Atlantic Business Technologies, Inc.

Author: Gordon Chadwick

Accessibility and Section 508 Compliance: Planning, Testing, and Design
There are many different pieces to obtaining digital accessibility, and it can be an issue that needs clarification. Atlantic BT can help you feel confident that your site is in compliance with the latest accessibility regulations to reach a larger, more inclusive audience for your company.

But let’s take a step back and think about why it matters. Digital spaces are essential to the way we live our lives. “We” is a collective, inclusive word. So digital solutions wind up affecting the lives of every person who has access to the Internet. It is clear that designing web experiences for all users, regardless of ability or potential needs, is a crucial component of modern web design. Not to mention, it is also the law. Web accessibility is an element of your website that can not be ignored.

Why Should You Care About Website Accessibility?

Americans With Disabilities Act

While the ADA does not explicitly mention websites in its language, it does prohibit discrimination based on disability in places of public accommodation. As many organizations have discovered, the ADA has been applied to lawsuits over inaccessible websites. Perhaps one of the most famous was the National Federation of the Blind’s lawsuit against Target in the mid-2000’s, which led to Target settling the case for $6 million.

Section 508

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, is another law that many of our clients have their eyes on. Organizations that are subject to Section 508 have a clear requirement to meet accessibility standards. As of January 2018, these organizations are now required to make sure their websites meet the guidelines laid out in Level A and Level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0).

Appeal to a Wider Audience

Aside from the law, there are benefits to making your website more inclusive.
- Provides key services to people with disabilities
- Increases the audience or customer base an organization can reach through its website
- Often makes sites easier for all users
And the need for accessibility continues to grow. According to the CDC, more than 20% of adults in the United States have a disability. That number is only likely to go up as the population ages.

How We Create Accessible Websites

Making accessible websites requires careful planning for success. Of course, not all of our clients have the same accessibility needs, so each is handled on a case by case basis. A typical project looks something like this:

Make an Accessibility Plan

During our discovery phase, we identify what accessibility requirements a client has. We will additionally scan for issues that we will need to mitigate later on. For example, a lot of old sites have videos and PDFs that no longer meet accessibility guidelines. Whatever the specifics may be, sticking to the initial audit ensures we know what goals we need to meet.

[pull_quote]Technology’s value lies in what it allows people to do. By designing inclusively and making digital products accessible to all users, we make our technology more valuable. We bring this perspective to every project which makes our products that much stronger.[/pull_quote] – Gordon Chadwick, User Researcher, CPACC

Design a Site Everyone Can Use

With requirements in hand, our designers apply styles that both function and delight. We’re long past the days when people thought designing an accessible website meant designing an ugly website.

[pull_quote]Accessibility isn’t just about blind users and screen readers, it is about everyone. Designing for all people encourages exploration of new ideas and solutions that lead to a better product overall.[/pull_quote] – Maris Hall, User Experience Designer, CPACC

Develop Using Best Practices

Building accessible sites doesn’t mean bolting on tons of features, it means following best practices for front end development. Clean, well-structured code is the foundation that allows screen readers and other assistive technology to function.

[pull_quote]When you start paying attention to the needs of all of your users, you begin to see how wonderfully diverse your audience is and you start looking for ways to give everyone a seat at the table. Since I’m usually working on implementation, I make sure the sites I build provide a good experience for users of assistive technologies like screen readers or magnifiers. [/pull_quote] – Mark Andrews, JavaScript Developer

Test and Verify

Testing is how we ensure that the work we did meets the goals we set during the planning stage of a project. Since meeting success criteria is of critical importance, our testers have several different ways to verify that we hit the mark. Testing methods include:
- Automated Testing – We use automated checkers to identify accessibility issues in your code.
- Expert Reviews – Certified accessibility professionals review behavior on your site.
- User Testing – Go straight to the source and test with users who have disabilities.
[pull_quote]There is a wealth of information on the web and everyone should have equal access to it. I make sure that we’re making that a reality by accounting for accessibility as we build things instead of after they get released.[/pull_quote] – Yolanda Hyman, Quality Assurance Manager

Start Feeling Good About Accessibility

It’s easy to understand why accessibility is important. However, uncovering potential issues and implementing changes can be a complicated process. Atlantic BT is happy to guide you through requirements and implement the necessary changes to make your website not only compliant, but accessible and inviting to all users. Reach out today for a free consultation or to get in touch with one of our accessibility experts.
June 3, 2019
What’s the Future of Municipal Sites?

When I think about cities and city services, I can’t help but see them as user experience projects. As a UX-oriented person, maybe that’s just me being a hammer and seeing a UX nail, but as more and more diverse citizens rely on these municipal sites, city governments will have to take UX seriously to serve citizens in the future.

This UX perspective should extend from city hall buildings to services in the community to digital spaces like social media and city websites. I’m not only saying this because I think it’s the right thing to do, it’s also what citizens are increasingly coming to expect. Research from Accenture has shown that people are coming to expect more and more from digital government. Over three quarters of US citizens expect the same or better service from government websites as they do from commercial sites, and that number is growing. Some government institutions like the State of Georgia are catching on to this trend, though that appears to be more the exception than the rule.

Since we know how important city websites are, my user research team and I are always watching where these municipal sites seem to be headed. This can be a hard thing to pin down because there is so much variation in the execution of city websites, but here are a few trends that stand out.

Municipal Sites Will Focus on Findability

One of the hardest challenges of municipal sites is creating effective navigation systems. These sites struggle because they need to meet the needs of many user segments as well as the needs of many internal departments. Pick a city site at random, and chances are you will notice critical information buried in deep site structures. Deep structures aren’t necessarily always bad, but designing navigation for municipal sites is especially challenging because of the abundance of jargon in field. This in mind, here are specific ways municipal sites can improve findability:

Search

Search is an obvious way to get around the problems of navigation and hard-to-find information. While this might seem behind the times to include, you’d be surprised how many cities don’t have basic search aids like suggestions, autocomplete and spell check, much less filters to narrow results. With that said, many cities have begun promoting search even more by placing the search bar right in the middle of their home page. Take Las Vegas, for example:

If you want to promote search on your municipal site, put it front and center.

Intelligent Assistants

Many cities (and other government agencies) have begun to develop Alexa integration to help people find information. I have to commend these agencies for forward thinking, as I think voice interfaces are here to stay. At the same time, I can’t help but wonder how useful some of these tools actually are. It’s hard to accurately assess the value of these applications without some user testing, but my first question is: Which applications of these tools provide value and which are just shallow attempts to adopt a trendy technology?

For example, one of the apps currently available advertises providing information about the names of people in official positions. Put simply, that seems mostly useless. Other apps report to provide information about trash collection or street closure schedules. These tasks seem more practical. For example, imagine being able to instantly check whether you need to put your recycling out without having to consult a screen. I believe these tasks are closer to the types of things that people actually use intelligent assistants for: repetitive, fact-based information needs as opposed to subjective questions dependent on individual opinion. If I sound cautious here, it isn’t because I don’t believe voice interfaces could be useful–they could be–I’m just trying to stress the importance of basing these interfaces on real user needs.

“Get It Done” Wizards

Another approach is to present a navigation alternative by allowing users to select a catered guide to locate a page. These guides are usually presented as step-by-step processes (with numbered steps and all). In my view, though these are often presented as task wizards, they are typically just alternative navigation schemes that use actions as categories rather than the loosely-persona based navigations that city sites usually employ.

San Diego’s Get it Done feature: Users make choices moving from left to right and are linked to a page in the final panel.

These features provide an alternative finding method for users who struggle with or are not inclined to use other methods. That said, if a municipal site relies on these special guides to perform routine tasks, why not simply redesign the site’s information architecture so all categories are labeled as common actions? Are they simply bolting on alternative routes to popular content instead of simply designing their navigations around it?

City Sites Will Get Serious about Content Strategy

As a critical component of any website design, content strategy will also become a major focus of municipal sites in the coming years. And many of these sites have a ways to go—city web pages with a strong vision of their own strategy are more the exception than the norm. Here are some important ways that leading municipal sites will align their content strategy with actual user needs:

Timely Topics That Matter to Many Users

Cities need to prioritize and produce content that matters to the majority of their citizens. This means focusing on the key content strategy question: What do users actually come to the city website for? The answers should guide municipal site owners in deciding what content to prioritize.

One mistake I often see on city websites is there is too much focus on news or announcements (such as a press release of the mayor’s speaking engagements) rather than directly actionable information. Too often these news stories dominate screen space on multiple pages despite being of interest to only a small subset of users.

This doesn’t mean the latest news isn’t useful content, but municipal sites must prioritize common user needs over pure timeliness. For example, Boston’s site prioritizes things like parking meter schedules, street cleaning, and trash schedules over the “typical latest news” information—though these schedules should of course be kept up to date.

Embrace Citizen Communication

There is no more direct way to prioritize user needs than listening to those users in real time. Every municipal site understands the need for web-friendly ways for citizens to contact city officials, so most cities have webforms to request service, report things, and contact municipal employees—in addition to just posting phone numbers.

But beyond these standard methods, how else can municipal sites embrace citizen communication? Many cities (including Wichita, Virginia Beach, and Boston) have chat capabilities that allow citizens to immediately contact city employees for answers. These live chat sessions not only allow users to quickly express their views, but also reinforce that the city leaders are making time for a real person to listen to them. Additionally, they open lanes of communication for users who are not inclined to make a phone call or can’t wait for an email response.

The chat function on the Virginia Beach municipal site makes it easy for citizens to get quick answers.

It’s also worthwhile to engage users on social media channels like Twitter or Facebook in order to rapidly circulate important information and get citizen feedback. There’s nothing wrong with building a following by posting jokes or pictures of cute animals in the city, as these followers will later be able to receive your updates when something serious is happening. In addition, cities should develop a plan for how they will respond to unforeseen events on social media. For example, the city of Toronto famously found themselves on the spot after a picture of dead raccoon on a city sidewalk went viral.

The Future of Municipal Sites Is Now

Of the predictions made in this post, very few of the trends discussed rely on cutting-edge technology. Instead of some sci-fi dreamscape driven by neural integration with digital systems or holographic imagery, the future of municipal sites will depend on strong search capabilities, user-centered content strategy, and social engagement—all best practices you can implement right now.

To learn more about how government websites can better serve citizens, please visit our government services page.

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April 16, 2019
A Lack of Accessibility Puts Beyoncé’s Website in the Spotlight

To be honest with you, I don’t spend a lot of time on Beyoncé.com. But, when I saw that Beyoncé’s entertainment company was getting hit with a lawsuit over the accessibility of her website, I thought I would check it out.

What did I see wrong? Well, a lot of things, unfortunately. From an accessibility standpoint, this site needs improvement. For a cursory evaluation, I checked out the site with a code validator first. Next, I did some manual testing using keyboard navigation and a screenreader. There were too many issues to cover in a short blog post, but here are some of the biggest ones.

No Visible Focus Using Keyboard

One of the easiest ways to check for basic accessibility is to tab through your site using your keyboard. Hitting the tab key should take you through every interactive element on a page . This is important for users who only navigate through sites with a keyboard. Often, these users have difficulty using a mouse or are using a special assistive technology. Regardless, they must be able to operate everything on a site just as a mouse user would. It turns out you can tab through all of the links on Beyoncé’s site, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at the screen as you do. As you hit tab, there is no visible marker, such as a border, outline, or underline, to show you which element you’ve landed on. Worse, it isn’t possible for a keyboard navigator to focus on the hamburger menu icon that reveals the menu, which means the user can’t operate it.

No ‘Skip to Content’ Link

Users navigating with keyboards or screenreaders will thank you for including a “Skip to Content” link on your website. That also means they might leave your site if you forget one. These links allow users to avoid clicking through your navigation and header links each time they load a new page. Instead, they can jump immediately to the page’s body content. Allowing these users to skip the navigation reduces their workload and helps them have a good experience on your site. No such option was available on Beyoncé.com.

Duplicate Link Text

Looking at Beyoncé’s “Music” page as a fully sighted user, I can see that it is arranged by album. Each section has links to songs, videos, and other related content for every album Beyoncé has released. It is clear to me that these links correspond to each album because of their visual relation. However, when I check out this same page using a screenreader, things become much more obscure. As a screenreader user, I may want to skip from link to link to find what I want. But the links in each section contain the same text. Suddenly, I’m confronted with multiple duplicate links. I can’t tell them apart. So I’m unable to find the links to songs from a specific album.

The same concept bodes true for videos. I would have no way of knowing that one link was to videos from Everything is Love instead of Lemonade.

Many Images Aren’t Described by Alt text

One of the issues included in the lawsuit is that Beyoncé’s site doesn’t use alt text to describe images for screenreader users. Looking closer, I do see some alt text on the site. For example, images on the Tour page do have alt text (though it is written in such a way that it’s mostly useless). With that said, there are certainly parts of the site which rely solely on images to convey information yet fail completely to accommodate screenreader users who rely on alt text. For example, the page called the “Vault.” This is an image gallery with many high quality photos of Beyoncé’s recent activities. For a sighted fan of Beyoncé , this is nice content. Unfortunately, for a screenreader user, this page is unusable. Each image is read in the screenreader as a link identified by the filename because the images do not have alt text. In practice, it sounds like this “Link – 1118-4, Link – 1118-3”. It isn’t a page that someone who can’t see the images could get any value out of.

Accessibility Matters

I’m sure that Beyoncé’s company will do the right thing and update the site so her fans can enjoy it, no matter how they happen to browse the internet. In fact, prominent web developers have already offered their help.

However, I can’t help but think that this all could have been avoided if the designers and developers had gotten things right the first time. There are many reasons to make websites accessible. I tend to split those reasons into two different categories: carrots and sticks. Carrots include increased audience and a better user experience. Lawsuits are the stick. Unfortunately, the team behind Beyoncé’s website ignored the carrots. Now they’re facing a very public and ugly problem. Regardless of the outcome, there is a great lesson here. I hope the lawsuit draws attention to the importance of creating accessible experiences. Accessibility shouldn’t be a scary topic for anyone. Rather, it’s something that we all need to incorporate into every stage of website design, development, and maintenance.

January 9, 2019
Win With This Proven Path to Successful Information Architecture

In my last post, I wrote about common information architecture problems we see on government websites. Government sites have special challenges, but I’m happy to tell you that there are ways to work out the kinks.

These are some of the approaches we use to clear up information architecture problems. With that said, any problem will have its own specificities that make it hard to present one-size-fits-all solutions.

Techniques: Content Inventory and Content Audit

These two techniques are all about getting a handle on the content on your current site. Information Architect Abby Covert calls this “Identify[ing] the mess.”

Content inventories help you understand where your content stands from a high level perspective. You can grasp how much content you have, what kind of content it is, and where that content exists.

Content audits are much more detailed. They require you to go into the weeds. During a content audit, you have to make decisions about which content you want to keep on a new site and which content can hit the recycle bin. This brings me to something I can’t stress enough: this will be easier if you’re prepared to let go of old things. Bloated content is causing information overload for your users. Leaner content makes it easier to create effective information architecture.

But here’s a warning: you don’t want to go into a content audit without more specific goals. You want to have some ideas about the future of your site so you can make decisions based on those.

Techniques: Card Sorting and Tree Testing

One of the most visible parts of your information architecture is your navigation. Unfortunately, good navigation requires a lot of work. Card sorting and tree testing are important tools for planning navigation. They also help you see how users understand the topics and information on your site.

Card sorting is an exercise to find out the topic groupings that you can create from your content. These groupings are very valuable when you’re setting up your navigation.

Tree testing is the reverse. You won’t ask people to create groupings. Instead, you’ll see if people understand groupings that you have already created. . This is similar to asking people if they can navigate through your site. There’s one key difference, though. Users click through your labels to find where they think certain types of information belong. There is no design or context to help them so they have to navigate based on labels alone. This is a good first step to understanding if users will know how to navigate through your site. Of course on your real site, users will have visual cues to help them. But, the tree test is a check to make sure that the labels and groupings make sense.

Government information architecture problems tend to come from years of growth on a site. Your web presence will always be changing and growing more sophisticated. It’s natural to have to regroup and realign. These techniques can help.

With that in mind, each project is different. The bottom line is to make sure that any website redesign is supported by good information architecture. In turn, that information architecture must be supported by thoughtful, deliberate publishing practices and by understanding the ways that users see your content.

June 14, 2018
Why You Need Strong Governmental Information Architecture

Government agencies have a special obligation to create usable websites. Usability is the digital extension of good public service. There is one significant usability problem that we encounter most often. Government sites can struggle with poor information architecture (IA).

What is IA? It’s an underlying system of organization. Sites rely on IA to help make their content easy to find and use. IA also encompasses other parts of the site structure. The layout of the site, how the navigation works, and the pages and labels seen, are all examples. It’s also the metadata and taxonomies that you may not notice at first glance.

So, what are government websites getting wrong?

Problem #1: Information Overload

It can be tempting to put as much information as possible on your website. This is partially driven by the desire to inform the public. Unfortunately, putting too much information on a site or a page is detrimental. It will actually hurt your site’s ability to impart information to users.

Your website is an opportunity to answer common questions before the user has to pick up a phone or send an email. By not providing important content, everyone’s jobs can become more difficult. You’re either burdening your own staff or missing an opportunity to serve the public. But, if you’re putting that content online in a way that makes it too difficult to find? Well, you’re probably going to wind up getting calls anyway.

Problem #2: Silo Mentality

Government sites should not need users to know anything about the structure of an agency. Organizing information into little fiefdoms on your website will hurt findability. Instead, organize content based on users’ needs. This strategy is at the heart of effective information architecture.

One of the biggest silo mentality problems we see are forms, reports, and other documents buried on program or department pages. Usually, they are simple file attachments. When you do that, you are making it harder for people to find your documents. Their only option is to navigate through your content to find what they need. This leaves out the part of your audience Googling your information. It can also hurt those using your own site search. Even for users who want to use your navigation, you’re requiring them to find the exact right page. Then they have to read through the content to find what they need. Think of your users!

Problem #3: Confusing Labeling

Again, you can’t expect users to understand the in-and-outs of an agency. They aren’t going to know what to do with jargon or technicalterminology. Using plain language is extremely important. You can’t just look at labels individually, though. It’s necessary to look at sets of labels together to make sure they work cohesively. After all, users are going to need to look at a group of labels and make the right choices.

The good news is that there are plenty of techniques for attacking these problems. The first step is always user research. Understanding your users better allows you to create an informed strategy. You can compare user needs to your business objectives and make strong decisions. Knowing who you’re organizing information for and why makes choices about information architecture easier.

May 16, 2018
Taxonomies: A Trilogy – Mistakes and How to Survive

This blog is part 2 of a 3-part series on Taxonomies. To read part 1 on an Introduction to Taxonomies, click here. To read part 3 on How to Evaluate and Test Taxonomies, click here.

As you have already learned, the word taxonomy can have different connotations. Ernesto’s post pointed out that taxonomy has its roots in scientific classification. But, web designers and marketers now use the concept to structure websites. This evolution has led to the improvement of the user experience. With such a range of meanings, it’s easy to understand why the term taxonomy can create confusion. Especially for anyone trying to understand how to apply it.

To add to this confusion, many of us learn about taxonomy concepts in bits and pieces. Me? I first learned about taxonomies in a library science class. We discussed the topic in a very conceptual way. What were the best ways to use taxonomies in the academic setting? How could they be best used to organize huge amounts of academic information? Then I entered the web development world. I learned here that we aren’t always trying to classify everything on a site. Instead, we use smaller, flat taxonomies to support specific site functions.

Using taxonomy shouldn’t be scary or overwhelming. But, it’s easy to see how one might get confused about how to classify content on a site. We’ll now discuss come common confusions about taxonomies. Most importantly, we’ll make sure you don’t fall into any traps.

Common Taxonomy Confusions and Clarifications

1. Taxonomies Are Keywords

When you add keywords to a piece of content using free text, you associate metadata with that content. This can be a very useful tool. Keywords can describe a document with a lot of precision. They also mean you don’t have to choose a best fit for your taxonomy.

Taxonomy is effectively a series of keywords—carefully organized with users in mind.

Yet, this free-form approach cannot provide the structure that taxonomies can. Developers can design systems that rely on taxonomic terms to dynamically generate pages. Imagine trying to do this with a system based on free-text, chosen by a content publisher, keywords. The page would miss terms created ad-hoc by content publishers. Things would be harder to find. Also, you wouldn’t be able to make complex associations. Such an unprepared system wouldn’t be able to handle variations.

How to Fix It

Avoiding this confusion is pretty easy. Structure content publishing in your content management system. Also, don’t forget to provide training for your content team. Have content publishers associate a taxonomic term with a piece of content. Then teach them what consequences that association will have.

Also, don’t rely on trendy keywords to populate your drop-down filters. Use your research to choose more precise terms for your taxonomy. The inherent differences between these specific, chosen terms will enhance the site’s UX. They will guide users to choose the correct option for the information they needed.

2. Your Top Level Navigation Should be a Taxonomy

A map of your site structure will look a lot like a taxonomy. Why? Because the organization of the pages are hierarchical. Furthermore, you could take that structure and directly translate into a navigation system. In that system, you would have to drill down from the largest categories to find content.

Yet, your top navigation system doesn’t have to perfectly represent your site structure. Keep in mind, translating a taxonomic site structure into a navigation system can be hard. It will likely limit your designers’ abilities to enhance certain parts of the UX. Highlighting/lowlighting parts of the site that will better meet user needs are not as easy. Also, there’s no rule against crosslinking. That allows the linking of a page in one section to that of a page in another section. This action could also be useful to users. Yet, it does not follow the ‘perfect’ taxonomy philosophy of organization.

How to Fix It

Your navigation system must match user needs. It also must reflect the key functions of your website above all else. For example, sections like Terms of Service. That more than likely occupies a high level in a site structure. Yet, you don’t want to put a link to that section in your top-navigation. Why? Because it won’t be a section that many users need to access. Since needs will differ for any site, be sure to use user research. (This includes testing and Laura will cover that in our thrilling conclusion.) Also use business objectives to help you choose what to focus on.

3. Taxonomies Must Have Multiple Levels of Classification.

Remember, the classic example of a taxonomy is the scientific classification of species. This hierarchical taxonomy illustrates the informational power of hierarchy. You can infer things about a species based on the chain of broader classes that it belongs to.

How to Fix It

Hierarchical structure is great for scientific classification. It may also be appropriate on your website. But, there’s nothing wrong with a single level, or “flat” taxonomy. In this taxonomy structure, there is no nested term under any other. In fact it’s often the most common we interact with on the web. Many drop-down filters are actually flat taxonomies. For example, consider the body style taxonomy on a used car website. As you can see from the screenshot, the taxonomy includes no hierarchy, but places each care into a class.

Of course, viewing an organizational system as a flat taxonomy is a matter of perspective. There is usually some way to add hierarchy if you want. For example, it would be easy to create a second level of classification from the used cars list. All you would have to do is group all the pickup trucks in a pickup class, all the vans in a van class, and so on. Whether you need to do that or not is the question you need to address as the organizer. The next post in this trilogy will address how to test taxonomies with your users. This will allow you to find the right one for your needs.

A Great Taxonomy Takes the Right Team

After reading this far, you may be ready to jump into taxonomical work without hesitation. But, if you’re feeling like you need some help, you’re not wrong. Producing a good taxonomy requires a lot of work. This would include research, design, and testing. The right team can make sure you get taxonomy right the first time to avoid having to clean up a content mess later.

There’s good news! There are professionals who spend a lot of their time tuning taxonomy. They are willing to help. Here at Atlantic BT, we have plenty of perspectives to bring to the table. Our Information Architect, User Researcher, Content Strategists, and developers are on board. They are all able to create powerful and well-planned taxonomies. Feel free to contact us if you have questions.

The final part of our trilogy will be gripping. It will tell you everything you need to know about testing and validating a taxonomy. Revisit our exciting plot episode if you can’t get enough.

May 2, 2018