| |||||||||||
PRINT
COMMENT
SUBSCRIBE
RSS
Over the last six months I have written about two trends in the Web design world that will have an enormous impact on the future of natural search: accessibility and rich Internet applications (RIA). On one side of the discussion, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) is pressing corporations in the state courts on the issue of designing accessible, text-based Web sites for the visually impaired who use screen readers such as JAWS. On the other side, cutting-edge Web developers and user-experience gurus are designing rich Internet applications for better user experience in a Web 2.0 world -- applications that also expand the boundaries of being search- and accessibility- unfriendly.
The tipping point in the debate on dichotomous design approaches will not occur in the context of designing search-friendly Web sites; it will occur in the impending corporate discussion of Web accessibility, and whether or not corporations will build accessible Web sites in place of, or in addition to, existing rich applications utilizing Flash, DHTML or Ajax.
In the Feb. 27 Forrester Research report entitled, “Prepare To Be Challenged On Web Accessibility Compliance,” analyst Michael Rasmussen discussed the increasing momentum of the Web accessibility movement as it relates to recent court activity by the NFB. His assessment centers on legal issues, the complexity of the Web, lack of accessibility awareness and lack of ownership in organizations. The report also points out a few of the benefits of designing for accessibility, including being a socially responsible corporate citizen, reaching untapped markets, and also capturing the riches of natural search optimization.
Meet Rob Garner at Search Insider Summit Utah!
Rob Garner will be there moderating a panel on "Search and Social" on December 05 at 9:45 AM. Top executives will be there. Will you?
Register today and save.
Register today and save.
In early February, the NFB continued to pursue its Web accessibility mission in the state courts by filing a case against the State of Texas for using inaccessible Oracle software that effectively makes content invisible to screen readers. The NFB is also pursuing a case against Target in California, which claims that the Target.com site is inaccessible to visually impaired persons.
The irony is that while Web accessibility is just beginning to appear on the radar screen of corporate America, current mega-trends in enterprise Web design are as far away from meeting accessibility standards as they could possibly be. To get an idea of the priority of RIA in the Web development world right now, consider this roster of sessions that represents the rich theme of the upcoming Thunderlizard Web conference in San Francisco:
- Ajax Frameworks & Design Patterns Survey
- Yahoo! vs. Yahoo! Case Studies of Three Mainstream, Large-Scale Ajax/DHTML Implementations
- Keynote: The Dawning of the Age of Experience
- Making Web 2.0 Usable: An Ajax Case Study
So what does this mean for marketers? It means that the RIA and Accessibility showdown is coming soon to a server near you, and the way you approach online Web development will have a potentially serious impact in other areas of your company that have a stake in the accessibility issue.
Even if your company doesn’t already have some sort of rich presence, it is quite possible that the next redesign will. But will it be search- and screen-reader friendly?
Designing for search-friendliness makes inroads into accessibility
Designing for search will provide many answers for accessibility. A no-risk, naturally optimized site is fundamentally accessible, though there are still many other special considerations for compliance. If you are designing a rich interface, it would be wise to start thinking now about how to make it accessible and search-friendly. Here are a few considerations:
Find out if any rich applications are currently being developed by your organization or respective digital agency.
If rich site applications are being developed, find out what is being done to make the application search and screen-reader friendly. If you are currently in the development process, it may be painful to address search and accessibility, but it will be even more painful if your site cannot be made accessible after launch. Plan upfront, and avoid trying to retrofit a search and accessible design solution at all costs.
If nothing is being done for accessibility or search, mobilize your developers, designers, search specialists, and accessibility specialists to assess and determine the best solution.This will likely involve the creation of an entire second site for search engines and screen-readers. If rich applications are a part of your future, get used to the dea of maintaining two sites. Don’t fret – there are solutions for being both accessible and rich, and your experts will help determine the best solution for your site.
RSS FEEDS
Mandatory compliance could be a real pain for some companies who have designed without search and/or accessibility in mind. I totally agree that a rich app could be accessible, but most apps are not coming out this way.
Rob
I recently attended a conference where the author of Fire Vox (a talking browser extension of FireFox) demoed Fire Vox and the use of WAI-ARIA code. It was quite impressive. Not only can the screen reader detect that new dynamic content appeared on the page, but the developer can even set the rules for when the content is read aloud to the user using standardized attributes.
I think there's great potential for a future that provides easier development of universally accessible rich applications.
The premise of my argument is not the way you described it, but more along the lines that there are two wildly different design schools of thought on web design, and the collision is being confronted with a reality that well designed sites must consider multiple agents: visually impaired persons and screen readers, search engines, and those who may benefit from rich visual and rich interface experience.
These issues can be overcome, but one other main point is that this is not even on the coporate radar. The Forrester report also validates this notion. You can't overcome anything unless you recognize there is a problem.
Search optimizers like Barbara Coll (post above) have been talking for years about why site designers need to consider multiple agents, particularly for the greater benefits of natural search, while also pointing out ancillary benefits of being accessible. But if you've been in the search business for a while, you know that it is easy for marketers to ignore the design argument for search. With the current litigious mission of the NFB, they will no longer be able to ignore the issue, and a collision with rich designs is in order.