www.cast.org/bobby/
www.w3.org/WAI
For more information
Gregg Vanderheiden, po@trace.wisc.edu
Al Gilman, asgilman@access.digex.net
The Trace Center (see pages 34-35) has created several tools to help ensure that technology is accessible to to all users, regardless of physical or cognitive disabilities. As a leader on issues of universal access, the Center is also active on national and international committees convened to create technology accessibility standards.
The British police officer--known as a Bobby--who walks a neighborhood beat is there to prevent problems before they occur. He or she identifies a potential problem and intervenes tactfully. These qualities make the Bobby a model of the soothing presence who anticipates trouble and heads it off. Since their Web Accessibility checking tool is also designed to head off problems before they start, CAST (Center for Applied Special Technology) named the tool Bobby.
Bobby was first introduced as an interactive Web site. Now, recent enhancements make Bobby available for download. With Bobby running on the user's computer, the user can work offline and check an entire Web site for accessibility, rather than go page by page.
A Web page URL must first be input in order to use the tool. A report then appears immediately on the screen, assessing the Web page for universal accessibility. The report notes access difficulties and suggests how they can be overcome. Bobby puts the the WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) Page Author Guidelines--which list issues and strategies for addressing access--in the context of the author's own page. In deciding to have Bobby make recommendations based on the WAI guidelines, CAST recognized the importance of consensus to the pursuit of universal design principles.
Programmers at CAST are working to ensure that the guidelines Bobby checks are indeed the ones established by the WAI. This process has benefited from support from the Trace Center, as the Center is active with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that established the guidelines.
The W3C's WAI is a collaborative effort to ensure that the benefits of the Web will be usable by all, regardless of disability. The Initiative includes an International Program Office and a Technical Activity. The International Program Office coordinates a program of Education and Outreach. The Technical Activity provides accessibility advice on technology developments in the W3C--such as presentation languages and multimedia formats--and develops guidelines for how to apply Web technologies in the most universally accessible way.
A key part of WAI's work is developing accessibility guidelines--for page authoring; for web browsing software, or "user agents"; and for authoring software. The WAI Page Author Guidelines are summary principles of accessible design. These are presented along with brief explanations of how access is not achieved if these guidelines are not followed. Example techniques with which the author can meet the guidelines are listed. A "techniques" document explains these in more detail
One critical factor in the success of this effort is how WAI provides the appropriate venue for addressing this issue. As Gregg Vanderheiden--a respected universal design leader and Web accessibility pioneer--states, "The W3C is just the right place to solve this problem. Nobody can match their ability to pull together all the affected parties from all over the world. This is an area where industry needs one clear message, not a chorus of competing claims. Working under the WAI umbrella we have been able to achieve much, much more than we ever could have individually or country by country."