Portland Area Real Estate Blog - "Did I say that already?" : Webpage Info Accessibility Compliance

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Webpage Info Accessibility Compliance

By: Phil Anderson
Friday, May 02, 2008 12:56 PM

Recently I received an email from my local MLS organization:

Dear RMLS Participant,

In response to a lawsuit filed against Target Corp. regarding Target.com's accessibility for the seeing impaired, RMLS.com was recently updated to comply with accessibility standards. Attached you will find a technology brief prepared by our developers that describes how we brought RMLS.com into compliance. You and your technology staff may find this helpful if you are interested in bringing your own consumer website into compliance…

Now, I don’t pretend to be web-knowledgeable enough to fully understand the issues or changes which may need to be made to my website, www.NewPortlandHome.com, but I did find the topic interesting and it was news to me!

You can analyze your or other sites here:

http://wave.webaim.org/ *

(* If you are researching a LARGE site, Internet Explorer may give you an error message. But using Mozilla/Firefox as the browser, and downloading the Wave toolbar, made the review much more successful. You can download Mozilla/Firefox for free and use it when you wish. Just Google it.)

The current version of the web content accessibility guidelines can be viewed at this site: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/ **

(** My local MLS decided to be compliant with Priority I of III of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 Specification from W3C(World Wide Web Consortium).)

And here's a "Checklist of Checkpoints for Web Content": http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/full-checklist.html

Perhaps most of our sites are small enough to avoid any legal entanglements, but, I'm sure we all would like our websites to be as readily available and viewable to assist everyone, regardless of their disability situation.

Analyze your site and let us know what you think!

Phil Anderson

New Portland Home

Portland Metro Real Estate

http://www.newportlandhome.com/

Comments

Member Since '04	Vance Remele said: Hello Phil !!! long time ,good to see ya. Ok Phil I wave two sites and got a abort popup that said it could not open my sites ? and shut down. What say you? May 2, 2008 2:47 PM
Member Since '04	Phil Anderson said: Hi Vance! I had some trouble "Waving" my site, also; I had to be patient and try a couple of times. When I looked yours up, it worked for me. Maybe you should try again. OR you can install Mozilla/Firefox, go to the Wave site, download their "Toolbar", and then review sites. I did it and it works fine! Phil May 2, 2008 4:26 PM
Member Since '06	Tim and Susan Fennell said: Hi Phil and Vance... Good to see you both. I seldom visit here anymore since it turned into a virtual ghost town. LOL Phil, I don't understand what this is about at all. Can you explain it so that my feeble mind can grasp it (no, I am NOT smarter than a 5th grader). I put in my website and received a brief notice of 41 errors and then the screen disappeared so I have no clue what the 'errors' are or how to correct them... or even if I should be concerned about it. At any rate, it is GOOD to see you both!!! Tim May 4, 2008 7:27 AM
Member Since '03	Mipeco Realty, Inc - Michaela Krestenic, Broker-Owner said: ok, so I just ran our site (used Firefox) and got a notice of 11 errors ... but the rest if all a strange world to me. Have no idea what all the little labels that showed up on "my site" mean ... boy, am I lost on this one! lol May 4, 2008 9:51 AM
Member Since '03	Mipeco Realty, Inc - Michaela Krestenic, Broker-Owner said: I do have one question though ... so, what exactly are we supposed to do to make our sites accessible? Is it something we need to do, or P2? May 4, 2008 9:53 AM
Member Since '04	Phil Anderson said: Hi Michala and Tim! Like I said in my article, I don't know much about this stuff either, but I'm wondering if it is not "the ghost of Christmas yet to come", meaning, if the internet had been present in the 1960s, in the 80s and 90s, there would have been mandatory changes required by law, as the laws changed prohibiting various discriminations (age, gender, race, etc.). My MLS chapter took it seriously enough to make changes now. Most of them were basic, e.g., if you have an icon that viewers click to be taken to another page, there should also be text on the page with a link saying the same info and leading to that page also. This way, viewers with eyesight limitations, who could not, let's say, decipher the icon's meaning, would be able to read the text and find the page. And Michaela, no, I'd say this would not be a P2A (or whomever you use to host your site) thing. This is up to the site owner. I'm not interested in redesigning my whole site right now, but in the future I'll take all this info into account. The first stage priority basics are summarized here: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/full-checklist.html May 4, 2008 10:47 AM
Member Since '04	Vance Remele said: Helloooo there Tim and Susan !! How are things in Jax ? I had 27 errors and I also do not have a clue and for the most part will keep my 27 with me, ha ha. Vancewave May 4, 2008 3:33 PM
Member Since '04	Phil Anderson said: Maybe what it comes down to is there is a segment of the population that has trouble viewing info in the high color graphics many of us use, and navigating our sites because they have visual limitations. I have limitations with my hearing and though not the same thing, I can somewhat understand their frustration. If I knew that a particular segment of viewers would have problems fully using my site, I'd be neglect in not designing it to try to accommodate them. One of the "Guidelines" was familiar; It said if you have a page that has lots of "Wave" errors shown, you could create a link to a page which had the same info, but without all the graphics. Just text. Now, that's something that I have seen at some (large) sites. "View this page only in text", option. Anyway, I found it interesting and I'm sure everyone here wants to include the largest possible viewing audience at their webpages. May 4, 2008 5:52 PM
Member Since '05	Jay & Francy Thompson REALTORS® said: What's up people! Long time no "see". I think what a lot of this pertains to is that many visually impaired people that use the internet use "readers" -- software that can take a web page and translate it into spoken text. Graphics whack-out these readers. And of course, many real estate sites are graphic heavy. Things like JavaScript make them flip out too. ALT tags for images are helpful. The readers will pick up the ALT tag and speak that to the user, My understanding (and DO NOT quote me on this, particularly if you get sued) is that as sole proprietors, we are probably not held to the same accessibility standards as a large corporation (ala Target). "Standards" may not even be the right word. I don't think there are any legal standards (yet) for web sites. I need to read more about it..... May 4, 2008 11:39 PM
Member Since '06	Tim and Susan Fennell said: Wow. This is like a mini family reunion. Things are great in our little corner of the state, Vance. How's your world? good to see Jay "Studz" Thompson too! May 5, 2008 5:15 AM
Member Since '06	Cathy Clark said: Hello All! Welcome to old home week! I would imagine Phil is right in that it would be in our best interests to make our information available to as many as possible. But it would seem to be a rather daunting task on an individual level. It would be nice if P2 could include a "tag" on each page allowing someone to view it in text only. Being technically challenged, I have no idea what would be involved in that. But the P2 gurus are better at this stuff than I am! May 5, 2008 10:49 AM
Member Since '04	Vance Remele said: Hi Gang its "Celebration" reunion time There's a party going on right here, all is welcome http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjPY12hiI0I Vancekool Sorry for thr highjack Phil May 5, 2008 7:00 PM
Member Since '04	Vance Remele said: Tim and Susan, sorry I forgot to answer your question. The Orlando market according to some of the Big Banks is a declining market and are holding back with mortgages unless you are strong as all get out you maybe get a mortgage. http://MickeyRealEstate.com In the Atlanta metro they just has 7,000 foreclosed homes auction this past weekend!! in GA foreclosing on a home is simple, you waive away your rights at closing !!! you can be gone in 30 days. As you both are aware of Florida is a judicial state and needs to go to court, Florida is way behind on foreclosures filings, to could take a year to foreclose !! Condos have taken a Hugh hit especially. At least we have a Floridian market moving up into the metro Atlanta area, I sold a new home to a couple from Apopka go figure.. and have another from Lake land in the hopper. I have taken advantage of advertising GA and FL combine on both sites. http://GeorgiaPeachRealEstate.com along with Fl and GA IDX so far it has worked out ok.. I am holding my own anyway. I had read a great article recently about JAX as the place to be !! port cities in my opinion always offer more. Remember the Point 2 Rock band ? ahh the good old days singing Feelings? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt8Q7Fsa_Vs Hi Jay !!! Vancemuppet May 5, 2008 7:26 PM
Member Since '06	Tim and Susan Fennell said: Vance - we are definitely hoping that the major port expansions coming over the next few years will be a shot in the arm to our economy and housing market. Jax will be the third largest port on the east coast. Couple that with the presence of the Navy and we should remain pretty stable. (Knock on wood!) I'm thankful that we haven't been hit as hard as many areas... but we are far from being unaffected! So, people are moving from FL to GA... it makes sense that they wouldn't venture too far away from paradise! LOL May 6, 2008 7:56 AM
Member Since '04	Vance Remele said: Ahh Paradise, in some parts its what I call paradise lost... I get to play in both sand boxes, FL buyers tell me they need to sell there home first before they move, many have been up in GA to look around and that's it, then there is the crowed that cut there losses and leave paradise the biggest complaint I hear is the high property taxes, I tell to wait they will go down as the home prices fall back.. I had one remind me just the other day that hurricane season starts June 1st !! another complaint hurricane Insurance $$$ big money.. J Ville and the surrounding area have a lot to offer and just a hop skip and a jump to the Peach State to boot. The biggest draw in GA are the north GA mountains to move into thats Steve and Sharon sand box. Well at any rate we all just need to hang loose, everything will work out , it always has in our Bizz.. May 6, 2008 1:55 PM
Member Since '05	Jana Davis & Virginia Houghton said: Could some of those errors be coming up because you are using Mozilla Firefox? I could view my P2 website using that as my server but I could not do any editing. The back door was closed. I have not checked this in quite a while as I just go in through Internet Explorer. Phil this is the first time I have heard of this problem. Our board has not addressed it, so perhaps our MLS is already compliant. After all CA is know for their lawsuits. As far as P2 being compliant that is probably a question for the P2 guys in the know? Jana May 7, 2008 1:21 PM
Member Since '04	Phil Anderson said: Check your MLS using Wave, Jana, and you can answer your question. I can use IE to run Wave, but if the site is large, IE gives an error message. I don't know that it is a problem for us yet, but as I said, it may be the way of the future, similar to the way that the Americans with Disabilities Act changed the landscape of many things. May 7, 2008 1:37 PM