Developing a site for a disabled group....input plz

[McMurphy]

Hi ppl,

As part of a degree project I need to develop a site for a disabled group of people. I've chosen CP Spastic which is a neurological disorder and conducting a research on it as a preliminary stage to understand the nature and symptoms of the disorder.

Since I've never developed a site for a disabled group, I would like to ask your input and advice on the matter. Perhaps some of you have had experience with something like that or something close to it.
If you know of any special internet related group which is dedicated to disabilities or anything of that sort I would appreciate if you let me know.

As a whole, I think that it might be a very interesting discussion from a developrs and designers point of view so feel free to share any thoughts on the matter.

Thnx,

McMurphy

[UnderTheSun]

I'd say make things simple, bigger text and more contrasty colours. Why? Because this is what people with neurological disorder needs.

Anyways i don't think too many developers and designers had this experience, psychologically disabled people are a very small part on the web industry, and not very profitable off. Gotta face consumerism.

[McMurphy]

Hi UnderTheSun,

I agree with what you said about the profitability of a disabled site but seeing as how this is an educational project, it is irelevent. I'm not getting into the actual design coz I'll to resaech the area first and observe for exmple how these disabled people use a web site and draw conclusions from that among other sources.

What I am looking at the moment are reources and directon on developing a site for a disabled group. I know its not THAT commom and that's why I'll appreciate any feedback on the matter.

Cheers,

McMurphy

[UnderTheSun]

example: http://www.thespasticcentre.org.au/

heh you'd probably already found that. Anyways i think jakob nielsen has some stuff on it at www.useit.com , but you never know what he's up to. Maybe you'll be allright by looking at other websites for disabled people.

Anyways good luck on your degree project.

[swampy]

The company I work for design sites for basic skills learners.

Things to consider:

- Navigation,as ever, needs to be intuitive, but MORE so.

- Instructions: Things that may seem simple to you will not be to your users, you need to explain even the most basic concepts and how things interact. You need to do this in a non patronising way and you need to do it on screen. The more the target audience can use your site without having to ask for help, the more they will be empowered.

- Bold primary colours, bear in mind colour blindness - no greens next to blues etc.

- Larger than normal text, minimum font size for the learning content on www.learndirect.com is 12pt.

- minimum scrolling, everything should appear on it's own screen, there should be no need to scroll down. If you can't fit it all on one screen break the content up over a few bite sized chunks.

- Minimum navigation, few links to new screens, maximum use of next/continue/back/previous buttons.

- Lot's of simple user interaction: drag and drops are a favourite.

- Sound for visually impaired / non literate visitors.

- Text for deaf / hard of hearing.

- Clickable Glossary of terms / words.

- Contextual help.

[McMurphy]

10x a lot UnderTheSun,

Didn't know http://www.thespasticcentre.org.au/ and condidering the fact the disablility I'm researching is CP Spastic this is a GREAT link. 10x again.

Cheers,

McMurphy

[UnderTheSun]

no problems. i just discovered what spastic really means today.

heard it so many times

[McMurphy]

Hi swampy,

Some very interesting points. Would you happen to know of any researches or resources about developing a site for a disabled group in terms of process, usability test etc. ? or is everything you wrote is based on personal experience.... ?

Cheers,

McMurphy

[swampy]

...just from experience.

I'll try and get some docs which relate to basic skills learners, not strictly your target audience but it will give you an idea

[swampy]

Some ino that may help :

ACCESSABILITY STANDARDS AND GUIDELINES

"bobby" accessability tester to which all UK government material conforms http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/about.jsp
W3C standards and guidelines : http://www.w3c.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/


VISUALLY IMPAIRED USERS

Colour blindness
A small but significant proportion of the population, especially men, suffers from colour-blindness. Do not
use
• Red, green, brown, grey, purple
next to, on top of, changing to
• Red, green, brown, grey, purple
Use shape as well as colour, where possible, to help learners discriminate between objects/images.
People with Partial Sight
In order to cater better for people with partial sight, one specialist organisation recommends adhering to the
following guidelines where possible (see http://www.lighthouse.org/color_contrast.htm)
• Exaggerate lightness differences between foreground and background colours, and avoid using colours
of similar lightness adjacent to one another, even if they differ in saturation or hue.
• Choose dark colours with hues from the bottom half of the hue circle (see
http://www.lighthouse.org/images/cc_fig7.GIF) against light colours from the top half of the circle (or
white). Avoid contrasting light colours from the bottom half against dark colours from the top half (or
black).
• Avoid contrasting hues from adjacent parts of the hue circle, especially if the colours do not contrast
sharply in lightness.


ONLINE TESTING TOOLS

Learning materials containing HTML and other code should be tested using on-line validators against the
W3C specifications to ensure that the code is consistent and conforms to the specification.
• HTML
http://validator.w3.org/
• CSS (Cascading Style sheets)
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
There are also validators for accessibility for disabled people.



MINIMUM MACHINE SPECS FOR UK GOVERNMENT FUNDED E LEARNING MATERIAL

All learning material must be designed to meet the following specification:
PC
• CPU: Pentium 233 MHz
• RAM: 32 Mbytes
• HD with 100 Mbytes of free space
• CD drive: 24x speed
• Sound card (16 bit)
• Speakers or Headphones
• SVGA Graphics card, 16 bit colour
• Keyboard
• Mouse (Microsoft compatible)
• Operating system: Windows 95 or later
• Level 4 browser
• Internet connectivity via a 56 kbps modem or a network
• Minimum screen resolution of 800 x 600
Mac/iMac
• CPU: Mac 604e processor 200 MHz; iMac G3 processor 233 Mhz
• RAM: 32 Mbytes
• HD with 100 Mbytes of free space
• CD drive: 24x speed
• Speakers or Headphones
• SVGA Graphics card, 16 bit colour
• Keyboard
• Mouse
• Operating system: Mac OS 8.6 or later
• Level 4 browser
• Internet connectivity via a 56kbps modem or a network
• Minimum screen resolution of 800 x 600
Browser versions
Content must be capable of running on Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator browsers - version 4
upwards. It must also (unless agreed otherwise with UfI) be capable of running on Wintel and MacOS
clients.
To accommodate students who have their display set to a maximum of 256 colours (8 bit), the standard
‘web-safe’ or ‘browser-safe’ palette of 216 colours should be employed - see
http://builder.cnet.com/Graphics/CTips/ss01.html for explanation.

[McMurphy]

sorry for the late response swampy, thnx a lot for all the information you've provided. I'll be sure to look into it.

Seeing as how the site is aimed at people with CP Spastic I'm looking into the areas of cognitive and motoric accessibility.
The difficulty at the moment is that most of the material regarding accessibility is aimed at visual/hearing disabilities and HTML environment. The accessibility issues concerning Flash are also targeted to accommodate sight/hearing disabilities.

Before I get into all that I'm trying to establish a development process. The question is, how different is the development process for a disabled community than the one for a "normal" group. The usability testing should take a considerable part but what else? I'm trying to find material on the actual development process. Almost all the material out there is DO's and DON'Ts.

I'm currently looking more into links such as http://www.uiaccess.com/upa2001a.html and would really like to further develop this subject in this forum, in anyone is willing.

Cheers,

McMurphy

[johnie]

Flash isn't paticularly geared towards acessability....

but for someone with CP... really the only the only thing to worry about are those who are so bad that they can't use a mouse. I'd assume that they would have some sort of voice control or other control for the browser in that case- the same as a quadriplegic ... I'd assume that the controller would use some sort of key stroke combination to browse. Other than keeping the nav simple and providing a hybird page with both Flash and HTML links on the same page I cant think of anything else.

[McMurphy]

Hi johnie,

I tend to agree. But since I'm not an industrial designer my concern in this project the site's environment as oppose to the computer's environment. I will have to go out and see how people with CP S use the web and try to draw conclusions as to how a site should be designed and developed to better suit there needs.

There are several levels of CP S as you can imagine and I will not be able to accommodate every single one so I target it to a larget group as I can within the given community.

I've found a very interetsing simulation which shows you how a person with a cognitive disability tends to feel in a site...
http://www.webaim.org/simulations/cognitive.php

But again I ask, what about the overall production process? what are the major differences between developing a site for a normal community and one for a disabled community? usabiliy tests take longer? the design stage is different? if so in what way? these are questions I'm trying to answer at the moment to get a better understanding of what I should expect.

If any one care to share their thoghts and experience on the matter....

McMurphy