Interviews from the public and private sector on web usage and developments
Introduction
In the course of the project members from eleven different public and private sector organisations were interviewed. This included members from five web development companies and six members of public sector organisations in the Greater Manchester area. The method used was semi-structured interviews. Questions covered five different but related themes: web accessibility standards, industry awareness and training, marketing and cost, accessibility testing of websites, disabled people and employment. Each interview lasted between 45 and 75 minutes. The main purpose of these interviews was to assess the awareness of the issue of web accessibility in the private and public sectors and to find out more about the reasons why the majority of websites in the UK remain inaccessible. Furthermore, with respect to the public sector we looked at the developments in the employment sector and at the level of help that disabled people can access in finding and getting a job.
Web Accessibility guidelines
All interviewees were asked for their experiences of the practicality and usefulness of the W3C accessibility guidelines. All were aware of the existence of the guidelines with several, particularly those concerned with web development, claiming to use and consult them. Interviews with web developers also confirmed that public sector organisations are more interested in meeting accessibility guidelines. Opinions varied in terms of the usefulness of the standards. For example, a web developer remarked:
"Standards are relatively useless; I use a common sense approach to accessibility. The guidelines would be too long and too complicated: If you get something under 200 pages you are doing quite well really. Even if it is under 200 pages, they’re just so bloody boring." (Company A: 9)
On the other hand, public sector organisations that did not have to actually use the guidelines to create websites generally held a more positive outlook on accessibility guidelines:
"I think for somebody like me who is not disabled, they provide really good guidelines on what measures should be taken to make sure our website is accessible." (Company PS:F).
Perhaps an approach which could be applied to understand these diverse opinions would be to consider the statements above in terms of competing discourses of rhetoric and realities. For government agencies including the office of information commissioner, positive rhetoric over the advantages of applying accessibility guidelines may be expected. After all, any negative statements could lead to the almost inevitable question of what are the agency doing about it? By contrast, the private sector web developers face the reality of having to apply the guidelines in practice.
The issue of tension between rhetoric and reality can also inform understandings which several private sector organisations raised. Concerns were related to the political arena in which decisions are made over the nature and content of accessibility guidelines.
"People can’t agree because people probably come with an idealistic view of how a website should be approached in terms of accessibility. Often they are in conflict with the guys who are doing the programming and that is where a lot of the troubles begin." (Company B: 4)
"People who work in the steering group do not necessarily come from an accessibility standpoint... It seems there is a fair mix of motivations for being involved in the project. That’s the reason why it has taken so long." (Company B: 5)
A further issue which animated several private sector developers was the apparent impression held by many outsiders that compliance to accessibility guidelines was an objective task. Several suggested in reality subjective opinions were frequently APPLIED in the guidelines which require a considerable element of personal judgement. Hence automated checking tools do not provide adequate checks in relation to determining website accessibility.
"I think you could have automated tools to a general degree. But it is people that use it and automated tools are simply not going to do the job well enough." (Company C: 12)
" Guidelines do not always make sense, or need to be carefully interpreted. There is a trade-off between accessibility and usability. A website maybe fully accessible, but can at the same time be a complete nightmare to use. Some of the websites which are ‘Bobby approved’ or are ‘AA’ are in fact very unusable." (Company A: 16).
Hence there is an apparent difference between a website attaining accessibility accreditation and how useable any site is for people using assistive technologies to access web materials. If accessibility guidelines do not necessarily produce usable websites, then the question becomes are the guidelines of any value? Here opinions ranged from limited support for the guidelines to unqualified statements towards their value.
"So we have got a framework that is there that is reasonably solid. I wouldn’t want to say that it perfected accessibility... But at least there is a framework there." (Company D: 5)
"It’s a guideline, isn’t it? It might help a few people, might be worse for others as well." (Company B: 5)
"It is not a focus on the things that really matter." (Company A: 9)
"They are quite restrictive. Things like the WCAG are just best practices." (Company E: 4)
Unsurprisingly, the level of support for accessibility guidelines depended on whether or not the person making the statement was directly involved in the practical application of their use. Practitioners all identified the limitations and contradictions in the guidelines, whereas those who simply worked with websites constructed for them were generally under the impression that compliance to guidelines was necessary to produce accessible websites. This divergence between rhetoric and reality lead into a consideration of the use of education and training for those involved in producing and using accessible web content.
Industry Training
All private sector organisations were asked their views on training and where training was available within the industry. It was suggested by several interviewees the IT industry in Manchester in the form of Manchester Digital would push for higher professionalism with respect to producing accessible websites
"I am secretary of Manchester Digital, which is the trade association of web companies in central Manchester… We have been trying to educate a lot more members on things like accessibility." (Company D: 13)
" Manchester Digital has a partnership… based in London. And they get people rather than trainers down. Trainers are people who are actually doing it in industry and achieving results." (Company C: 5)
We raised the issue of whether the expertise of making websites accessible would originate from the university sector or from within the industry. It appears that university education was not widely regarded by interviewees. Most of the web developers we spoke to had either not finished their university degree in computer science or spoke very critically of university IT courses. One company stressed that when hiring new staff they let people work on a trial basis, as university qualifications would not be any proof that people can actually build websites:
" That is the only way we can find new people and see how they work. An interview doesn’t tell you anything, a CV tells you even less it seems." (Company A: 2)
Another recruitment strategy was to ask university lecturers who their most talented students were, and offer them positions during their course.
" Jim was halfway through a degree and then decided he could not be bothered doing it any more, because he knew more than his lecturers at the time. We saw his work and that was the critical thing. Great we could look behind it and look at the code" (Web Company C: 5).
"We used to take on graduates and postgraduates directly from university. We stopped doing that because it is not that the skills are out of date, but because a lot of the theory that we expect people to have picked up on a degree they haven’t. So we are always starting from square one with people when they come in." (Company D: 13)
This raises the question of where did the web developers get their web accessibility training. In nearly all cases it fell to the web developers to teach themselves about web accessibility. However, particularly the public sector organisations would send their staff on short training courses conducted by IT professionals to catch up with the latest accessibility issues.
" One of our officers… went down; there is a public sector forum for accessibility. Like a conference seminar." (Company PS A: 8)
Another organisation arranged for staff to gain access to a virtual book shelf where access to the latest technical books online are available. Employees who would be interested in a particular topic like accessibility could simply access the latest relevant publication from their desk.
" Every time a new publication comes out, it adds an electronic book to the book shelf. And we pay about £400 a year for all our staff to have every book they do. " (Company D: 14).
So far we have considered internal factors of accessibility and training in individual organisations. An issue of significant relevance is contained in the private sector of web developers. These are the people who are commissioned by outside organisations to produce websites. Hence these organisations are in a position to comment how accessibility is regarded by purchasers of websites.
Marketing and the cost of accessibility
Some web developers claimed to use web accessibility in the marketing of their web services, while others were reluctant to do so because it may raise concerns with clients over potential additional costs.
" We have been running for about five years since 2002. I remember being asked only once for an accessible site." (Company A: 2)
Two web design companies said they would make websites automatically accessible, as long as no additional costs are involved, a third argued cost is more a feature of complexity and levels of accessibility:
" We try to make them as accessible as possible. At least nothing that would increase the cost for the clients." (Company A: 3)
"The real value comes out of testing with users. Obviously that takes time and money. If you are going to a great length to make sure the website is accessible, it takes a lot of time." (Company B: 4)
" We used to say to everybody if your site needs to be accessible we charge you 10% premium. The cost of a site to make it accessible. We stopped doing that because it is not a flat rate in every case. In some cases it is completely something we can do in the build without costing any more money or taking any more time." (Company D: 9)
One company (Web Company B) assured us that all their websites would be at least level a compliant. However, sometimes clients complain about accessibility features:
" We do get clients come back to us… we end up in an argument with the client about accessibility. And actually they don’t care about it - about accessibility." (Company A: 3)
The issue of how many organisations which commission websites regard accessibility was succinctly presented by a web developer who had several years experience of dealing particularly with small firms who required a web presence:
" Small business owners are just not aware that they ought to be accessible. What they ask you, will they prosecute me and the answer being no. No they won’t. So because there are no examples of anybody being prosecuted, publicly prosecuted, business owners simply don’t give a toss." (Company C: 2).
Opinions did diverge over the issue of whether web accessibility costs more money. Three web development companies claimed that web accessibility would generally not result in additional costs, with two others estimating the costs for accessibility in the range between ten and thirty percent of the project costs. However, it should be noted that such statements are bounded by the individual’s definition of what constitutes an acceptable level of accessibility:
" If you give us a certain turnout as a standard of single a accessible. If you go to double A we put probably about 30% on." (Company C:. 2)
The reason for what may appear a confused situation on the apparently simple issue of whether making an accessible website is more expensive can again be understood by contrasting rhetoric’s and realities. Some web developers regarded basic level ‘A’ guideline conformance as producing an accessible site. Others took a realistic stance which suggested although level ‘A’ can be achieved at minimal cost; this would not necessarily guarantee an unproblematic usable site:
" It’s just the actual process of doing and checking. You can build a website, but to make sure everything works correctly is kind of a validation process. Is everything right? Is the menu working OK?" (Company C: 3)
" If the site is more complex you try to second-guess pathways through for people who are blind or partially sighted or things like that. A lot of thought needs to go into this and the bigger the site the more thought and the more complicated it gets." (Company B: 9)
Generally, web developers regarded basic compliance to accessibility guideline sat level ‘A’ as meeting accessibility requirements. At this level it was common to find the view that level ‘A’ would not require user testing to validate websites. The issue of validation only appeared as higher levels of accessibility were desired, and it was the issue of validating sites through testing which generated greater time and hence cost on to websites. The following section considers how web developers rationalised the use of validation through testing after commissioning a website.
Accessibility Testing of Websites
All interviewees generally agreed that the testing of websites would be important, but few of them actually did significant accessibility testing before delivering websites to clients. The main reason for this was the additional time and effort required for carrying out the testing:
" The testing takes for ages. You certainly want to use some of the technologies that visually impaired use and make sure it is compatible with that." (Company C: 3)
In the public sector, the more common practice was to purchase products including user testing from outside specialists:
"The read speaker service that we are purchasing is round about £2,500. This is quite a substantial take of our budget" (Company PS A: 2)
This level of commitment to web accessibility seems to be rare, even in the public sector. Several private sector organisations commented that ideally websites should be tested by disabled user testers, as this would be the only way to make sure that disabled people can use the website. One company (Web Company D) said that they had done this in the past, but eventually stopped the practice because clients would not pay for it. Another web developer had similar experiences:
"We realistically should use visually impaired or impaired in another way to actually go and test it. But there is no way to do that. You simply cannot deliver that bit." (Company C: 2)
Some web developers (Company B) suggested that there could be a future market for user testing websites, providing legislation was enforced. At the moment, many web developers argued private sector organisations would not have to fear any legal consequences for not making their websites accessible:
"If the risk to me is not even one in a thousand chance. It is a one in a million chance that they have actually legal action taken against them." (Company C: 8)
However, although the above applies a ‘hard’ business rationality to producing accessible websites, other web developers argued the essence of accessibility should be based not only on legal enforcement policies, but also as a matter of social justice:
" I think the industry generally felt it was pushed upon them... our users are not blind anyway, why should I have to bother? But these days most of us realise that it is a moral obligation as well as a legal obligation to at least do the basics." (Company B: 10)
The majority of web developers agreed that the only practical way of ensuring websites were accessible would be through applying a business case rationality. However, as identified above, this view was often accompanied by the social justice argument implying organisations had a moral imperative not to discriminate against any minority in society. Whilst such arguments appear firmly rooted in the private sector, by comparison the reality of attempting to engage more disabled people in work lies firmly in the hands of employment specialists the largest of which are located in the public sector.
Disabled People and Employment
Three interviews focused specifically on the problems and opportunities disabled people have finding employment in an information society. In particular we were interested in the question whether IT affects the way disabled people get into employment. We spoke to a local Job Centre in the Manchester area concerning their experience with disabled people. The people at the Job Centre were reluctant to answer our questions and the PR section of the Greater Manchester Central District branch of the DWP refused to give an official response. It seems that the people in the Job Centre and in the DWP are aware of their shortcomings in terms of providing equal service to disabled people. However, notes of the meeting were transcribed and the opinions expressed provided an ‘insiders’ view towards the employment potential for unemployed disabled people whether computer literate or not:
" Generally we only deal with a few disabled job seekers, and it would be indeed a big problem to find jobs for them because of negative preconceptions of the employers." (Company PS D: 1)
Again, an analysis comparing rhetoric to reality may assist. Policy makers increasingly appear to proclaim that equality of opportunity’s key to producing greater social inclusion for disabled people through paid work (Danieli and Wheeler 2006). The evidence provided here from a government job centre plus office would suggest the reality is that opportunity provision is insufficient in itself when the problem is rooted in the attitudes of employers. Similar experiences were related by other employment agents:
"We have cases here in the careers service where we have refused to work with certain companies because they haven’t amended their vacancies or their recruitment practices." (Company PS E: 8)
" I think that it’s wrong that employers don’t want to take people on. We find our customers who get into employment are not career-led. They are just happy to have a job that they understand and enjoy. From being isolated at home, from the way benefit is looked at to the next stage of actually getting employment and being respected." (Company PS C: 8)
Although the research is specifically aimed at revealing barriers to employment due to inaccessible web recruitment materials, it would be doing a serious disservice to disabled people if the additional discrimination based on the attitudes of some employers was not noted. As the research is primarily concerned with disabling barriers related to technological artefacts, the following discusses internal barriers faced by disabled people who try to access employment services at job centre plus offices.
We found that the Job Points, where job seekers can search for jobs online and access job advertisements, are generally inaccessible for a variety of disabled users. This is the case for several different impairment specific groups. For example, the heights of the machines (which cannot be adjusted) make them difficult to use for people in wheel chairs. Also, the touch screen access menus have no speech alternative for blind people. The Job Centre Plus website, which we audited, is also largely inaccessible. The only alternative disabled people have in accessing the services of the Job Centres is to speak to an advisor. The problem is that disabled jobseekers are only entitled to speak to a job advisor for half an hour every two weeks. Although there are clearly difficulties in accessing national government run employment agencies, more localised provision is also provided for disabled people. Manchester City Council launched a project in 2004 called ‘Stepping Stones into Work’, which provides additional support to disabled job seekers. Disabled people are referred to Stepping Stones by the Manchester Job Centres and Stepping Stones helps them to get back into work. “City Council realized that there were 40,000 people collecting disability benefit and they wanted to help those people. So they put £3 million into a pot and Stepping Stones was born.” (Company PSC: 1) The organisation had a high level of knowledge of accessibility issues in relation to web design: “Nobody wants to use frames because they are bad anyway... It’s making sure that stuff within the code of the page doesn’t stop things from reading the text. That is what is important. That is where your screen reader is. Likewise for many things. Use flash videos then nothing can read the text. So you don’t know what is on the page. Plus where is it making the tile contrast, the colour scheme?” (Company PS C: 8) This company prides itself on knowledge of accessibility and it’s web design: “The other thing that we have with our website is the fact that the leaflets are all available as a CD-ROM or as a PDF. There are all sorts of different options that are part and parcel of the site. On the site documents are PDF. At which point you do whatever you do with the PDF." (Company PS C: 8)
However, when the website was accessed through a screen reader, several problematic issues were found. Firstly, headers were not used hence navigation through the site is extremely time consuming. Also, when the jobs page is accessed, again no headers are provided, and no active links to external employment vacancies are given. This site displays an exemplar of issues raised earlier in this section. The website managers are aware of accessibility guidelines and do understand many of the problems disabled computer users face. However, it appears unlikely that the site has been tested by disabled computer users, as many simple accessibility features are absent. In short, the rhetoric of accessibility is known and spoken, in reality the usability of an employment related website is compromised through lack of testing and hence validation.