Abstract
Institutions
of Higher Education (IHEs) and Counseling Education Programs (CEs) use the World
Wide Web (WWW) to disseminate and gather information. On-line barriers limit the
accessibility of the WWW for students with disabilities. The purpose of this
study was to evaluate the accessibility of CE home pages. A total of 120 CE Web
sites were located using a search engine and evaluated for accessibility. A
software program was used to quantify the number of accessibility errors at each
site. The results indicated that most (81.7%) CE home pages had accessibility
problems, and the majority of these problems were severe problems that should be
given a high priority for correcting. The
good news is that the majority of the errors can easily be corrected. The work
reflects a need for CEs to examine the accessibility of their home pages.
Direction for improving accessibility is provided.
Accessibility of Counseling Education Home Pages for
Students with Disabilities
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 provides the same civil
rights protection to individuals with disabilities as other federal laws that
prevent discrimination on the basis of race, gender, national origin, and
religion (Button & Wobschall,
1994). Title
III of the ADA directs that public facilities make reasonable modifications to
control discrimination and support accessibility in policies, practices, and
procedures (Council for Exceptional Children,
1994).
As a result of this landmark legislation, accessibility alterations like
providing ramps to elevated areas and providing accessible signage through
height adjustments and raised lettering have become commonplace across the
country.
Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) have participated in efforts to
make public and private facilities more accessible. For example, Osfield (1993) provided a report regarding
access by individuals with disabilities to the programs, services, and
activities provided to students, staff, faculty, and the community-at-large.
Literature guiding libraries in efforts to offer services that comply
with the ADA was also examined. In
particular, articles by Mendle (1995) and Chalfen and Farb
(1996) describe
adaptive computing technology guidelines that were applied in the design of
online information system at the University of California at Los Angeles.
The American
Counseling Association (ACA) has clearly defined a position that endorses
sensitivity to issues of diversity. The ethical code (ACA,
1995) outlines that
counselors do not discriminate on the basis of age, color, culture, disability,
ethnic group, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, marital status, or
socioeconomic status (A.2.a.). However, the portion of the code that addresses
Respecting Differences (A.2.b.) focuses on the understanding of diverse cultural
backgrounds of the client as defined by cultural/ethnic/racial identity.
Additional support for addressing diversity issues is provided by the Council
for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP).
The 2001 Standards (CACREP,
2001) require that approved program address social
and cultural diversity. Included in these standards are factors such as culture,
ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, sexual orientation, mental and physical
characteristics, education, family values, religious and spiritual values,
socioeconomic status and unique characteristics of individuals, couples, ethnic
groups, and communities. Disability status is not mentioned directly, though it
could be included under physical characteristic.
A
number of writers have addressed the issue of disability as cultural diversity.
Henwood and Pope-Davis (1994) acknowledge that while the field of
counseling has pushed for broader definitions of cultural diversity, clients
with disabilities have continued to be overlooked. Middleton, Rollins, and
Harley (1999) make a historical link between the civil rights movement and the
disability rights movement and encourage counselors to become advocates for
persons with disabilities. Weeber (1999) also highlights this link by describing
this experience of discrimination as "ableism."
Although
diversity-sensitive counseling has become a part of counselor education, concern
has been expressed that attention has been limited to members of four racial
minority groups to the exclusions of other areas such as disability (Weinrach
& Thomas, 1998). Whereas great progress has been made in addressing
counseling approaches with individuals from varied ethnocultural backgrounds (Swartz-Kulstad & Martin,
1999), limited attention has been given to
counseling clients with disabilities. Textbooks often limit their approaches to
clients from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and when disabilities
are mentioned it is in context of ethnic minority clients with disabilities (Hall & Barongan,
2002). Therefore, a gap between the philosophical stance
of the counseling profession and the delivery of service to the disabled
population may exist.
The World Wide Web (WWW) is an important information resource for
Counseling Education (CEs). Accessibility across platforms and geographic
distance makes the WWW an ideal universal medium for collecting and
disseminating information. Wang (1997) discussed use of the Internet for increased self-advocacy by individuals
with physical impairments and disabilities.
Approximately 8% of all WWW users have a disability (Capozzi,
1998).
While technical developments have enhanced and provided new exciting
opportunities for the WWW, they have, at the same time, complicated and limited
the accessibility of the content and resources for individuals with
disabilities.
Physical barriers are obvious accessibility concerns confronting students
with disabilities. Web site
developers need to be just as aware that on-line barriers can create significant
accessibility problems for some users. The
Americans with Disabilities Act requires that all organizations make reasonable
accommodations for individuals with disabilities.
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires that all organizations
receiving U.S. Federal funds must comply with standards that make electronic
equipment and Web sites usable by people with sight, hearing, and other
disabilities. Using the WWW as a resource for distributing information is no
exception. It is important that CE
Web site developers use and follow standards that allow accessibility to all WWW
users.
A variety of disabilities can reduce accessibility to the WWW. Visual,
hearing, movement, cognitive, speech, and other impairments can limit
availability of information. Assisted technologies or accessibility aids such as
Braille output systems, modification of keyboards, screen enlargement utilities,
voice output utilities, and other technologies allow students with disabilities
to access information on the WWW. However, because of the complexity of many
Internet resources, some information cannot be accessed with these aids.
Developers of accessibility aids continue to identify and develop features that
can overcome some of these barriers, but there are many things that Web site
developers can do, with very little effort, that would make their pages more
accessible.
The Trace Research and Development Center
at the University of Wisconsin at Madison produced the Unified
Web Site Accessibility Guidelines (1999). These guidelines were transferred
to the Web Accessibility
Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C). Using the Unified Web Site Accessibility Guidelines, the W3C produced HTML
Author Guidelines -- version 1.0 (1999).
According to the guidelines, measures for improving accessibility falls
into the following categories: (a) structure—HTML documents should use markup
to convey meaning and less for format and layout pages; (b) navigation—authors
should support keyboard-only navigation and methods to facilitate orientation;
and (c) alternative content—authors should always provide alternative ways to
access information presented with images, sounds, applets, and scripts. These
recommendations have been categorized as Priority
1, 2, and 3 errors. Priority 1
errors involve issues that make it impossible for one or more groups to access
information about the Web site. These
issues must be addressed to consider the Web site minimally accessible.
Priority 2 errors make it difficult for users to access Web site content.
Priority 3 errors may be addressed by web developers and make it somewhat
difficult for readers to access information in the Webpage. Additionally, the
WAI provides specific recommendations and strategies on how to produce Web sites
that are in agreement with the guidelines.
The W3C's commitment to lead the Web to
its full potential includes promoting a high degree of usability for people with
disabilities. Building Web sites
that comply with standards for accessibility should be a high priority for Web
site developers. To help developers design highly accessible websites, the Trace
Research and Development Center at the University of Wisconsin at Madison
produced the Unified Web Site
Accessibility Guidelines (Trace Research and Development Center, 1998). This
information was transferred to the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and used to produce the Web
Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (Chisholm & Vanderheiden,
1999a).
The primary goal of the guidelines is to promote content accessibility. The
guidelines do not discourage content developers from using images, video, and
other multimedia tools, but rather explain how to make multimedia content more
accessible to a wider audience.
The Web
Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (Chisholm & Vanderheiden,
1999a) document is organized around two general themes and 14 guidelines or
general principles of accessible design (see Table 1). The themes are (a)
ensuring graceful transformation and (b) making content understandable and
navigable. The document provides the rationale behind the guidelines and
describes some of the users who benefit when they are applied to Web sites. In
addition, a list of checkpoints is provided that explains how the guidelines
apply to typical content development scenarios. Each checkpoint is specific
enough to be verified while general enough to allow Web developers freedom to
use appropriate strategies.
Table 1
Web Content Accessibility Themes and Guidelines
|
Theme
|
Item
|
Guideline
|
|
Ensuring
Graceful Transformation
|
1
|
Provide
equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content.
|
|
|
2
|
Don’t
rely on color alone
|
|
|
3
|
Proper use of markup and
style sheets.
|
|
|
4
|
Clarify
natural language usage
|
|
|
5
|
Create
tables that transform gracefully
|
|
|
6
|
Ensure
that pages featuring new technologies transform gracefully
|
|
|
7
|
Ensure
user control of time-sensitive content changes
|
|
|
8
|
Ensure
direct accessibility of embedded user interfaces.
|
|
|
9
|
Design
for device-independence.
|
|
|
10
|
Use
interim solutions.
|
|
Making
Content Understandable and Navigable
|
11
|
Use
W3C technologies and guidelines
|
|
|
12
|
Provide
context and orientation information
|
|
|
13
|
Provide
clear navigation mechanisms.
|
|
|
14
|
Ensure
that documents are clear and simple
|
The guidelines that primarily address the theme of ensuring graceful
transformation, Guidelines
1 through 10, assist Web developers in producing sites that remain
accessible despite constraints confronted by people with disabilities. For
example, Guideline 1 states that Web developers should provide equivalent
alternatives to auditory and visual content. Text can be rendered in ways that
are available to almost all browsing devices and accessible to all users, but
auditory and visual content are not. Guidelines
11 through 14 primarily address the theme of making content understandable
and navigable. This includes providing navigation tools and orientation
information in pages with maximize accessibility and usability. Not all users
can make use of visual clues such as image maps or graphical information, but
with orientation information, users can understand many of these graphical
images. Figure one is an example of
a webpage that provides easy to read text and a clear navigation system. The Web
Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (Chisholm & Vanderheiden,
1999a)
document provides much more detail in developing content-accessible Web sites.
Figure 1: Bobby approved Web Page with navigation
elements.
Building Web sites that comply with standards for accessibility should be
a high priority for Web site developers. To date, little research has documented
the extent to which accessibility goals have been reached.
Method
This study examined the accessibility of CE home pages. The purpose of
research described in this article was to: (a) evaluate the accessibility of
Counseling Education home pages, and (b) direct readers to resources that are
available to assist in the development of accessible home pages.
Sampling
A list of URLs for Colleges and Schools of Counseling Education was
generated using the Infoseek search engine
(2001). The descriptor "counseling education” was used to search for Web
sites. A total of 143 counseling education Web sites were identified.
Evaluation
Process
Each CE’s
home page was evaluated using Bobby
3.2 (Center for Applied Special Technology, 2001).
Bobby is a software tool that can be used to analyze Web pages for
the accessibility to people with disabilities.
It accomplishes this by comparing the coding in the selected webpage with
the coding standards developed by the WAI.
Once Bobby has completed its analysis it creates a detailed report
that can then be used to identify and correct accessibility errors on the web
page. These reports are extensive
and provide a measure of the extent to which a Web site is accessible for people
with disabilities. The type of
accessibility error (e.g., images without alternative text, links without
alternative text, and pages not usable without frame), the severity of the error
(e.g., Priority 1, Priority 2, Priority 3), and the ease with which the error
can be fixed (e.g., easy, moderate, hard) are provided in a summary report.
By correcting these errors tools such as web page readers can then be
used by persons with disabilities to help them read and correctly interpret the
content of a webpage. In this study
only the initial CE home page was evaluated and no links within the domain were
evaluated. Scores for each home page were tabulated and analyzed.
There are many accessibility issues that Bobby 3.2 cannot detect.
For example, Bobby cannot determine
programmatically if the Web site is following accessibility principles, and can
only draw the users attention to the potential risks of any technology that is
used. The potential errors will be reported in the results, but the researchers
did not physically examine the Web site to evaluate these potential errors.
Results
Only 120 of the 143 counseling education Web sites were available for
evaluation. Of these, 81% of the Web sites had at least one accessibility error.
The means and standard deviations for the accessibility and potential
accessibility errors sorted by priority are presented in Table 2.
There was an average of .98 Priority
1 accessibility errors on the CE home pages.
This indicates significant accessibility issues that can hinder the
reader’s access to information on the Webpage.
Additionally, the potential Priority 1 accessibility errors reported were
7.47. This indicates that several
potential accessibility issues exists that could severely limit a readers access
to the information on the Webpage. Priority
2 and Priority 3 errors averaged 2.41 and 1.72, respectively while potential
Priority 2 and 3 errors averaged 13.26 and 12.68, respectively.
While these errors are not as severe as Priority 1 errors, they can still
affect the degree to which a reader can access a Web site. As seen in Table 3 the most common Priority 1 accessibility
problems identified in home pages of CEs were (a) not providing alternative text
for all images and hot-spots, (b) client-side image maps with links not
presented elsewhere on the page, and (c) insufficient information to determine
language of text used in presenting information.
Providing alternate text for an image or hot spot means that when the
reader is browsing the page they can move their pointer over the image or
hotspot and a message will appear that provides some information about the item
in question. Client-side image maps
pose problems for many of the programs that interpret Web sites for readers with
visual impairments; therefore, Web sites should provide some alternative means
of navigation. One popular form of
navigation is a test-only navigation bar at the bottom of the page.
Software readers also need information about the type of language, French
for example, which is contained in the Web pages.
As will be seen later, many of these problems were rated as easy to fix.
Priority 2 errors reported included no description titles to links
(85.6%), deprecated language features (83.2%), movement in images, and use of
tables to format text documents in columns (73.6%). The most frequent Priority 3 errors reported included lack of
identification of language in text (97.6%), lack of logical tab order among
various elements (85.6%), no keyboard shortcuts to frequently used links
(85.6%), and no linear text alternatives for tables that are used to format text
(73.6%).
Table 2
Accessibility Errors Categorized by
Priority
|
|
Accessibility
Errors
|
|
Potential
Accessibility
Errors
|
|
Severity
|
M
|
SD
|
|
M
|
SD
|
|
Priority 1
|
.98
|
.59
|
|
7.47
|
1.92
|
|
Priority 2
|
2.41
|
1.27
|
|
13.26
|
2.07
|
|
Priority 3
|
1.72
|
.47
|
|
12.68
|
1.75
|
|
Table 3
Type Accessibility Error, Percentage of Homepages with
Error, and Ease of Fixing Error
Type of Accessibility Error
|
Percent
|
Ease to Fix
|
|
Priority
1
|
|
|
66.0
|
Easy
|
|
|
14.4
|
Easy
|
|
|
.8
|
Easy
|
|
Priority 2
|
|
Did not have descriptive
title to links.
|
85.6
|
Easy
|
|
Used deprecated language
features.
|
83.2
|
Moderate
|
|
Using movement in images.
|
75.2
|
Easy
|
|
Used tables to format text
documents in columns.
|
73.6
|
Hard
|
|
Did
not use relative sizing and positioning (% values) but used absolute
(pixels).
|
64.0
|
Moderate
|
|
Did not separate adjacent
links with more than white space.
|
55.2
|
Easy
|
|
When scripts create pop-up
windows or change the active window, page did not ensure that the user was
aware this is happening.
|
24.0
|
Moderate
|
|
Priority 3
|
|
Did not identify the
language of the text.
|
97.6
|
Moderate
|
|
Did not specify a logical
tab order among form controls, links and objects.
|
85.6
|
Moderate
|
|
Did not have keyboard
shortcuts to frequently used links.
|
85.6
|
Moderate
|
|
Did not provide a linear
text alternative for tables that lay out content in parallel, word-wrapped
columns.
|
73.6
|
Hard
|
|
Did not provide
abbreviations for long row or column labels.
|
73.6
|
Easy
|
|
Did not provide a summary
and caption for tables.
|
73.6
|
Moderate
|
|
Did not group related links.
|
40.8
|
Moderate
|
|
The absence of alternative methods of conveying information was the most
common Priority 1 error. These
errors included no alternative text for images (66%), alternate text for hot
spots (14.4%), or alternate text for applets (.8%).
Most (81.2%) of the accessibility errors were rated as being high
priority (e.g., highest severity rating). Table
4 indicates that the majority of accessibility errors were rated as easy to fix.
Examples of these types of errors include alternate text for images
(66%), descriptive title to links (85.6%), and use of moving images (75.2 %).
Some suggested ways to fix these errors include the use of the ALT tag and
descriptive text with every image to present textual information about images. A
similar technique can be employed to provide descriptive information about
links. Moving images prove
difficult for readers to interpret. These
issues can be resolved by providing descriptive text or substituting static
images that convey similar meaning.
Table 4
Type
of User Check Potential Accessibility Error, Percent of Home Pages with Error,
and Ease to Fix Error
Type of Accessibility Error
|
Percent
|
Priority
|
Ease
to Fix
|
|
If you use color to
convey information, make sure the information is also represented in
another way.
|
83.2
|
1
|
Moderate
|
|
Check that the foreground and background colors
contrast sufficiently with each other.
|
81.6
|
2
|
Easy
|
|
If an image conveys important information beyond
what is its alternative text, provide an extended description.
|
80.0
|
1
|
Moderate
|
|
If a table has two or more rows or columns that
serve as headers, use structural markup to identify their hierarchy and
relationship.
|
73.6
|
1
|
Moderate
|
|
For tables not used for layout (for example, a
spreadsheet), identify headers for the table rows and columns.
|
53.6
|
1
|
Easy
|
|
Provide alternative content for each SCRIPT that
conveys important information or functionality.
|
21.6
|
1
|
Moderate
|
|
Be sure pages are readable and usable if style
sheets are ignored.
|
21.6
|
1
|
Moderate
|
|
Discussion
The Americans with
Disabilities Act directs that individuals with disabilities including
students being served by CEs are entitled to the same civil rights protections
as their neighbors and peers without disabilities. The law has come to be associated with efforts to make public
and private facilities and institutions more accessible for individuals with
disabilities. The Internet and
World Wide Web have revolutionized access to the resources and services of
American businesses, public and private institutions, and other organizations.
The accessibility of this information to students with disabilities has
not been extensively studied.
Counseling Education Programs use the WWW to disseminate and gather
information. On-line barriers limit the accessibility of the WWW for individuals
with disabilities. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the accessibility
of CE home pages. One hundred twenty Web sites were randomly selected for
evaluation. Bobby
3.2, a software program, was used
to quantify the number of accessibility errors at each site. Most CE home pages
had accessibility problems (81.7%). Most of the errors were rated as severe and
should be given a high priority. The good news is that the majority of the
errors can easily be corrected. The need for CEs to examine the accessibility of
their home pages is evident in the outcomes.
Web developers in Counseling Education Programs need to examine their Web
sites for accessibility problems. It is strongly recommended that validation
methods be used in the early stages of Web development, which will help make
problems easier to correct and assist developers in avoiding accessibility
problems. There are two suggested methods of validating a Web site for
accessibility (Chisholm & Vanderheiden,
1999a). First, automatic tools are
available for scanning the site and providing data. Bobby 3.2 and other
validation services should be used to provide information concerning
accessibility problems. Automatic tools are convenient but do not identify all
accessibility issues; therefore, it is recommended that each site be examined by
a knowledgeable individual and individuals with disabilities to ensure clarity
of language and ease of navigation. The processes of rapid prototyping and formative
evaluation have been used for many years to help develop educational software
and have recently proven to be useful in the process of Web site development (Corry, Frick, & Hansen,
1997). Expert and novice users with disabilities
should be invited to view home pages and provide feedback about the seveity of
accessibility or usability problems.
One global suggestion for the Web site designer is that all Web pages
should be encoded for meaning rather than appearance. For example, providing
alternative ways of obtaining information is a key to overcoming many
accessibility errors. By using ALT=”TEXT” tags on all images, approximately
one-third of the errors discovered in this study would be fixed.
There are many Web sites that provide information and recommendations for
accessible Web pages. Below are a few recommendations for evaluating Web sites
for accessibility:
1.
Web site designers should follow the accessibility guidelines. There are
several sites on the WWW that give recommendations.
2.
Each Web page should be tested for accessibility. Several different
procedures should be used: (a) view each page on monochrome screen or use high
contrast option of control panel; (b) turn off graphics and view page for
readability or use Lynx to view the page; (c) select only text, print to
clipboard, and view for readability; (d) navigate using only the keyboard; and
(e) use Bobby or other Web evaluation software to test the Web pages.
3.
Web site designers should provide a “text only” version of the CE’s
Web site. This can be done using
cascading style sheets so that updates can be accomplished more easily.
Providing a text only version of a Web site also provides users with slow
Internet connections with a relatively fast method of accessing an
institution’s Web site.
4.
Web site designers should provide the reader with alternative methods for
obtaining information about the CE Program.
Providing a phone number, email, or mailing address can do this.
This information should be displayed in a prominent place on the CE’s
Web site.
Page authors
should not produce “handicapped products” to make Web sites accessible.
Every effort should be made to keep all Web sites in the mainstream and
provide elements that allow universal access. Table 5 provides a list of
resources that can assist in the development of accessible Web sites.
Accessibility guidelines are not designed to stifle the creative freedom of Web
site designers; however, extra thought and effort is required in designing
accessible Web sites.
Table 5
World Wide Web Resources
Guidelines
|
Description
|
|
World
Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
Web
Accessibility Initiative
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/central.htm
|
This
online document by a subgroup of the World Wide Web consortium provides
guidelines for making Web sites assessable to persons with handicaps.
The W3C is responsible for setting international standards for Web
technologies.
|
|
Microsoft
Guidelines for Accessible Web sites www.microsoft.com/enable/dev/Web_guidelines.htm
|
This
online document provided by Microsoft provides guidelines for making Web
sites more handicapped assessable. Microsoft
is a leading manufacturer of PC based software and makes several Web
development tools.
|
|
Sun
Microsystems'
"Accessible
Design for Users with Disabilities"
http://www.sun.com/columns/alertbox/9610.html
|
This
online document by Sun Microsystems provides a set of guidelines for
developing handicap accessible Web sites.
Sun is a leading manufacturer of Web servers and other internet
technologies.
|
|
NCD
Congressional Mandate
www.ncd.gov/mandate.html
|
These
online documents provide federally developed guidelines for the
development of handicapped accessible Web sites.
The National Council on Disability is a federal agency whose charge
is to develop guidelines on a range of accessibility issues.
|
On-Line Tools
|
|
|
W3C HTML
Validation Service
http://validator.w3.org/
|
Users
can submit a Web address to this service that will then automatically
check the associated Web page(s) for compliance with current W3C
accessibility standards.
|
|
Center
for Applied Special Technology--Bobby 3.0
http://www.cast.org/bobby/
|
Bobby is
a downloadable software utility that will check a Web site and return
information to the user as to the site’s accessibility.
|
One misconception that
surrounds the WAI’s guidelines is that the guidelines limit the web
developer’s creativity and that accessible web pages have to be boring.
Figure two presents a graphic rich web page that was determined to be
fully accessible. As noted
previously the use of ALT tags to identify graphic elements is a simple solution
to many accessibility problems and has been used extensively on this page.
Figure 2: Bobby approved Web Page with graphic elements.
Currently,
several tools and standards are being developed to help Web developers in these
efforts. Microsoft
Corporation (2001) has recently announced its plans to help developers using
FrontPage, a popular web development tool, to make their websites conform to the
latest US federal guidelines. The
World Wide Web consortium has also announced guidelines for software tools to
help persons with disabilities access a variety of multimedia content (World
Wide Web Consortium, 2001a). Finally,
at the time of this writing, the World Wide Web consortium is working on the
second version of Web Accessibility Standards (World Wide Web Consortium,
2001b). These new standards will
not only help authors create accessible Web sites but will also improve
accessibility of the web for persons with disabilities.
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