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Designing Pages Accessible to Limited Textual Comprehension Users

Introduction

Many pages relating to web accessibility address the needs of web users who have sensory limitations -- the classic example of accessible web authoring is the proper use of the ALT attribute of the IMG (image) tag to provide a textual equivalent that benefits, among others, web users with visual impairments. Similarly, keyboard-accessible techniques can open up the World Wide Web to users who are unable to use a mouse or other "traditional" input device due to motor or dexterity disabilities.

However, little has been written or done to advance the cause of web users with cognitive disabilities -- users who may actually require the use of graphics in order to make sense of a web site.

For purposes of this document, we will use the term "Limited Textual Comprehension" to refer to anyone, disabled or not, who is unable to understand a web page -- and thus cannot access the information contained within in it -- due to the textual content of the page. Examples of this type of user include:

While each of these is a separate case, there are common challenges that are faced by all groups who cannot, for whatever reason, understand the content of a web site. These can be addressed through similar means that will increase the overall usability of the web site for everyone.

The goal of this document is to provide clear and simple steps that a web author can take in order to increase the understandability of her site for users with limited textual comprehension.

1. Know your audience, and how to write for it

In order to be an effective communicator, you need to know who you are communicating with, and what level of communication you can use. Writing for young children is very different from writing for a technically advanced academic audience. In order to reach the people you want to reach, you will need to write as if writing to them.

You'd think this would be obvious, but unfortunately it's complicated by the very nature of the web itself, and that leads to problems. To all writers out there:

You have no way of knowing, or controlling, who reads your web site.

The strength of the web is the free and open access to all information, from anywhere, by anyone -- but this strength presents a very difficult challenge for the writer! How can you write for a certain audience if you don't know who they are?

One answer would be to choose a particular audience and writing level, and aim for that. However, I would suggest that due to a number of reasons, your aim will be off. Instead, the following principle makes sense:

Decide on your target audience, and deliberately write for one or two steps below that audience.

This will increase the usability of your site and make it more applicable and comprehensible to a larger group of people. Your site may very well be used by a high school student as a primary source for her term paper, or by a guy in Japan who took three years of English but doesn't use it regularly. By publishing on the web you are making the information universally available -- why not make it universally understandable?

2. Use graphics (icons) to enhance understanding

Some people seem to assiduously avoid the use of graphics. A page without graphics solves some problems, such as accessibility for non-visual users and faster download times. However, the lack of graphics can seriously detract from the comprehension of a web site, and not just for users with disabilities -- a picture is worth a thousand words, or so the saying goes, and if you can find the right picture for the job, you can convey information clearly and concisely.

You may think this an odd thing to propose -- increased use of graphics on the World Wide Web, when usually you'll hear the opposite view regarding graphics -- for example, I've written that "the web is not a visual medium...the web is an information medium" and I've chided purely visual designers for being so caught up in the glow of their pretty GIFs and JPEGs that they forget not everyone can see graphics. Am I going back on that position now?

No, I'm not. Because while it's true that the web is an information medium, that information can take visual form, just as it takes textual form. The key is for information to be as multi-modal as possible -- a term meaning simply "in different modes." One mode of conveying information is through written text; another is through visual representation; a third would be through spoken voice. The more ways you can convey your content, the easier it becomes to communicate that to someone else.

Here are some common-sense guidelines for how and when to use graphics on your site:

  1. Use graphics whenever appropriate. You don't need to fear "graphics for graphics' sake" as long as those graphics help convey information. That is the primary goal of any kind of communication -- to facilitate the exchange of information.

  2. Graphics should give a sense, at a glance, what a page is all about. I should be able to look at a web site and even if I can't read the text -- say, it's in Japanese -- I should still know what kind of site I've ended up on.

  3. Make sure you have easily understandable graphics. Use commonly known icons -- such as arrows for "next" and "previous" in a collection of documents. A picture of a little house is becoming understood on the web as representing the "home page", or the main page of the site. Don't use graphics that are too obscure or that don't have explicit meanings. Test your graphics on various people and ask them what the icons mean to them.

  4. Use graphics for navigation whenever possible. Getting around a site is essential for using a site -- it's part of the basic, minimal functionality that a web author needs to supply to user. As noted above, the icons for navigating a site are becoming pretty universal, especially those which are similar to a standard tape recorder or video cassette recorder. Using these common icons -- including a great big question mark ("?") for help -- will let limited textual comprehension users navigate your site a lot easier, since they already know how they work.

  5. Ensure the accessibility of your icons. Thought I'd forgotten that? Understandability for one group should not come at the expense of accessibility for another, so make sure that you appropriately label and supply alternative content for graphics on your page.

  6. Don't overuse graphics. It is possible to overdo it -- when your page becomes so overburdened with graphics that it takes 5 minutes to load, or when the information overload is just too much. Avoid the use of animated graphics; avoid the use of overly large file sizes. Only use what's necessary to convey your meaning -- but in keeping with the first note, don't be afraid to use something if it is necessary.

3. Provide definitions for unusual terms you use.

Don't let your page become overly bogged down in jargon -- but there are some times in which you will need to define terms that may not be known to the average person out there. Recommended strategies for doing this include:

Define the term when it first appears. Add an extra sentence explicitly explaining what it means, and don't assume it can be inferred from context. This can be done naturally without interrupting the flow of your text. As an example, I defined "multi-modal" above.

Another approach is to provide a glossary of specialized terms . You can then link the terms directly to the glossary using HTML anchors. Some sort of indication of a definition -- such as simply the abbreviation [def] in brackets -- might be useful. Creative web designers may want to design a question-mark icon to follow a word as a visual cue indicating a link to a glossary definition.

Finally, correct use of HTML markup features can expand the meaning of uncertain terms. Specifically, the ABBR and ACRONYM elements of HTML 4.0 were designed for this kind of purpose, and the TITLE element can also be used to provide a form of meta-information or "tooltip" depending on the browser used.

4. Introduce your subject matter and your site.

Somewhere on your web site, you should have a plain language explanation for what the web site is about, the purpose of the site, the intended (but not exclusive!) audience, and what can be done or learned here. This introduction doesn't need to be extensive, but it should be plain and straightforward enough so that a user who comes to your web site will know what it is about.

Try to identify what sort of pre-knowledge might be necessary for a user of your site -- do they need to know anything about the subject in order to use the site? If so, then you should indicate this, and offer one of the following:

Multiple links to multiple sites are encouraged for very technical web pages -- for example, a site on graduate-level nuclear physics may want to provide several outside references in increasing order of complexity, from an introduction suitable for young children to a link to a site aimed at high school students.

The goal of these external references and/or internal sub-sites is to provide the user enough information so that she can figure out if she needs to learn more -- and you've given her the places to do that -- in order to use your web site, or to provide alternative sites with similar information if she doesn't find your web site useful.

Author's Notes

This document is a work in progress and I'm sure there will be more to add. If you would like to contribute your own thoughts, please email me at aware@hwg.org with suggestions. As stated, this issue has not been dealt with much in current web accessibility literature, and exploration is necessary. Let's work together and see what we can come up with!

Kynn Bartlett
13 June 1999