|

Search
This Site All Cabinet Office

Cabinet Office sites

Related Links

• Central Sponsor for Information Assurance (CSIA)
• Government Gateway
• Chief Information Officer Council

Feedback

• Feedback

2.4.10 Accessible software development

This section of the Guidelines for UK Government websites focuses upon the usability and accessibility of web–based content. Similarly software developers and programmers are required to produce applications and products that:

1. authors accessible web content, eg, generates mark-up that is W3C compliant,
2. create tools, eg, the desktop interfaces, that are themselves accessible to disabled staff who may be required to use them, and
3. user documentation to support such software must also be written and designed to meet accessibility requirements.

Within the development process usability is important and heuristic evaluation designed to find users’ difficulties in an interface is important within the principals of:

• easy of use;
• consistency of look and feel;
• error prevention and recovery; and
• user satisfaction.

Attention to drawn to the following recommendations and standards:

Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (version 1.0) published by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative – 3 February 2000 – available online from:
www.w3.org/WAI/intro/atag [External website]

User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (version 1.0) published by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative – 17 December 2002 – available online from:
www.w3.org/WAI/intro/uaag [External website]

Ergonomics of human-system interaction – guidance on accessibility for human–computer interfaces – Technical specification ISO/TS 16071 (first edition 02/2003) published by the International Standards Organisation – document not available on the web

Guidelines for standards developers to address the needs of older persons and persons with disabilities – Cen/CENELEC Guide 6 – edition 1 published January 2002 by CEN (European Committee for Standardization –www.cenorm.be [External website]) and CENELEC (European Committee for Electrotechncial Standardization – www.cenelec.org [External website]) – document not available on the web.

QUICKTIP if your are a sighted web manager

To get a rough idea how some screen readers interpret information:

• Sit away from your computer and make sure you cannot see the screen.
• Ask someone to take a rule and lay it horizontally on your computer screen.
• Ask them to read aloud, without pause, from left hand edge of your screen to the right hand edge.
• Ask them where there is an illustration to say the word ‘image’ and before any hyperlink says the words ‘link to’.
• Ask them to continue to continue to move the ruler down one line at a time and read without pause.

Better yet, invest in a screen reader yourself – or get an auditor to tell you how useable your pages are on assistive technology.