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Accessibility - Articles: Part 3 - Archive

Sites for the Blind By Keith Perine. THE INDUSTRY STANDARD MAGAZINE Issue Date: June 18, 2001 "Government Web sites must now be accessible to the disabled. That could be a boon to the tech industry...."

Skip Navigation LInks

• Skip Navigation Links - "This is an analysis/study of techniques for "skip navigation" links (also "skip to main content" links) which resulted from an assignment I had in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines working group, Techniques task group. I advocated skip navigation links early on (around 1998) and urged adopting a provision for the Section 508 Web Accessibility Standards when I served as vice chair of the Electronic and Information Technology Access Advisory Committee (EITAAC) that was empanelled by the US Access Board to propose standards to implement Section 508. The basic is to provide a method for people using screen readers to move from the top of the page to the beginning of the "main content" of the page. Over the past couple of years there has been a growing awareness of this issue, including awareness that those who are mobility impaired and cannot use the mouse have a similar requirement of needing to skip over the repetitive navigation links and get the main body of the page..."
• Skip Navigation Links, by Jim Thatcher. "This is an analysis/study of techniques for "skip navigation" links (also "skip to main content" links) which resulted from an assignment I had in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines working group, Techniques task group..."
• Skip Navigation Links are Important. Webnauts, March 9, 2005. "Providing links that allow the user to skip directly to content, bypassing the navigation, enhances the accessibility of your web site. This is recommended for blind or visually impaired users, people who use screen readers, and also for text-browsers, mobile phones and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants). These links are common on most US, UK, Irish, and other government websites, as well as many universities and private organizations..."
• Skip Links, by Gez Lemon. Juicy Studio, 19 April 2005. "Summary - Skip links are an accessibility feature to help visitors navigate their way around a document. Ask two different developers on how best to implement skip links, and you'll very likely receive two different replies. Some people like visible skip links, others like hidden skip links, and some people don't like skip links at all. This article examines the different approaches of implementing skip links..."
• Using Skip Nav Links, By Zoe Gillenwater. Community MX, 21 June 2005. "Have you ever been to a web site and noticed a mysterious link at the very top that says "skip navigation" or "skip to main content"? Perhaps not — most web developers don't use skip nav links to improve the accessibility of their pages. This article will explain why you ought to be in the minority of web developers who do include skip nav links in their web pages and how to do it..."
• "Skip Navigation" Links. WebAIM, 2005. "One of the problems with many template designs is that the main content is not usually the first thing on the page. People using screen readers are often forced to listen to a long list of navigation links, sub-lists of links, corporate icons, site searches, and other elements before ever arriving at the main content. In fact, all keyboard users are forced to tab through all of the top links in order to reach the main content. Consider the example below of an online grocery site. Due to the layout, with the navigation on the top and the long list of links on the left, users must tab through 118 links in order to reach the main content..."

The Sound of the Accessible Title Tag Separator. Standards Schmandards, 6 November 2004. "Several other articles have proved insight into the proper format of the page title tag. Thus, we won't go into the details about the format here but accept some "best practices" to take into consideration when constructing the title tag (for references see the end of this article)..."

Start with the assumption that you cannot predict the access needs of your audience. Making Connections Unit, Weekly Tips, June 2004. "This weeks tip: start with the assumption that you cannot predict the access needs of your audience..."

Tables

• Accessible HTML Tables. bhatt.id.au, 24 March 2005. "<table> elements are often maligned by the web standards savvy developer who equates them with the bad old days of table based layout..."
• Accessible Data Tables, Prepared by Roger Hudson For the Web Essential Info Night in Sydney - 30 June 2005. "This article will discuss; How the accessibility of data tables can be improved, And, describe a test Russ Weakley and I currently doing into the effective accessibility of different ways to mark up complex data tables..."
• Still throwing tables. Stopdesign.com, 27 July 2005. "On the one year anniversary of the article: Throwing Tables Out the Window, I thought it appropriate to reveal some behind-the-scenes info regarding the Microsoft example discussed in the article..."

Technology Conference Highlights Accessibility, by Darby Patterson. Government Technology, March 20, 2003 -- LOS ANGELES -- "More than 4,000 people from 30-plus countries are gathering at the nation's largest conference on technology and persons with disabilities. Sponsored by the Center on Disabilities at California State University Northridge (CSUN), the 18th annual Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference showcased new assistive technologies and four days of educational sessions..."

Ten accessibility blunders of the big players. Webcredible.co.uk, May 2004. "Web accessibility is about making your website accessible to all Internet users (both disabled and non-disabled), regardless of what browsing technology they're using..."

Ten questions for Joe Clark. Web Standards Group, 12 May 2005. "Joe Clark is a Toronto journalist, author, and accessibility consultant and has been dubbed the king of closed captions by the Atlantic Monthly. Joe is the author of one of the most informative and detailed books on accessibility - Building Accessible Websites. An occasionally-sought-after speaker and accessibility consultant for major organizations in Canada and the US, Joe has written over 400 articles for online and print journals and spoken around the world..."

Ten quick tests to check your website for accessibility. Public Technology, 23 April 2004. "The Disability Discrimination Act says that websites must be made accessible to disabled people. So how can you check that your website is up to par? There are a number of basic tests you can make to address some of the main issues..."

10 Reasons Clients Don't Care About Accessibility, By Christian Heilmann. Digital Web Magazine, September 12, 2005. "Working as an accessibility consultant in an IT company is a very frustrating job right now. Highly publicized lawsuits and deep-rooted accessibility myths leave us with a lot to explain when the final product does not really help visitors. Our clients simply don’t care about accessibility as much as we’d like them to, and there are several reasons for that..."

Text Only Version

• Separate text-only version? No thanks! by Trenton Moss. Webcredible, August 2004. "In an attempt to make their sites accessible to all, more and more websites are now offering text-only versions of their sites. With the huge number of inaccessible websites out there, any attempt to make a website accessible to one and all is highly commendable..."
• Text-Only Versions. Autistic Cuckoo, 17 August 2004. "We thought, and hoped, that this issue would be utterly dead by now, but apparently it isn't. Misconceptions about coming legislation in the United Kingdom has awoken the interest for web site accessibility, which is a good thing, of course. Unfortunately, the vultures have also been roused, seeing the chance to make some money from gullible people. Advertisements for products that automatically creates an accessible version of a web site are abundant. No one seems to reflect upon the fact that such a product is impossible..."

Thailand

• Digital Divide: Help on the way for disabled Net surfers. The Nation, February 13, 2004. "ICT Ministry to certify redesign of govt websites. More than three million disabled Thais should soon be able to access information and government services through the Internet more easily..."

Thinking About Accessibility - Equivalent Content. Isolani, Weblogs - Accessibility, January 25, 2005. "When there's an image on a page, our accessibility guidelines ask us to ensure that we provide equivalent alternatives to the image that coveys the same content. The alt attribute on the img element is one way of providing that equivalent content..."

Thinking About Accessibility - Select Menus. isolani.co.uk - Weblogs - Accessibility, February 8, 2005. "Before DHTML drop-down menus, the select list form element was used to provide navigation options for a website. Strictly speaking select lists (as well as other appearing/disappearing forms of navigation) suffer from usability problems related much to the fact that its difficult to see all the menu options in one go..."

Tips and techniques for making your site accessible, By Pandia Guest Writer Alex Horstmann. Pandia, June 2003 "Pandia Guest Writer Alex Horstmann takes a look at Web design and accessibility needs of the blind and other disadvantaged Internet surfers, while Pandia discusses the similarities between designing for the search engines and people with disabilities..."

The title atribute - What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! by Steven Faulkner. Presentation to the Web Essentials Conference, Sydney, September 29 - 30, 2005.

Tools

• Web Accessibility Tools - userfocus.co.uk - " There is no shortage of accessibility tools on the web. The problem is identifying the ones that are really useful. Here is a collection of on-line tools that we use in our day-to-day consultancy work to support accessibility reviews..."
• Accessibility Audit of One Page - By Operational Control and Analysis for Web Accessibility (OCAWA). "Ocawa allows you to verify the accessiblity of your website with respect to the following these following rules: WAI, OCAWA, ADAE, Braillenet, Section 508, Euroaccessibility... A one page audit test is available from this website. The results are displayed immediately, on the web. A multi page audit of maximum 10 pages is available to you if you register with Ocawa..."
• Using Opera to Check for Accessibility - Author: Paul Bohman. WebAIM, October 2003. "...One tool that you may have overlooked is the Opera Web browser ... Opera is not an accessibility validator per se—it's a Web browser, much like Internet Explorer or Netscape—but it can act like an accessibility validator if you know how to use it that way. In fact, it's one of the best available. This article explains why..."
• Web Accessibility Toolbar Version 1.0 - Tutorial, by Ian Blackham. NILS - AIS, July 2004. "The Web Accessibility Toolbar has been developed to aid manual examination of web pages for a variety of aspects of accessibility. It consists of a range of functions that: Identify components of a web page; Facilitate the use of 3rd party online applications; Simulate user experiences; Provide links to references and additional resources..."
• Web Accessibility Tool Bars, By: Peter Abrahams. IT Director, 9 November 2005. "When developing or reviewing a website there is a whole variety of tests that I need to carry out.  The first is to check that the HTML is valid and to do this I would go to The W3C Markup Validation Service; then I need to check the CSS at The W3C CSS Validation Service; only then would I try some accessibility checks using Cynthia Says or a similar tool..."

Toward User-Centered, Scenario-Based Planning and Evaluation Tools, by Paul Bohman, Shane Anderson. Web Accessibility In Mind, July 2004. "Abstract. Existing Web accessibility evaluation tools are only capable of providing feedback within the context of individual Web pages. This short-sighted approach produces a fractured and fragmentary assessment of the accessibility of the Web site as a whole. A more effective, holistic alternative is to focus on scenarios of user interactions across Web pages, taking into account user characteristics, and focusing on models and patterns..."

A truly human interface - We are all disabled by inadequate technology says expatriate technologist, by Stephen Bell. Computerworld, Monday, 19 January, 2004. "Fix the technology problems of the infirm and disabled and you will inevitably design better technology for everyone else, argues expatriate technologist Neil Scott..."

Understanding web typography - an introduction, An article by Jim Byrne. The Making Corrections Unit, December 3, 2002. "Part one: increase accessibility and readability by making informed font choices. In this article I attempt to cut a swathe through the complexities of Web typography; explain the possible pitfalls; and provide some guidelines for creating accessible and easy to read web pages...."

Unequal Access - Patchwork of policies creates uncertain e-government availability for citizens with disabilities. By Tod Newcombe - Government Technology, December 2002. "There are 54 million Americans with disabilities. Less than one-third of adults with severe disabilities are working, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, and barely half the number of students with disabilities graduated from high school, according to the U.S. Department of Education...."

Universality and Accessibility, by Gez Lemon. Juicy Studio, 11 September 2005. "Summary - The general goal of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to make the Web available to everyone, regardless of the device, platform, network, culture, geographic location, or physical or mental ability of those using it. Collectively, this is known as universality. To ensure these goals are met, the W3C has many initiatives, such as the Internationalisation (I18n) Activity, the Device Independence group, and the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)..."

User Centred

• Accessibility humanized - A user-centred approach to web accessibility. The Interaction Designer's Coffee Break, Issue 9, January 2004. "Most web developers act in blindness when they design accessible websites, since they know next to nothing about disabled people and the technology they use. Accessibility guidelines and validation tools don't provide this insight. Accessibility for disabled users should be approached from a user centred perspective..."

User Responsibility for Web Accessibility (or “Gimme back my pixel font sizes!”), by James Craig. CookieCrook, 2004. "Pixels. Who needs them? Web designers. Well, maybe “need” is too strong a word. How about “want?” It’s not about the pixels though, it’s about graphic control. Designers want control. We always have, we always will, and we have good reason to. So what’s wrong with pixel-sized fonts? “Accessibility” you say? Maybe..."

Users with Disability Need Not Apply? Web Accessibility in Ireland, 2002, by Barry McMullin. First Monday, volume 7, number 12, December 2002. "Abstract - Users with a variety of disabilities can potentially benefit greatly from using the Internet to mediate their access to products and services; however, this relies on the proper server side design of Web sites to facilitate such access. Design of accessible Web content is codified in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0 of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Compliance with WCAG (and/or similar, derivative, guidelines) is now the subject of considerable activity, both legal and technical, in many different jurisdictions. Within this overall international context, this paper reports on a project to carry out an automated baseline survey of WCAG compliance of Web sites based in Ireland. Summary results are presented and discussed. Recommendations are made for policy action, relevant both in Ireland and beyond."

Valid Code

• A principled argument. bestkungfu.com, 22 June 2005. "The next draft of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 probably will not require HTML content that conforms at Level A to be fully valid. The following is my rationale for agreeing to this..."

Viewable with any browser - Accessible site design guide - "Introduction - Below are some useful tips and links that can help to make your site accessible by all browsers, and better in general. This is not meant to be a complete guide to HTML, just a look at web design from an accessibility point of view..."

WAT makes websites accessible, By Peter Abrahams, IT-Analysis. The Register, 26 July 2004. "IBM has developed a service called Web Adaptation Technology (WAT), which allows disabled users to make standard web pages (including those that are not W3C compliant) more accessible without having to delve into their desktop operating systems..."

WCAG and the Myth of Accessibility, by Kevin Leitch. juicystudio, 5 June 2004. "Introduction - Accessibility has become big news in the web design community. After the wasted years of the dotcom boom and bust scenario played themselves out, finally designers such as myself began to understand that good design was about more than prettiness; it had to be able to be accessed by as many people as possible..."

Web Access Disabled by '90s Design, By Peter Coffee. eWeek, October 28, 2002. "With its dubious victory this month in a U.S. District Court, Southwest Airlines won the right to continue its practice of 20th-century Web site design that won't meet future needs for feeding content to diverse devices--as well as to diverse users. The company would be wiser to behave as if it had lost...."

Web Accessibility: A Broader View, by John T. Richards and Vicki L. Hanson, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center. WWW 2004, May 17-22, 2004. "Web accessibility is an important goal. However, most approaches to its attainment are based on unrealistic economic models in which Web content developers spend too much and receive too little..."

Web Accessibility and Compliance in Australia - Watchfire, 1 August 2003 - in powerpoint format. (2798kb)

Web Accessibility and Usability: The Human Factor, by: Derek Featherstone. wats.ca, November 2004. "The presentation... It included an introduction to web accessibility and how it ties together with many other fields: usability, human factors, and human computer interaction. Another significant theme was that while accessibility is generally seen as something to help "people with disabilities", web accessibility principles and techniques are helpful to many more people. The common thread connecting all of these related fields and principles together is that they focus on people..."

Web Accessibility And Your Business, by Joel Padot. Web Pro News, 26 April 2004."One of the things I find I’m most often fighting with my peers and competitors is the need for your website to be accessible. An Accessible website is a website that caters to the needs of handicapped individuals and people using alternative web browsing methods like third party browsers, PDA’s and the like. As a business owner, it is important to have a website that meets at least the minimum Web Accessibility Standards..."

Web Accessibility Awards

• Nominations Wanted For Web Accessibility Awards 2005. Managing Information, 11 January 2005. "The Jodi Mattes Webaccessibility Awards were established in 2003, European Year of Disabled People, to celebrate the most accessible museum, gallery and heritage website. This year sees the awards opening to nominations from libraries and archives too..."

Web Accessibility: Ensuring Access for All, By Bill Raschen. Free Pint Issue 169, 14 October 2004. "Web Accessibility is a subject whose importance has quietly grown in recent years. This results, in part, from the effects of legislation in the UK and the USA, but also from the policies and initiatives of organizations including the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB) and others. Advances in technology, particularly the advent of PDAs, have also played a part. However, despite its increasing importance, web accessibility remains a subject that at best is relatively poorly understood by many information professionals, and at worst attracts some wholly wrong misconceptions. What follows is an attempt to clarify the issue, discussing the implications of accessibility for both web designers and web users in general..."

Web accessibility for deaf people - adding captions or providing transcripts isn't always enough, by Jim Byrne. Making Connections Unit, April 2004. "If you search the web for information related to web accessibility for deaf people you will find plenty of advice about captioning or providing transcripts for web based audio and video material. What you are unlikely to find much discussion related to accessibility and language; for many deaf people English is not their first language, Sign Language is..."

Web accessibility myths. Webcredible, July 2004. "With more and more countries around the world passing lawas about blind and disabled access to the Internet, web accessibility has been thrown into the spotlight of the online community. This article attempt to put a stop to the misinformation that has been thrown around and tell you the truth behind web accessibility..."

Web Accessibility Resource Planner - "...a user-friendly, online interface for creating Web accessibility lessons. These lessons are then available online at any time. Through this site the WARP provides an easy way to: View Web accessibility resources; Organize these resources into lessons; View lessons created by other WARP users. The resource planner is FREE to use and available beginning February 9th, 2005..."

Web Accessibility: The Basics. bytestart.co.uk, July 27, 2005. "Web accessibility is about making your website accessible to all Internet users (both disabled and non-disabled), regardless of what browsing technology they're using. In addition to complying with the law, an accessible website can reap huge benefits on to your website and your business..."

Web inaccessibility 'creates net underclass', By Lucy Sherriff. The Register, 20 December 2004. "Companies and public bodies are still failing to take accessibility into account when designing their websites, despite the risk of legal action under the UK's disability discrimination laws. A SiteMorse test last week of central government websites uncovered errors on the vast majority of sites, and even the Disability and the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) websites failed A and AA compliance..."

Web opens up for learning disabled, By Geoff Adams-Spink. BBC News, 11 January 2004. "New software that will make websites accessible to people with learning difficulties will go on sale later this year..."

Web site accessibility: A perspective, by Trenton Moss. Public Technology, 11 June 2004. "This article was written by Trenton Moss, of web accessibility and usability consultancy webcredible.co.uk. "The Disability Discrimination Act says that web sites must be made accessible to disabled people. The DRC's recent report has suddenly thrown this into the spotlight of the online community and a lot of misinformation has been thrown around..."

Web Site Accessibility - It’s Just Good Sense, by Joni Garcia. Web Pro News, 3 November 2004. "Most of us already know it's good business to have a presence on the World Wide Web. Since millions of people from all over the world use the Web each day, having a web site is one of the best ways to increase market share and audience reach. However, even companies with a web site could be missing out on the full potential the Web offers, if the content on their site is not accessible to the widest audience possible. Unfortunately, many web site owners create barriers to their content without realizing it. When this happens, their visitors often get frustrated and go elsewhere and the company loses that potential business to a competitor..."

Web sites that waste away, by Siobhan McBride. Computerworld, 21 January 2005. "The design may be slick, the graphics supercool, but the site doesn't deliver the longed-for holy grail of booming e-business. Why? Users, who were interested enough to find the site, may also find that it's inaccessible to them, either because its laden with graphics and their slow dial-up connection can't handle can't handle them, their browser, or the site's design just doesn't produce a legible, easily viewed and used encounter..."

Website accessibility - what it really means, and what you need to do. Lift - Creative Communication Design, 28 July 2004. "What is web accessibility? "90% of FTSE websites fail basic levels of accessibility standards". Abilitynet (www.abilitynet.org.uk) Put simply, accessibility means that your website can be viewed and used by everyone. Yet many, many websites do not allow everyone to access them. Some websites require a specific browser or operating system. Some make it difficult (even impossible) for people with a form of disability to use their website..."

Websites and the fourth plinth, By Peter Abrahams. IT-Director.com, 27 September 2005. "... So what does that fairly lengthy introduction have to do with websites and IT in general? Just this: the designers of any IT system, but especially websites that are very public, need to hear that message loud and clear. Go to Trafalgar Square, or look it up on a website, and ask yourself how you would explain to Alison, or to any other disabled person, why they are excluded from your website. This is a purely moral question, but should be followed by asking yourself how you can explain to your management that they are breaking the law..."

Websites - Are you helping the disabled? By Taylor Walton. The Register, 2 July 2003. "Many website operators are unaware that the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 ("Act") applies to websites as it does to, say, a public building..."

Web Sites Inch Toward Accessibility Corporations are starting to see the importance of designing access for the disabled into their Web sites. Judy Heim, special to PCWorld.com Friday, September 29, 2000 "Australian Bruce Maguire wanted to use the official Olympic Games Web site to follow the games. But Maguire, who is blind, found the site inaccessible to the visually impaired. Now he has brought a damages claim against the Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games before the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Maguire's frustrations are not unusual. Although in many ways the Internet is helpful to disabled people, it also can be a barrier, because very few Web sites are designed with accessibility in mind. For instance, blind people who use screen readers can't access information unless it is presented in an accessible format. Efforts are under way to define standards for designing accessible Web sites. The World Wide Web Consortium has a Web Accessibility Initiative that companies can use as a guideline. The basic rule is providing HTML code that can be read by text-only browsers and screen readers or providing alternate text and descriptions...."

Web Usability Checking for Blind and Vision Impaired, By: Russ Weakley. Web Standards Group, 20 April, 2004. Presentation by David Woodbridge (Adaptive Technology Consultant) and Robert Spriggs (Services Development Manager - Technology and Training Services). "These documents are a list of questions that Royal Blind Society's Adaptive Technology Consultants will commonly ask when checking websites for accessibility. The questions could also be used as an auditing tool for web designers and developers to assess their sites for accessibility..."

Website content compliant today and tomorrow, By Peter Abrahams. IT-Analysis.com, 5 August 2005. "In a recent article, Websites compliant yesterday but not today, I wrote "… what I really think the industry needs are website development tools that automatically generate compliant code." This plea got a positive response from XStandard who provide a WYSIWYG editor that produces clean XHTML code..."

Websites compliant yesterday but not today, By Peter Abrahams. IT-Director.com, 5 July 2005. "Creating websites that comply with all the relevant standards and regulations is not easy, but, once you achieve it, ensuring that they remain compliant as the content and structure changes is even more difficult. This has been borne out by a recent report from SiteMorse which looked at the websites of organisations that are involved either in defining or implementing such regulation or standards. The sites included the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) and the Guild of Accessible Web Designers (GAWDS) and many others that failed basic automated accessibility tests..."

Weighted Lists

• Making it Accessible: A look at Weighted Lists, by Derek Featherstone. wats.ca, January 23, 2005. "The first in a series of articles on making web content more accessible, we look at weighted lists, the information they convey and how we might make the information available to everyone..."

What is an accessible website? - an answer in the form of a diagram. mcu.org.uk, 9 June 2004.

What is the relationship between usability and accessibility, and what should it be? by Dey Alexander. - Summary - In this presentation, my aim is to generate discussion about the relationship between usability and accessibility based on an examination of what each is about and what practitioners in each field do. I will use this as a basis to consider whether usability and accessibility are compatible design approaches, whether accessibility improves usability, and vice versa, and how practitioners in each field are--and should be--affected by the relationship between accessibility and usability. This presentation was given as a keynote at the OZeWAI conference on December 3, 2004.

The Wide Range of Abilities and Its Impact On Computer Technology - Overview - "In 2003, Microsoft Corporation commissioned Forrester Research, Inc., to conduct a study to measure the potential market of people in the United States who are most likely to benefit from the use of accessible technology for computers. Accessible technology enables individuals to adjust their computers to meet their visual, hearing, dexterity, cognitive, and speech needs. It includes both accessibility options built into products as well as specialty hardware and software products (assistive technology products) that help individuals interact with a computer..."

• Microsoft surveys the Market for Assistive Technology and Accessibility. Source: UN, 12 March 2004, Submitted by Ann Light. "In 2003, Microsoft Corporation commissioned Forrester Research to conduct a study to measure the potential market of people in the United States who are most likely to benefit from the use of accessible technology for computers. "The Wide Range of Abilities and Its Impact On Computer Technology" is the result, which is now available on the company's site (below)..."

Zoom Layout Starter Kit. Web-Graphics.com, July 28, 2005. "...This is a pratical approach, together with some tips and tricks, to get started with a zoom layout..."

Last updated: 28 February 2006

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