WEB ACCESSIBILITYREVISED DECEMBER 4, 2013

Designing for Disabled Users

Video describing accessibility issues http://

www.washington.edu/doit/Video/index.php?vid=35

Legal requirements ADA – Americans with Disabilities Act 1990 –

gives civil rights protections to individuals with disabilities.

Section 508 (1998 amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973)- requires Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Others may be subject to these requirements if they receive Federal funds.

What does accessibility mean to my business?

You want to gain and retain users, so compliance is a good idea.

Opens up a world of possibilities for the disabled population

A Large, Loyal Market Is Waiting A recent Harris Poll found that Americans with

disabilities spend twice as much time on the Internet as those without disabilities. The Internet has given many disabled people easy access to news and information, more social interaction, and the ability to comparison shop. They are loyal, repeat customers.

You can earn their business with a few simple techniques that are quick, easy, and don't involve changing your basic page layout.

Source: Thomason, Larisa. "Designing Accessible Web Pages for the Disabled." Designing Accessible Web Pages for the Disabled. Net Mechanic, December 2000. <http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol3/design_no17.htm>.

What types of disabilities we are talking about?

Visual impairment - total or partial

Color blindness Mobility issues Age Related Conditions

How to Improve the Accessibility of Your Website Poor Eyesight

Don’t make the text too small Use relative font sizes

Color blindness – 10% of males Do not make your site dependent on colors

(i.e. green-go and red-stop) Use contrasting colors

Making site more accessible Blindness

Meaningful ALT text on all non-trivial images Use meaningful text for your links (no “click here”) Do not make your page dependent on images Provide alternate navigation if site uses imagemaps for

navigation Put a "Skip to main content" link at the top of the page

(skip link). If tabbing through form doesn’t result in logical order,

specify tab index in form elements to change the order that tabbing produces

Check your work. Validate. Use tools, checklist, and guidelines at http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG

What is W3C and WAI? WAI (web accessibility initiative) works with

organizations around the world to develop strategies, guidelines, and resources to help make the Web accessible to people with disabilities.

What is W3C - The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community where organizations and the public work together to web standards. protocols standards html css

Devices that Assist Users Screen readers –NVDA (free download) ,

JAWS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GPNTctdezg

Alternative keyboards - Braille Displays - dots (pins) can be raised

and lowered dynamically to allow any braille characters to be displayed

Screen Magnifier software Visual alerts – for deaf users

Accessibility Exercise Blind Navigation Exercise

Turn off the IMAGES in your browser IE – Tools>Internet Options>Advanced>Multimedia – uncheck

“Show pictures” Chrome – click the three horizontal bars at the upper

right>Settings>Show advanced settings>Privacy>Content settings>Do not show any images

Firefox – Tools>Options>Content>uncheck Load images automatically

Go to www.nvcc.edu – What is missing when you turn off images – is this accessible in other ways?