levels of accessibility

Last week I read an article on html source order by Roger Johansson. I usually tend to agree with the articles he writes, but this particular one seemed to take accessibility concerns just a little too far. The article argues that the source order of a html page should match the visual order of element rather than follow a logical structural flow. The reason: accessibility concerns.

Don't get me wrong, it's good to see articles on accessibility these days (just this morning I found a comprehensive article on modals, completely lacking any kind of accessibility best practices and concerns), but accessibility is still just one of the many things we web developers have to take into account. It's important that our sites and applications are accessible for as many users as possible (I say users as it is broader than just people, it also includes crawlers etc), but it's virtually impossible to give everyone out there the best experience possible.

The difference between both opinions lies with the level of accessibility. It's not that either option will render the information inaccessible to anyone or anything out there, the question is who's given the most priority and who do we want to service best?

the tightrope dance

In the end it's all about balance. Compare what you gain with what you lose and make a decision based on that information. Now looking at Roger's arguments I can't say they are convincing enough to make me change my mind. It's not that I contest the things he says, but confusion between sighted and visually challenged users looking at the same screen seems like a very minor use case indeed. Confusion about focus order is a stronger point as this affects a bigger group of people (everyone using the keyboard to navigate), but as long as we're talking huge blocks of content (and not a single link that's positioned in a completely different area) I don't think this should be a real issue either.

On the other side of the fence lies structural validity (ie, is the order of elements in the source code logical). A popular use case here is sub navigation (usually found in a left sidebar, next to the main content of a page). Sub navigation is only relevant if the content on the current page is insufficient. To know whether the content is insufficient you have to read it first, so the sub navigation should be placed after the main content in the source. For visual users this is a little different, as they can scan really fast to judge whether to continue reading the main content (based on amount or structure) or to check the sub navigation for further drill-down. People relying on screen readers and other assistive tools don't have that luxury though.

We tend to read from left to right, so if you want to match source order to visual order the sub navigation should actually be placed in front of the main content. Now if you ask me, I prefer structural validity to raising the accessibility for a very limited amount of people, but maybe that's just because I put a lot of effort in creating structurally valid html.

conclusion

Accessibility has an important place in our job and currently it's being grossly overlooked. On the other hand, it's just on of the many factors that influence the judgments we make. In the end it's all about balance. Divide all arguments in two distinctive groups and weigh these groups against each other. Personal preference will always have an influence on the outcome as we still lack hard figures to back our arguments (how important is structural relevance compared to the group of visual/screen reader duos? Any numbers?), and maybe that's where experience will help you to make better calls. Just realize that definite answers are really hard to find.

To get back to my original question (how to raise awareness for accessibility once again), I believe its crucial for accessibility concerns to remain level-headed and useful, instead of going head-on against the current trend of neglecting them. We can grind hours about the finer points of accessibility, but for now there are more important issues at hand. Make people think about accessibility when they reach for the canvas element, turn it into an argument for choosing javascript frameworks or incorporate it into the newly emerging best practices. If we turn accessibility into a purist matter now, we will probably alienate people even more of this simple concept, digging our own grave. Just my two cents.