DESIGN METHOD ANALYSIS OF WEB INFORMATION
SYSTEM FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
Gatis Vitols
Faculty of Information technologies, Latvia University of Agriculture, Liela 2, Jelgava, Latvia
Keywords: Web Information Systems, Systems Usability, People with Disabilities.
Abstract: This paper refers to improvement of human-system interaction, more specifically, improving Web
information system accessibility for people with disabilities. Besides fast developing Web, the problem of
system usability remains live issue. There is a need to improve usability and accessibility of information
systems. One part of an active matter is question about how to make Web resource more usable for people
with disabilities. Importance of this topic is out of question, because besides wide spread interpretation of
human with disability, sometimes it is forgotten that even color blindness is or some aging people have
some sort of disability. This paper identifies groups of people with disabilities who use Web information
systems and problems that they meet. By analyzing problems that this group of people meet, main
categories of needs is brought forward, analyzed and basic solutions for Web developers are discussed.
1 INTRODUCTION
Web infrastructure develops with high speed. New
solutions appear and more business processes are
brought online. Live issue remains questions about
usability of the Web. Great part of usability
problems are met when people with disabilities use
online services. By the term people with disabilities,
there is a need to understand not only visually seen
disabilities, but also such met disabilities as color
blindness and disabilities which are caused by aging.
For example as research (Henderson, 2008) show, 1
of 12 people has some sort of color deficiency.
When identifying groups of people who use Web
information systems and problems they meet, it is
possible to bring forward basic solutions that Web
developers can take in notice.
The aim of this paper is to identify main criteria
and bring forward solutions for developing Web
information systems that could be more usable for
people with disabilities. To reach the aim, following
tasks has been brought forward:
Identify Web information system user’s groups
with disabilities.
Analyze existing guidelines and requirements.
Bring forward main groups of criteria.
Develop guidelines and solutions that can help
Web information system developers improve
accessibility of websites.
When analyzing published researches and
guidelines by international organizations and
projects such as Harmony (Paciello, 2000), Nordic
(Thorén, 1998), WAI (World Wide Web
Consortium, 2009) and local, for example, Latvian
organizations, such as Apeirons (Apeirons, 2007),
certain general requirements approximation can be
made.
Common document that closely categorize user
types with disabilities who use Web information
systems, is World Wide Web Consortium managed
Web Accessibility Initiative. More specifically, draft
document “How People with Disabilities Use the
Web” which was released in 2005. Until now this
document still is considered as a draft, but final
version is planned for a release in year 2010. (World
Wide Web Consortium, 2009) Besides others, this
fact shows that with fast developing Web solutions,
the usability matters that relate to people with
disabilities are analyzed and considered.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
From the previously mentioned analysis of
researches (see the Introduction section) following
categories of common met disabilities can be named
(see Figure 1.) There is also possibility that Web
211
Vitols G. (2010).
DESIGN METHOD ANALYSIS OF WEB INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES.
In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Human-Computer Interaction, pages 211-214
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information system users can be people with
combined disabilities.
visual hearing
speech
cognitive and
neurological
age releated
physical
Figure 1: Categories of common met disabilities.
When analyzing Harmony, Nordic, WAI and
Apeirons publications, (see the Introduction section)
identification of common met problems for people
disabilities can be done.
Major category is people who have visual
disabilities. They mostly rely on screen readers,
speech synthesizers and refreshable Braille display.
People with hearing disabilities mainly rely on
captions of audio content, amplification of audio and
adjustment of volume for an audio file. People with
physical disabilities rely on specialized mouse, a
keyboard with a layout of keys that matches their
range of hand motion or a pointing device such as a
head-mouse, head-pointer or mouth-stick. Also
voice-recognition software or an eye-gaze system
can be used. People with speech disabilities rely on
voice recognition or other voice data input methods.
And people with cognitive and neurological
disabilities rely on getting information through
several modalities at the same time. For instance,
someone who has difficulty of reading may use a
screen reader plus synthesized speech to facilitate
comprehension. These people also may need to turn
off animations, video or audio and may take more
time on a Web site. Table 1 shows the summary of
selected categories and possible problems, which
people with disabilities meet when using Web.
Main roles of Web system developers can be
divided in three categories:
programmer, who works mainly with structure
and module creation,
designer, who works on Web page visual sketch
and appearance,
content filler, providing or/and filling
information into the Web information system.
There can be also merging between roles and at
the same time role can be divided into smaller
fractions. (Krug, 2006).
Table 1: Selected categories of people with disabilities and
possible Web use problems.
Cat.
Problem
visual
images that do not have alternative text
complex images that are not adequately
described
video that is not described in text or audio
tables that do not make sense when read serially
frames that do not have "NOFRAME"
alternatives, or do not have meaningful names
forms that cannot be tabbed through in a logical
sequence or that are poorly labeled
browsers and authoring tools that lack keyboard
support for all commands
web pages with absolute font sizes
web pages that, because of inconsistent layout,
are difficult to navigate when enlarged, due to
loss of surrounding context
web pages, or images on web pages, that have
poor contrast, and whose contrast cannot be
easily changed through style sheets
text presented as images, which prevents
wrapping to the next line when enlarged
colour that is used as a unique marker to
emphasize text on a web site
browsers that do not support user override of
authors style sheets
hearing
lack of captions or transcripts of audio on the
web, including webcasts
lack of content-related images in pages full of
text, which can slow comprehension for people
whose first language may be a sign language
lack of clear and simple language
requirements for voice input on web sites
cognitive and neurological
lack of alternative modalities for information,
for instance lack of captions for audio
distracting visual or audio elements that cannot
easily be turned off
lack of consistent organization of web sites
use of unnecessarily complex language
lack of graphics on web sites
web pages with absolute font sizes
use of visual or audio frequencies that can
trigger seizures
Web information system development backbone
tools are Hypertext markup language (HTML) and
Cascade style sheets (CSS). These languages are
used as main tools to layout the content in Web
information systems. (Lane, 2008)
Problems, which partly are mentioned in Table 1,
can address certain developer roles and can be
divided in four groups:
problems that address programmer,
problems that address designer,
problems that address content filler,
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212
indirect problems that are more related to
environment in which people use Web
information system.
If approximation of these problems is made, it is
possible to merge them in following groups. (see
Figure 2)
18%
31%
6%
9%
6%
15%
3%
12%
1. need for supportive text
2. need for a organization of displayed information
3. need for web system elements organization
4. need for layout and element formatting
5. need for contrast design
6. need for user system interaction
7. need for extended time limits
8. need for improved web browsing environment
Figure 2: Requirement groups for improving Web
usability for people with disabilities.
Graph in Figure 2 reflects distribution between
needs or problems that need to be solved. As the
base, mentioned problems in published researches
(see the Introduction section) are taken and 8 need
groups are formed. As it is seen, almost half (49%)
of all mentioned problems are related to presence of
supportive or descriptive text and structure of
information in Web information system.
These problems directly address Web system
programmer and content filler.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Developers of Web sites, if paying attention on some
basic matters, can solve certain problems for people
with disabilities and at the same time improve their
Web information system usability and accessibility
also for other groups of people. To improve Web
information system design, basic solutions are
brought forward and partly presented in Table 2.
(see Table 2) To analyze and evaluate developed
solution, five randomly chosen various industry and
type Web information systems were examined. This
includes government website, t-shirts printing e-
shop, cinema vortal, personal blog and e-learning
system. Code reviewing and design evaluation has
been performed as examination methods.
Table 2: Problem category and possible solution for
usability and accessibility improvement.
Problem
1. need for
supportive text
2. need for a
organization of
displayed
information
3. need for web
system elements
organization
4. need for layout and
element formatting
6. need for user
system
interaction
7. need for
extended
time limits
Table 3 partly shows the completed analysis
results reflecting need, tested criteria and test result
in percents comparing chosen systems. Percentage
shows how many Web information systems pass
certain criteria evaluation.
DESIGN METHOD ANALYSIS OF WEB INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
213
Table 3: Test results of Web information systems
examination.
Need
Solution
Success
1. need for supportive text
1. need for supportive
text
always use HTML image ALT
texts, to make comments on
graphs, images, charts
40%
use labels for website elements,
such as forms
100%
use symbols or comments to mark
some elements on websites
60%
if placing audio, video
information, it’s better to have
comment or transcript of a file
content
20%
2. need for a organization of displayed
information
80%
3. need for web system elements
organization
60%
4. need for layout and element formatting
80%
5. need for
contrast
design
allow changeable style sheets
0%
6. need for user
system interaction
if video, audio or animation
information is included in
websites there is a need for
simple and clearly understandable
control over those elements –
sound volume, stop button, play
button
20%
7. need for extended time limits
100%
8. need for improved web browsing
environment
80%
Results of examination by previously mentioned
criteria shows that websites has relatively good
performance towards usability and accessibility for
people with disabilities. But it is also seen that
critical improvements are needed. Examination
method shows that main problems arise with such
criteria as needs for alternative texts, control over
animations, presence of extra graphical information
and changeable design styles. Changeable design
styles are not available in any evaluated website, but
it is highly demanded feature for people who have
visual disabilities, even color blindness. Solutions
provided in Table 2 can be taken in notice to
improve system page layout.
4 CONCLUSIONS
With the use of this method, developers can evaluate
and prevent main problems for Web projects that
relate matters of resource accessibility and usability
for people with disabilities. Improvements can be
done with a use of client side programming
languages which directly address information layout
on pages.
But when developing Web information systems
with critical usability and accessibility requirements,
method mentioned in this paper can be used only as
one of the tools. Method covers only Web content
layout matters, not including server side tools and
implementation of specific elements, such as
integration of Braille code or special multimedia.
These elements require another analysis and
researches which results can be used in combination
of client side layout requirements.
Improving presence of supportive text, including
information structuring, could solve almost 50% of
layout problems that arise in Web information
system usage for people with various disabilities.
With a release of improved researches for
accessibility and usability matters, there is a need for
future investigation of new client and server side
language possibilities examination, such as AJAX,
as a tool to solve emerging demands.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Funding support for this research provided by
Europe Social Fund program “Support for doctoral
studies in LUA”, agreement 2009/0180/1DP/
1.1.2.1.2/09/IPIA/VIAA/017.
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