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Accessibility in Internet ServicesCase Electronic Banking

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S-72.158 Master’s thesis seminar 6th June 2006

Accessibility in Internet Services - Case Electronic Banking

Author Jaakko Vilén Supervisor professor Timo Korhonen Instructor M.Sc. Teppo Jansson, Nordea Work carried out at Fidenta, joint venture of TietoEnator and Nordea

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Presentation contents

Background, Nordea Netbank’s text version Research problems Accessibility in Web based services Methodology, accessibility evaluation Results Conclusions

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Nordea Netbank’s text version

First published in mid 1990’s Main user group in mobile use: communicators, mobile phones, PDAs ”Facelift” project carried out during spring 2006

– improved user interface accessibility usability outlook to look more like the new version of Nordea Netbank scheduled launch in early June 2006

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Nordea’s Netbank versions per user terminal

User terminal Netbank version

Full-size desktop / laptop computer

Netbank for private users

Netbank for corporate users

Communicator, wide screen

Text versionText-browser, assistive technology

Mobile phone with Web-browser, narrow screen

Mobile Netbank

Mobile phone with WAP-browser

WAP services

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Research problem

Goals for this study are:1. Create an image of accessibility in Web based services,

including standards and legislation.2. Investigate the accessibility factors in electronic banking.

Improve accessibility and usability of Nordea Netbank’s text version.

Find a conformance level of Nordea Netbank’s text version for accessibility.

3. Gain accessibility experience in practice, as addition to all theories.

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Accessibility

Two-dimensional concept:

a) accessibility in physical environmentb) accessibility in information and communication technologies

Disabilities in computer use– Natural disabilities:

Eg. blindness, low-vision, colour-blindness, low dexterity, dyslexia, epilepsy, hearing impairment

– Technical barriers: Eg. “wrong” browser, difficult user interface

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How to help the disabled in computer use

Synthetic voice, digital audio, or Braille for people who are blind Screen magnification and large text fonts for people with diminished

vision or dyslexia Descriptive text, captioning, and visual cues for people who are deaf

or have hearing disabilities Specialised adaptations for people who have physical disabilities

involving the use of a keyboard, voice recognition mechanism, mouse, or other input device that requires a part of their body other than their hands and fingers to control a web browser

And.. Good design: accessibility guidelines and usability engineering

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Braille display

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Accessibility, legislation view

LevelExamples, physical accessibility

Web accessibility

Global UN recommendations (common principles)

W3C’s WAI: WCAG

Europe EU directive of equal treatment in employment

EC recommendation on public web sites

Finland Land Use and Building Decree, Ensuring accessibility in building

Ministry of the Interior recommendation on public administration web sites accessibility

Corporations, organizations

Municipality policy, e.g. Accessible Helsinki project 2002-2011

Company policy, e.g. Nordea Accessibility Policy

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Methodology, Web accessibility evaluation

Based on Web Accessibility Initiative’s standard on Web content– Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0– 14 principles, each having several checkpoints– Three levels of conformance, A, AA and AAA

Evaluation using partly – automatic software, – manual checking and – user testing with a blind user

Done in two phases, corrections made after the first evaluation

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Evaluation

Manual evaluation• Internet Explorer 6 (Windows NT operating system)• Firefox 1.0.2, 1.5 (Windows NT)• Opera 6.05, 7.54, 8.01 (Windows NT)• Netscape 7.2 (Windows NT)• Konqueror 3.3.2 (Linux)• Safari 2.0.3 (Mac)• Lynx (via SSH-connection), text browser• Multiple mobile browsers

WCAG 1.0 Checklist of Checkpoints

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Evaluation

Accessibility software– Wave Accessibility Tool 3.0– W3C HTML validator

JAWS with Internet Explorer and Mikropuhe speech synthesizer, and Tieman Braille display in user test

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Results, conformance level

Thesis includes planning and implementing the evaluation– Writing the code is not part of the thesis, but thorough

understanding of HTML and CSS techniques were inevitable

Second (final) evaluation still in process

The achieved level will be probably ”A”, and with some exclusions level ”AA”

Level ”AAA” was seen too hypothetical for an existing application

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Conclusions

Completely valid HTML very difficult to achieve on an existing, and very ”old”, product

– some devices don’t even support completely valid (X)HTML

Testing with different browsers, changing the browser settings and seeing adaptive technology in practice has been very influential

WCAG 1.0 guidelines are good but they are not usable themselves– WCAG 2.0 will be published soon, but has already received

critique– Also other sources for accessibility guidelines exist, but WAI is the

salient source, reference for others

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Conclusions for netbank development

Thorough understanding of markup language is important– The code could be checked more in development phase

Testing with unusual styles of computer use is very helpful– Keyboard-only is the best quick way to see for accessibility

problems– Not loading images nor CSS shows the “real” page lying behind

Importance of usability is extremely remarkable, e.g. the elderly

The needed emphasis is not very much, but benefits can be great– The executed improvements enable e.g. good scalability of the text

size, use without images, use without mouse, use of different user terminals and user agents

Benefits for wide range of users

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Test yourself!

The upgraded version of Nordea Netbank’s text version published 5th June 2006

– https://mobile.nordea.fi– Text version & Mobile Netbank

Questions, comments?

Thank you!

jaakko.vilen@tietoenator.com