The W3C has organized its second version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) around four core principles: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust (POUR).
Perceivable
In order for sites and apps to be considered perceivable, you need to provide text alternatives, transcripts, captions, and other items to ensure that use or acuity of a specific sense (such as mobility or vision) isn’t required to use or understand the site or app.
Operable
Your interface and navigation must be usable by all users, regardless of their input device, ie. keyboard, mouse, voice-recognition software (like Dragon), and switch devices.
Understandable
The information on your site, and operation of your user interface, must be understandable by users. This includes the content, the structure of the content, and operation of the controls.
Robust
Your system needs to be created such that user agents and assistive technologies can parse it. The content must be robust enough to be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of browsers and assistive technologies.
The specific methods for how accessibility is supported in American Airlines’ check-in kiosks – including enablement of speech output and other features – are determined in large part by the capabilities in the kiosk stack comprised of the kiosk hardware enclosure and its components, the platform operating system, the check-in application itself, and placement of kiosk units in specific installations. This checklist includes guidance specific to the following platform components in place in American Airlines’ kiosks:
Kiosk Hardware Enclosure: American Airline has selected the NCR® TouchPortTM 120 for its accessible check-in kiosks. The kiosk hardware includes a display with a capacitive touchscreen, passport reader, imaging scanner, card reader, boarding pass printer, and a navigational accessibility keypad (called “uNavTM” Keypad) that includes navigation keys, and an audio connector with volume controls.
Platform Operating System: The American Airlines check-in kiosk utilizes a Microsoft® Windows® 7 based operating system. This operating system offers a well-defined API to support text-to-speech integration with American Airlines’ check-in application (Microsoft® Speech API).
Check-in Application: The American Airlines check-in application is a custom browser-based application that is designed, developed and managed by American Airlines.
While many of the principles and guidelines that govern web content accessibility can be applicable to kiosk applications, the unique technology stack of kiosks can require the implementation techniques to be different from those used for broader web content.
For instance, while content viewed on kiosks and web browsers should indicate clearly which UI element currently has focus, the UI elements that are made part of the normal navigation flow may differ between the two platforms.
A blind user browsing aa.com from their personal computer using their preferred screen reader will not expect nor desire to have every text element on the page in the normal tab flow. That could slow them down and cause fatique. Their assistive technology already provides alternative ways of navigating to that content if needed. But that same user on a kiosk which has its own screen reader will have to rely on the screen reader mechanism provided by the kiosk to focus them on all text in a logical order so they can perceive the content being presented.
The following links provide useful information related to Accessibility.
Some tools and browser extensions are available to help with checking for a11y warnings and errors that might not be obvious by just looking at a page.
AA.com UI Validator: our own validation tool that test for a variety of a11y requirements. Hint: it’s that link in the lower right hand corner of the screen on any aa.com page in lower environments.