Visually impaired help with websites' accessibility

Page Accessibility Labs (PAL) has launched offering website accessibility testing services carried out by blind and visually impaired test specialists. Capitalizing on their unique experience and expertise in using so called assistive technologies; PAL introduces true target audience usability testing which can ensure a website is as convenient as possible for the visually impaired user.

To access the internet visually impaired users require special hardware and / or software collectedly known as assistive technologies. Most often used are screen readers which read the content of a web page aloud or Braille output devices which the user reads with their fingertips. In both cases the experience is quite different from that of a sighted user. Most people are accustomed to seeing the entire page at once on their monitor.

They are able to quickly scan it and select the options they want using the mouse. A screen reader presents information one word at a time. The user must remember what they have already heard without knowing what is still to come. They select their options using the Enter key before the next option is read. It takes practice and a level of skill a sighted user is unlikely to have.PAL test specialists all have expertise in web design or assistive technologies design and they are all partially or totally visually impaired.

Since they depend on assistive technologies in their daily web usage they bring a unique depth of knowledge to website accessibility and usability testing which sighted testers never can. They also have a deeper understanding of what design elements and techniques make a website usable and even convenient for impaired users.To work properly web pages need to include elements to help present important data correctly.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has created a checklist which is generally accepted as the minimum requirement for website accessibility and offers legal protection against litigation. Accessibility testing firms generally rely on automated software and sighted accessibility specialists to ensure clients’ websites are “W3C Compliant”. Website accessibility is intended to help not only the visually impaired but people with various disabilities such a hearing impairment, motor control problems and cognitive disorders.

PAL’s accessibility testing currently includes the full range of issues covered by the W3C guidelines. But, according to PAL, the visually impaired represent the largest population which is reliant on an entirely different presentation of online information. Page Accessibility Labs was founded in early 2005 in Prague, Czech Republic, though its primary client base is in the UK and Ireland.