Internet Marketing - Matt Bailey [145]
A Chat with Google’s T.V. Raman, Developer of Google’s Accessible Search
Work hasn’t stopped for future development of Google’s Accessible Search. Recently, the Accessible Search has been improved to give blind users access to the same advanced search features that are available in the regular Google search.
Dr. Raman, who has been intimately involved with building speech-enabled interfaces for many years, sees the Google Accessible Search as “a good first step in delivering the most accessible information online” and believes that Google will continue to develop ways to be more accessible. He welcomes any user feedback; he says, “We get better when we know what works for the user and welcome feedback on everything from improving taglines to adding new features.” Based on this, there are thriving discussions on the Google Groups Accessible topic.
Dr. Raman thinks the impact of the Accessible Search will go beyond a simple service and one that will affect the development of the Web. “I hope that as we continue to improve Accessible Search, we’ll have a long-term positive impact on increasing awareness of the need to create clean, accessible web content.”
In evaluating the sites that ranked highly in the Accessible Search, it was obvious that there were elements of standards-based programming (W3C and Accessibility Guidelines) that favored more text-based websites. Dr. Raman noted there are consistent factors that contribute to this observation. “For accessibility, clean, well-structured semantic markup is the best thing you could hope to have,” he says. The three key words clean, well-structured, and semantic are all important. Adherence to specs definitely makes checking easier. He notes that it is entirely possible to create web pages that could pass the automated accessibility tests but could also end up not being truly accessible, which could then be used to “game” the system. But he also stresses the importance of creating “clean, well-formed XHTML content” in that “over time, websites will find it significantly easier to serve all their users better—simply because their content will be easier to manage and evolve.”
The big question was how helpful the alt attribute was for rankings. Most Google engineers are very tight-lipped about any search factor and its value in the algorithm, but Dr. Raman explains the importance of this small factor for both users and search engines, “Google scores alt attributes appropriately, and things like stuffing a 14-page essay into an alt tag won’t help you rank better and will annoy your users. We encourage users to use alt and title tags in the best way for users, and that work well for Google as well.”
The Moving Target of Accessibility
When working on large accessibility projects, I have been amazed at the varying attitudes and comments that are made, usually off-handedly. Most attempt to marginalize the importance of accessibility by rationalizing the need to overlook the stringent programming factors with the reasoning that “We only have to make this accessible for less than 1 percent of people.” The motivating factor for being accessible seems to be, simply, not to get sued.
What amazes me the most is the ground that has to be covered in creating a comprehensive accessibility plan. The very moment you dismiss something as being “irrelevant” or “a small percentage,” you’ve missed the entire point of the project. Accessibility is a matter of allowing people to access information in a method that is understandable and usable. The difficulty intrinsic to the project is the variance among assistive technology and the access methods, as illustrated in the following sections.
Factors in Vision Accessibility
It is best to consider vision accessibility as a continuum; you can start with low vision as a starting point, because that is the beginning stages of assistive technology. Usually low vision can be overcome with screen magnifiers or, at minimum, increased text size within a browser. Both also benefit from high-contrast