Access by Various artists

A few years ago I got a call from a salesman who suggested I visit their new company website, just launched that week. "What did I think?", he inquired.

I could not believe my eyes. What loaded on-screen before me was a mess. I could hardly see the text in the menus, let alone read it. I clicked on what I assumed was a link (it was) and arrived on another page. I strained to make sense of it. My eyes hurt. I told him that I had trouble navigating the site, that the colour contrast seemed a bit low. He said it looked fine to him.

I dug into the stylesheet behind the site, and the penny dropped. They'd used red text on a green background. Ugh.

More recently I followed a link on Twitter to an online visualisation that highlighted changes in a particular metric spread across certain categories (the guilty shall remain anonymous). It did not make any sense so I showed it to a colleague. She said that it looked fine, and that they'd used a scale from red through to green to show the primary data. Fail!

Those experiences are typical for me because I have red-green colour blindness. Both really annoyed me because I make websites for a living, or rather one website - www.radionz.co.nz - and I know that sort of thing is avoidable and unnecessary.

We (Radio New Zealand) care about and take great pride in the accessibility of www.radionz.co.nz. We acknowledge it's not perfect though, and we keep working at it while keeping up-to-date with latest research and techniques. One of our web team is a member of the working group for the NZ Government Web Standards. This is serious and important work.

But it wasn't always like that for me or, in fact, for most people building websites.

The early days of the web were highly experimental, born out of frustration for its text-centric focus and the vast gap between that and printed magazines. The first highly 'designed' sites used a range of work-arounds to achieve print-like layouts. These included converting text (usually headings) into graphics (so an exact font could be used), nested tables and blank spacer images, graphics split into dozens of pieces inside tables, and image maps.

It was possible to create some fairly spectacular looking pages with these techniques, but there were major problems. Sites were expensive to build and more expensive to maintain. Lots of strange code was required to support Netscape and Internet Explorer's different ways of rendering HTML. When a new web browser version came out, everything had to be tested, and reworked. Use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to control the look and layout was minimal, again because of limited and inconsistent support by web browser software. Getting a site to look 'pixel perfect' (or even close) in every type browser was rocket science.

Worst of all, few sites were designed for ease of use by anyone other than those with fully-functioning upper limbs, 20/20 vision, and an IQ 'average' or above.

This all changed in 1998 when The Web Standards Project (WaSP) was formed. They, according to Wikipedia, "…campaigned for standards that reduced the cost and complexity of development while increasing the accessibility and long-term viability of any document published on the Web."

The standards themselves had been (and continue to be) defined by an international body called the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) whose members included the major browser makers. The core standards had been ignored in favour of proprietary extensions that (ultimately) forced developers to support only one browser. Remember those site buttons, 'Best viewed in Browser X'?

The W3C standards allow the World Wide Web and a host of other applications to exist on the internet together, and for those applications to be available to everyone. The aim of these open standards is interoperability, and to lower the barrier to entry to enable participation at the lowest possible cost.

Anyway, I was convinced by WaSP's pitch, and like many others at the time I became a zealot for the Web Standards cause, this inevitably leading me down the path to the web accessibility initiative, WAI.

It seemed like good sense at the time and like most good followers of the cause I adhered to the published best practices espoused by The Prophets, wearing the results like a badge of honour. For years I followed the prescription of standards, but along the way something changed.

After the fourth iteration of the RNZ site was launched (in 2008) I realised that we'd been doing things differently. No longer did we simply follow the 'recipes' advocated by others; those practices had become a way of life and we were developing our own ways of doing things to suit our content. New content areas were being created, and we were thinking about accessibility issues without thinking about them. Theory had turned into practice and I thought we'd truly arrived; we finally had accessibility sorted.

But later that year I got some feedback that completely changed my view. Someone had attended a session on screen readers run by the Blind Foundation, and had blogged about one small problem with our site. I was mortified. A problem with OUR site?

The issue was that links in the features section of the home page did not make sense to screen readers. The links following each feature had the text "Find out more", a common pattern on many sites, and a screen reader navigating the page would hear a series of links read thus:

• link: Find out more
• link: Find out more
• link: Find out more

Not very helpful, so we added hidden text to each link:

• link: Find out more about Podcast Classics
• link: Find out more about Enzology
• link: Find out more about Nine To Noon

Technically, the extra text sits in a span with a CSS class that is hidden from the visual layout. After that, we made the use of additional descriptive hidden text standard practice on the site.There are also hidden headings to say what each section of the page is for: Main navigation list, Menu, secondary navigation, and so on. This was a simple change.

This incident was a wake-up call for me, and highlights the reality: your accessibility effort is never complete, and without constant work your site will become run-down and less accessible over time. Beyond simple HTML markup, the same is true for other accessibility issues such as colour contrast and labelling - run down, they will.

When we developed a new audio player for the site, I subscribed to the Assistive Technology Interest Group run by the Blind Foundation. I did this to enlist the help of the community who'd potentially have the most issues with a popup player, and for whom it is probably most important to get it right. One of the benefits of talking with real people directly (instead of commissioning a report) is that a conversation can develop. The player was fine-tuned through several iterations based on detailed and specific feedback. Compared with the usual build it, test it, fix it approach, I think the process resulted in a better outcome for everyone.

I was amazed by the helpfulness of people on the list and their willingness to explain things that were obvious to them, but not to me. I also benefited from reading conversations about other access issues. While on the list I discovered that the technology and community is changing all the time - for example, the Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) specification is moving on at a great pace but not all people use the same screen reader software or even the same version of a screen reader.

The desire to keep improving also drove the design of our custom Content Management System (CMS). This is the sortware that controls the layout of the site, and that generates the HTML underlying every page. It has built-in features to allow us to tightly control the generated HTML while still allowing for frequent updates by many people. This effort was recognised with an ONYA award in 2010.

From a development point of view, there is not one box into which you can put 'people who are unable to see', or 'people who cannot use a mouse', and then derive a general approach to serve that group. You must understand the whole community and how they interact with your site and your content. It is ture that you cannot serve absolutely everyone; you have to make choices. But don't do it based on generalised assumptions.

My experience raised some interesting questions. Why is it that many web projects to do not talk directly to their end users, and especially to those whose experience of the world differs markedly from their own? Or if they do, it is via a third party?

I was born in the 60s and like most children of my generation when we asked question about someone who looked different to us, we were scolded by our parents. I have a vague recollection of looking for a moment too long at someone using a wheelchair and being told not to stare. For my generation disability seemed to be a thing that you hid away and did not discuss. I once shared these thoughts during a presentation, and there were a lot of heads nodding in agreement.

Today, disabled people are not hidden away, nor do they feel the need to hide. They attend the same schools as everyone else. They have the same opportunities. 'They' are now 'us'.

I suspect that many people don't engage with the disabled because we are embarrassed, afraid of feeling stupid, of saying the 'wrong thing', or have no idea where to start. It has been my experience that most people are willing to share their experience and give you feedback - you just have to ask and be prepared to listen and learn.

The important message is this: web accessibility is not a box to tick. It is not simply an event or a process to follow, even though those are important. It is a conversation, a partnership - one that has to involve those for whom your site exists to serve.

My challenge to you this week is to rethink your approach to web accessibility. 

Richard Hulse is the New Media Manager and Webmaster at Radio New Zealand. He blogs at http://richardhulse.blogspot.co.nz/ and tweets @richardhulse.

A brief background post from me today. It’s often useful to consider how we each relate to disability, so we understand better where one another are coming from. Please think about which of these apply to you (and there may be more than one):

• (A)  I am a disabled person.
• (B)  I have a family member who is a disabled person.
• (C)  I have a friend who is a disabled person.
• (D)  I have a workmate who is a disabled person.
• (E)  I do disability-related work.
• (F)  I have studied disability.
• (G)  I do not know much about disability but I'm interested.
• (H) Other - please describe.

Which of those fit for you? (no strings) And how does that shape your thinking?

A worldwide Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License applies to this post. Sacha's personal website is sachadylan.com

Why do headlines such as ‘new miracle autism therapy’ provoke a strong reaction for me as a parent of an autistic child? I am not the only one, as Russell’s post on Autism and Celebrity illustrates.

The day that latest story hit our media, Facebook groups for parents of autistic children lit up. One mother wrote that her phone rang nonstop with people telling her about this new miracle cure, implying that she must do it too. That story turned out to be about a popular behavioural therapy with its roots in early 20th century behavioural psychology as popularised by BF Skinner, and dietary restrictions and supplements that at their extreme have been linked with the spurious theories of Andrew Wakefield. So nothing new or miraculous there.

I have previously declared my interest in the contrasting disability perspectives Cause, care, cure and celebration, which for me has mainly related to autism. But why is autism cause and cure such a popular topic for the media?

I don’t want to criticise other parents as every autistic child and every family experience of autism is different. But such stories can be harmful. They reinforce the view of autism as something abnormal and undesirable, and legitimise treatments that may or may not have any scientific validity. But most of all they risk making parents of autistic children feel guilty.

Why guilt? My theory (borrowed from US autism theorist Majia Nadesan) is that it is due to the increase in autism diagnoses of the last few decades clashing with the rise of neoliberal economics. Under neoliberalism, every individual must ‘self-actualise’, meaning their role in life is to ‘reach their potential’.

Parents’ role is to make this happen for their children, turning parenting into a competitive sport. So mothers anxiously observe their babies to note any deviance from some ‘norm’, which they must remedy. But it is no longer the State’s role to help. The autism industry has responded, and only bad mothers don’t buy what is offered.

ABA – Applied Behavour Analysis, sometimes called Early Intensive Behavioural Intervention – is a good example of the pressures on parents. The theory is that autistic children have to live in our non-autistic world, so have to learn to behave and communicate as non-autistically as possible.

Training should start early. This requires many hours of one to one interaction, breaking down and repeating tasks using picture cards or other means, all reinforced by reward (and punishment). Physical punishment was dropped years ago but food rewards are still common.

The skill and training of the therapist is a key aspect of ABA, but regulation of the industry is haphazard. Such intensive therapy can be expensive and stories of families mortgaging the house are common, as it is not publicly funded in New Zealand. There is also no ‘control’ child to measure improvement against and any progress could be due to any number of variables including a normal development trajectory. But will parents say that the hundreds of thousands of dollars invested were not effective?

So when children diagnosed as autistic develop language and other skills it is often credited to the ABA therapy. There is a huge amount of research about ABA, much of it supportive, but the positive changes are often measured by other contested tools such as IQ.

ABA was such a controversial area that the developers of the 2008 NZ ASD Guideline (led by the visionary Joanna Curzon who tragically died last year) commissioned an additional review to verify the validity of their initial recommendations. Here is an example the Guideline from the section on teaching and learning in the early years:

3.1.8 Services should be available to ensure a young child is appropriately engaged across a variety of home, educational and community settings in goal-directed activities for at least 15-25 hours per week.

Some saw this as code for State-funded ABA, and wanted that spelled out. The review tweaked the wording of a couple of recommendations and added one that strategies based on ABA ‘principles’ (whatever that means) should be considered for all children with ASD. But there was also a caution about choosing a properly qualified therapist.

I was a bad mother. I didn’t do ABA. It wasn’t common in those days. My son’s father died when my son was three and private options were limited. However, we were lucky in that we caught the end of the caring State. A team of government-funded professionals worked together and provided services including speech therapy, play therapy and family support at home and at preschool. All long since gone. But good luck has been a bit of a theme for us.

From my experience, parents want other people to love their autistic child for the perfect human they are, not the person they are not, or could be. I would like to empower parents of autistic children, and for their families, friends and communities to support them. Other parents can be invaluable. Parents also need extended families prepared to learn about autism, not judge and not be fearful about helping out. They need inclusive and welcoming schools and communities, clubs, sports and numerous opportunities for plain one-to-one attention that is child centred, engaged and focused on the child’s interest. No one therapy will do it.

So ABA is not necessary for growing a good autistic citizen of Aotearoa/New Zealand. But support is. For those wanting to help out with an autistic child you have to find what interests the child has and incorporate those interests, or you won’t get far. You need time and patience. New skills such as learning to swim or going on the bus may take many tiny steps.

Siblings are often the best teachers as are grandparents - but not always parents (too risk averse, or just too tired). Here are some things my son did as a child with other people that helped him grow into the sociable, caring, employed adult he is: blowing bubbles for hours incorporating bubble related language; sweeping up leaves; watching, talking, playing with planes, or anything with wheels or water; repetitive ball games; patterned rhythms; watching and learning from more able children skills such as turn taking in simple games.

Autistic children are capable of communication with words whether verbal or not, so I would also like to see all autistic children have access to and training on the latest technology. A teacher aide patiently taught my son how to use a cell phone. Such a normal thing can be liberating.

There are numerous political issues too. I would like the State take up its responsibility to nurture all its citizens in all their diversity, such as restarting that State-funded child-centred professional support around each child that we experienced. Or extending it to some form of navigator/whanau ora or circles of support inclusive of professionals, community and family. These would help stop mothers feeling inadequate and bad.

To finish on a positive note here is a little video about what good therapy looks like, in this case music therapy. It is of Elliott, my friend Wendy’s son, at the wonderful Raukautari Music Therapy Centre in Auckland. Many years of careful relationship building and skill development lie behind this clip. But what joyous fun.

You might not believe me, but I’m being completely honest when I say it has never bothered me one iota that I can’t stand or walk.  There are a few things that I sincerely hate about having spina bifida and hydrocephalus.  I value my privacy just like everyone else, so I’m not going to go into detail right now.  Suffice it to say, bad health when I just want to get on with my life, is not my idea of fun.

I don’t want to paint a picture too grim, either.  Despite the bad things, I have a good life and I don’t pine too much for what I can’t have.  I view the ability to walk in the same category as being able to fly under my own steam; neither are ever going to happen and I’m more than happy with that.

When I was small I ‘walked’ with a walking frame and an elaborate setup of callipers that came up above my waist.  I never looked forward to it.  I think I probably dreaded it.  The pressure through my arms and into my hands is what I remember most vividly.  Red and inflamed indentations left patterns on my hands that lasted quite a while after a session of ‘walking’ with my physiotherapist.  I had a standing frame as well, which I suppose was meant to condition my body to being upright.  I really don’t know.  In that standing frame I couldn’t go anywhere.  It was beyond boring.  

The thing about being a child is stuff happens to you and you don’t understand it.  You don’t question much because you don’t really know where to start or even which questions to ask.  I remember being so nervous when I went to my parents and told them I no longer wanted to ‘walk’.  It was just too hard and with too little to gain, I didn't want to do it anymore. Being a child, I obviously didn’t phrase it quite that way.  That was the gist of it, though.

I don’t think I was that nervous again until I came out to my family as gay, well over a decade later.  On both occasions I needn't have worried, my parents were absolutely fine.  I’m a very fortunate individual in that respect.  So, I stopped what I came to view as a charade - I never did walk - and I got on with my life.  

Even as a child, the freedom and independence that I had in my wheelchair versus torturously uncomfortable callipers and the enormous effort involved in dragging myself around were not lost on me.  All I could do when I was inching the walking frame forward was that one thing.  My arms and hands were otherwise occupied, so any other activity was out of the question.  

In my wheelchair, I could play games with my sisters; I could play with my dollhouse, give my Barbie a crewcut and turn my transformer into a plane; I could rifle through Mum’s extensive music collection and educate myself on Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, Elton John, Prince and The Rolling Stones, B.B. King and Eric Clapton, David Bowie and … that’s where I got stuck for many years, my musical development both stalled and enriched by this alien from England.  

Aside from being quite possibly the most extremely inefficient way of getting around, when I was in callipers and using a walking frame, I was so cut off from my environment.  My wheelchair does that too, to an extent.  Most of the time though, there are ways of getting around these barriers if you have a think and work together with others.

Getting around on a beach is impossible without help, though this doesn’t matter particularly because you haven’t really experienced fun until you slide into a beach buggy (okay, in my case sliding looks suspiciously close to controlled falling).

Steps and flights of stairs are obviously impossible without a team of helpers, or inebriated friends.  I do need help with very steep hills as well.  Years in Wellington taught me there are some hills that cannot be climbed, or rather careened down; not unless you want to come away from the attempt with a very sore head and one eyebrow.  I swear I nearly broke the sound barrier.  

While there are things that I can’t do that people who walk can do with ease, even the obstacles in my life that are difficult or impossible contribute to my own personal narrative.  I have some great stories.  My wheelchair is both liberating and a big pain in the arse.

There have been occasions where I have wanted to tear my hair out at the difficulties and barriers in being in a wheelchair, particularly when I’m trying to get about in an inaccessible environment.  Despite this, never for one second have I regretted the decision to choose freedom over walking.

Some types of people and organisations commonly come up when we discuss disability. My understanding of them flows from how I think about disability. There are other ways, which you are free to raise and discuss below. And let me know if I have missed anything.

To me, the main stakeholder types are:

• Disabled people.
• Parents and families of disabled people.
• Disability change movements.
• Organisations of disabled people.
• Organisations who provide services for disabled people or families.
• Agencies whose purpose relates to disability.

Disabled people are those of us who have impairments and experience disability.

If we understand disability as the interaction of personal impairment and social process then the experience of disability comes in different forms and intensity - and is not actually restricted to disabled people. Attempts to reassert primacy have resulted in phrases like 'people living with disability' and 'people with direct experience of disability'.

Having impairments and experiencing disability are both required to be a disabled person. If there is a simpler word for that, I'm all ears.

Parents and families of disabled people may experience the social process of disability quite strongly at times. However, there is a difference between being a disabled person and loving or living with one.  Extra reliance on family for support can amplify the usual struggles most parents face letting their children take risks and live their own lives.

Disabled people and families are often spoken of together as the 'disabled community'. However, there are significant power differences and speaking on behalf of disabled family members has long been a source of tension.

Disability change movements are active groupings of people and organisations who are motivated by improving the world for disabled people and families, though often only in particular aspects or for specific subgroups of people.

These are mostly powered by disabled people, families and organisations, though most disabled epeople and their families will not have enough spare energy to contribute.

Coordination, resources, skills and strategic planning for sustained action are challenges. Disabled people and our organisations have much to learn from other social change movements.

Organisations of disabled people ('DPOs') are intended to represent the interests of disabled people, and to be comprised of them. The United Nations disability rights convention recognises DPOs as 'civil society' organisations with a special representative role. The main national DPOs in New Zealand serve distinct impairment-based populations and work together as the 'Convention Coalition' that has an official role in monitoring implementation on the Convention. DPOs include the Disabled Peoples Association (DPA), People First, the Deaf Association, and the Association of Blind Citizens (ABC).

Service providers deliver a variety of services focused on the immediate needs of disabled people and/or families, often focused on particular impairments. These are the mostly non-profit organisations familiar to the public over decades, such as CCS, IHC, the Foundation of the Blind, and the National Foundation for the Deaf. Their role has often evolved to blur advocacy with service provision - another common source of tension. Some government departments are also significant purchasers or providers of services, as are District Health Boards.

Agencies regulate and support the workings of what is often called the 'disability sector'*, but they do not provide support services as such. Central and local government both contribute to this role.

* The disability sector is frequently mis-conceptualised to contain not only the service providers, DPOs and agencies, but also disabled people and families. This mashes together a variety of perspectives and needs and does not recognise the different power, resources and mandates of stakeholders.

It also defines disabled people mainly as users of disability services, which is untrue for about half of us. Even then, this error reflects a curiously dependent and institutionalised understanding of our places as citizens and consumers.

By comparison, when someone says 'education sector' we do not usually think of students and their families but only of the people and organisations who work to deliver them an education. Discussing the 'retail sector' does not normally include its customers.

EDIT: Leilani Thompson-Rikys offers a counter to that view below: "the choice to use sector as including people with disabilities is a choice to give greater agency to people with disabilities and reframe discussions from which they had been excluded."

A worldwide Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License applies to this post. Sacha's personal website is sachadylan.com