Web of confusion

It’s coming to something when someone like Robin Christopherson, a consultant on web access, finds himself avoiding the internet because it fails to meet his own access requirements

It may seem bizarre, the head of a team deliver­ing consultancy on website accessibility and usability avoiding using the internet, but it’s true – and it’s not because it’s too much like the day job. I avoid using the internet whenever I can because it’s often just too frustrating and cumbersome.

That’s not to say I don’t use the internet: I use the darned thing every single day of my life (weekends too). I use it because it’s essential for my work and indispensable for play. But ask me if I like using it and most of the time my answer will be a resounding “No!”.

For me, as a blind surfer, in common with people with a range of other access needs and requirements, the internet offers a series of accessibility pitfalls that need circumnavigating and usability obstacles that need to be scaled.

Ten years on from the first publication of a set of globally-adopted accessibility guidelines (recently updated to include Web2.0 technologies and practices) and still most websites are littered with challenges.

There are, of course, many relatively accessible sites that are pleasant to use, but for each site that’s usable there are ten that are painful and laborious.

One way to avoid the internet is to use accessible desktop clients – software programs – as altern­atives to a website wherever they exist.

One such is McTwit, the Twitter client (http://mctwit.com). Despite the Twitter website (http://www.twitter.com) being relatively accessible, desktop applications are usually inherently more straightforward, more efficient and thus more enjoyable to use.

When searching for a bit of information or keeping abreast of news, I stick as far as possible to websites I know are usable. I won’t use a site’s search engine to search a site: instead I’ll use Google with the “site” prefix to limit the search to that site alone.

Similarly, I won’t trawl news sites for headlines: I’ll set up Google alerts to provide me with a digest of links to take me right to a news story page on a site. I’ve also subscribed to mailing lists and podcasts (and even read online blogs) to discover workarounds to some of the net’s more intractable problems. CAPTCHA [tests on web forms that distinguish between computers and users] is a huge barrier. Were it not for the CAPTCHA solving services of WebVisum (http://www.webvisum.com) and Solona (http://www.solona.net), many blind users without assistance would have to avoid using websites that required registration.

The internet isn’t going away, this I know. So come on web designers and developers – please think about all your users. Build to the guidelines, test with disabled users, and then I’ll use your websites and web applications… if I have to!