exec_summary.txt

Medical advances in the last 100 years have identified and treated hundreds, if not thousands, of deficits of the human body.  Some of these involve permanent disabilities, which by their very nature mean a person has to adapt to lifelong changes.  These adaptations usually involve some sort of assistive device.  The focus of this report is that of computer-based software known as screen readers.

The Algonquin Student Association (SA) website currently has deficits with respect to accessibility.  Most of these issues deal with images and flash objects; given that these types of content are inaccessible to those using screen readers, they must be altered to allow all users to consume them.

Since screen readers consume text and produce audio, the ideal scenario is the complete absence of images or flash objects.  For some images, such as restaurant menus, this is a fairly simple task: either annotate the image with the menu's content or transcribe the menu's contents into text and replace the image entirely.  For other types of content, such as flash objects, the content of the flash object needs to be considered.  In the case of the SA website, flash is largely used to present image galleries.  Options for flash galleries are limited given that the content more than likely cannot be replaced with text; the ideal option is to replace the flash object with a HTML, javascript, and CSS-based structure that displays the images along with captions and/or annotations.  Given that Facebook currently implements such a design and that some SA departments have migrated their images to Facebook already, the ideal solution for the remaining departments is to follow suite.

Given the relatively small number of pages that require changes, the amount of work required is within the current abilities and budget of the SA.  A cost of under $1000 is entirely reasonable based on the amount of work required and the salary of employees of the SA involved.

These changes won't impact the design or ability for non users of screen readers to consume content as the purpose is to make content accessible.  Since, by definition, the content will be accessible, all users will be able to consume it.  Additionally, based on design guidelines, the design of the site won't be impacted by these changes; in fact, the design will likely be improved due to the web browser's ability to interpret the text and format it accordingly.