Accessibility at the BBC

Ian Pouncey

Importance of accessibility

“At the core of the BBC’s role is something very simple, very democratic and very important to bring the best to everyone. Wherever you are, whoever you are, whether you are rich or poor, old or young, that's what we do. Everybody deserves the best.”

Tony Hall, BBC Director General, 2013

Importance of accessibility

“If important bits of web pages are inaccessible is it the case that what's behind these buttons is now so complicated and interrelated that even the quality of the BBC cannot make this stuff accessible?”

Hugh Huddy,screen reader user and former iPlayer user

The BBC Accessibility team

3 people Responsible for:

training standards and guidelines techniques framework support

Not responsible for: accessibility of sites or apps

Training

Accessibility for Web Developers Introduction to Screen Readers

Accessibility for Web Developers

Introduction to Screen Readers

Upcoming Training

QA UX Product management Mobile application development

Standards and Guidelines

Mobile Accessibility Standards and Guidelines HTML Accessibility Standards Assistive Technology Testing Guidelines

Mobile Accessibility Standards and Guidelines

HTML Accessibility Standards

Assistive Technology Testing Guidelines

Standards vs Guidelines

A Standard is:

Must or Must not Unambiguous Unambiguously testable

Standards vs Guidelines

A Guideline is:

Should or Should not Must or Must not that is:

Open to interpretation Testing requires judgement

Anatomy of a well written standard

Short description Rationale Examples Testing criteria

The short description

“A document must have exactly one <h1> element.”

Rationale

“A logical heading structure is invaluable for users of screen readers and similar assistive technologies to help navigate content.

Users should be able to use the document’s <h1> to identify its main content. Documents should have one main subject.”

Examples

Pass:

<div role="main"><h1>Main page content</h1>

</div>

Fail:

<div role="main"><h3>Main page content</h3>

</div>

Tests

Procedure:Use WAVE Toolbar or similar to generate a document outline

Expected result:There must be exactly one <h1>

Procedure:Search document source for ‘</h1>’

Expected result:There must be exactly one instance of ‘</h1>’

Standards vs Understanding

Understanding > Standards

Standards vs Understanding

Organisational awareness Understanding

Accessibility Champions Network

Extends our reach Spreads knowledge and understanding Our eyes, ears, and voice in products

Being a champion

Not just for developers Don't have to be an 'expert’ Not responsible for accessibility Shares knowledge

Benefits of being a champion

Additional training Closer contact with Accessibility team Work with other teams 10% time project Prestige! Fame! Glory!

UX: roles and responsibilities

Visual design Interaction design Simple semantics Markup / content order Hidden content

Design is critical

Beyond design and development

Product managers:

Encourage training Make the accessible decision, not the easy

one Plan for testing with disabled users

Beyond design and development

Content producers:

Understand alternatives Plan for audio description, subtitling, sign

language, and transcripts

Global Experience Language

Document design knowledge

Enables design iteration Prevents repeated mistakes Encourages evidence based design Educates

Code based GEL

Production quality code White labelled Acceptance tests included

The result

“This is extremely accessible with VoiceOver, and there is plenty to indicate this is by design rather than chance.”

ApplevisBBC Sports App review

Questions?

@IanPouncey

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/futuremedia/accessibility/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/02/23/bbc-iplayer-accessibility-case-study/