS STUDY A new study has confirmed what accessibility expertscontinue to point out: the Worldwide Web remainspretty un-usable for anyone who cannot see aconventional computer screen and use a mouse withdexterity. "Web usability is three to six times better fornon-disabled people than for people with low vision,no vision or motor impairment," says Jakob Nielsen,who the New York Times calls "the guru of web pageusability." His firm, the Nielsen Normal group,recently released a study that shows this prettyconclusively. Their 104 subjects included users with low vision, novision, or motor impairment and a control group ofpeople without disabilities, who were assigned 4tasks: Find the average temperature in Dallas inJanuary; buy Janet Jackson's CD "All for You" fromTarget's website; find a bus departing O'Hare airportto a specific address in Chicago using the ChicagoTransit Authority website, and find the best mutualfund satisfying certain criteria on Schwab's website.The control group of people without disabilities wereable to complete the 4 tasks 78% of the time; screenreader users only12.5% of the time. While the control group spent only a little over 7minutes "on task," the others took over twice as long.The control group's error rate was only .06; screenreader users' error rate was 2.0; screen magnifierusers', 4.5. "Beyond ALT Text: Making the Web Easy to Use for Userswith Disabilities" was released last week at theNielsen Norman Group's Usability conference inWashington, DC. An overview of the 148-page report isonline at http://www.nngroup.com/reports/accessibility there's a link there for downloading the report($190). "Bad design kills Websites," runs the headlineof Washington Post internet columnist Leslie Walker'sOct. 25 story about Nielsen's conference (online athttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/washtech/techthursday/columns/dotcom/A48167-2001Oct24.html). Walker's column refers to economics; but ChapmanUniversity's Art Blaser says discussions based only oneconomic reasons to provide access miss the point."When we pass legislation ensuring rights, we make astatement: those rights are too important to beguaranteed only when they're cost-effective." Chapmansays most "distance learning" courses today remaininaccessible as well, despite software that providesaccess if used correctly. Read Blaser's article onlineat http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/0901/0901ft1.htm Read more about the legal requirements for web accessathttp://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/webaccess/sect508.htm. For the Center's overview of web access issues, visithttp://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/webaccess/index.htm Visit Jakob Nielsen's website athttp://www.nngroup.com/ Please visit the website of The Center for AnAccessible Society athttp://www.accessiblesociety.org, with more links totopics.