Web Accessability: Has Bobby been to Your Web Site?

• To encourage the implementation of the Unified Web Accessibility
  
• Guidelines by providing a simple tool for Web designers;
• To raise awareness about disability access on the Web; and
• To provide a model of universal design and to illustrate its principles on the Web.

Bobby is a tool that can help make your Web site accessible to the largest number of people possible, including persons with disabilities. Bobby points out barriers to information; for example, people who are blind cannot access information that is provided solely by visual images such as graphics, and deaf people cannot access information portrayed through audio files that do not have captions.

Bobby uses the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines to judge if a particular Web page is accessible to people with disabilities. Some examples of these guidelines include providing text transcriptions of audio files, ensuring that documents are clear and simple, creating a consistent style between pages, and providing clear navigation mechanisms.

In addition, Bobby looks for a Web site's compatibility with various browsers and HTML 4.0, and for slow load times. Once you have asked Bobby to analyze your Web site, you will be provided with a report on the accessibility of your site, outlining problems that affect the ability of people with disabilities to use the page. Also, you will receive an annotated version of the Web page with markers pointing out the particular points that have a problem with disability access or browser compatibility. An access problem makes it hard for a person with a disability to access a page's information. A Web site will only be approved if it has no accessibility problems.

There are two versions of Bobby. One is an on-line tool that analyzes individual Web pages posted on the Internet. The second is the Bobby Application that is run on your personal computer to check the Web sites on it. The Application can check entire sites and is much more efficient for large-scale accessibility testing. It is also easier to fix any accessibility problems before a site has been posted.

Once your Web site has received Bobby's approval, you can post the "Bobby Approved" icon on your site. This icon identifies the site as a model accessible Web site. It also raises awareness of disability issues and encourages others to look into Bobby and its applications. It can be downloaded from the Bobby Web page.

The Bobby assessment tool is having a large impact. It is currently being used by people all around the world to test more than three million Web pages each month.

Bobby was created by the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), a not-for-profit organization founded to expand opportunities for people with disabilities through computer technology. CAST is involved in both product development and applied research towards this end, with Bobby being only a small part of its work.

To find out more about Bobby you can visit CAST's Web site at http://www.cast.org/bobby. Here you will find links to information on CAST, a detailed description of Bobby, and instructions on how to use this important tool.