Web Accessibility - Ebase Xi Designer Considerations

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Checkpoints for accessibility. 1

Ebase Xi features that may cause problems 3

See also:  Web Accessibility Home

This document contains information on the accessibility features of Ebase Xi that relate directly to form design. It contains essential information on steps that should be taken to ensure forms are accessible to disabled groups, and information on those Ebase Xi features which may cause problems for one or more group of disabled people. Document Web Accessibility - Included Content contains additional considerations that apply to including content as a JSP, i.e. as either a top, left, right or bottom jsp.

Checkpoints for accessibility

A title text must be specified for each form - see WCAG guideline 12.1 (priority 1). The title text is displayed in the title bar of the client browser. It can be maintained in one of two ways:

• Click the texts tab of the form properties dialog or
• Click the Maintain language texts icon from the form toolbar, select languages, then click the Form tab.

Provide an alternate text for all images - see WCAG guideline 1.1 (priority 1). These alternate texts are spoken by screen readers and displayed by text only browsers, as well as being displayed as mouseover texts. They therefore provide people who use these assistive technologies with essential information on the purpose of each image. Each alternate text should contain sufficient information to enable a person who cannot see the image to understand its purpose. Within Ebase Xi, there are a number of places where images can be specified. In each case, the alternate text can be maintained as follows:

• Images for popup help. The alternate text is generated from System text number 50 followed by the label text for the field. For example, if system text 50 contains Help for, then the alternate text generated for the postcode field help image shown below will be Help for Post code.

• Navigation button images. All page navigation buttons - next page, previous page, finish, save, restore, can optionally be specified as images. The alternate text for each of these images is the corresponding text that would have been displayed if a regular button was used instead of an image. For example, for the next page button, the next page text is used. These texts can all be maintained using the Maintain Texts icon available on the form toolbar: next page and previous page by clicking the tab for the appropriate page; finish, save, restoreby clicking the Form tab.

• Action button images. All action buttons can optionally be specified as images. The alternate text for each of these images is the corresponding button text that would have been displayed if a regular button was used. The button text can be maintained either by double-clicking the corresponding button in Ebase Xi Designer or by clicking the Maintain Texts icon available on the form toolbar.

• Table images. Each displayed table can contain a number of images to control scrolling and sorting. Alternate texts for these images are specified as system texts as follows:

Image	System Text No.	Default text (English)
Scroll down one page	391	Scroll down one page
Scroll to the bottom	393	Scroll to the bottom
Scroll up one page	392	Scroll up one page
Scroll to the top	394	Scroll to the top
Scroll right	395	Scroll right
Scroll left	396	Scroll left
Sort ascending	389	Sort table in ascending order on table column
Sort descending	390	Sort table in descending order on table column

All radio buttons should be horizontally aligned and with the label text to the left of the button (these are the default attributes of radio buttons) - see WCAG guideline 12.4 (priority 2). These attributes are specified in the Presentation section of Field Properties. Some programmatic syntax checkers will identify a problem if the label text is to the right of the button.

Ensure that the next page and previous page navigation buttons contain text that is meaningful when read aloud. Ebase Xi inserts a default text of >> and << respectively for these page buttons to achieve a language-independent text. These should be changed.

Ensure that color combinations (foreground and background colors) provide sufficient contrast when viewed by someone having color deficits or when viewed in black and white - see WCAG guideline 2.2 (priority 2).

Configure metadata for the form - see WCAG guideline 13.2 (priority 2). If the form requires metadata, this can be specified by clicking the icon on the form toolbar.

If hyperlinks are used, the function performed by clicking the link should be clear from the hyperlink text, see WCAG guideline 13.1 (priority 2).

Provide information at the start of each form on the number of pages to be completed, and progress information as the user completes the form, see WCAG guideline 13.9 (priority 3).

Use the clearest and simplest language appropriate for the form's purpose.See WCAG guideline 14.1 (priority 1).

• Use clear and simple language
• Put essential descriptive information at the start of each section

Ebase Xi features that may cause problems

Immediate validation. This feature enables the server to gain control immediately when a field value is changed by the end user. This is in conflict with WCAG guideline 10.1 (priority 2) ...do not change the current window without informing the user. As an alternative, a 'Go!' button can be placed adjacent to the field in question; this makes it obvious to the user that clicking or activating the button is going to result in a change.

Vertically aligned radio buttons. When these are used, the label text is usually placed to the right of the radio button, and this can cause programmatic syntax checkers to report that the radio button has no associated label and is in conflict with WCAG guideline 12.4 (priority 2) even though this is not strictly the case.

Radio buttons where the label is to the right of the button. See previous paragraph.

Navigation and action button images. Do not use an image to represent a button, where the image simply contains text. Use a regular button instead. For example, do not use an image like this:

System texts can be maintained in multiple languages using the System Texts Editor in the Server Administration Application.