Valle Verde Library
Designing Web Pages
for People with Disabilities
Table of Contents.
General.
- Adaptive
Technology for the Internet.
http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?section=ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=22254
Online book, published by the American Library Assoc. Policy considerations apply mostly to libraries but discussion of barriers to access is universal.
- Blindness Resource Center.
http://www.nyise.org/blind.htm
Links to sites on vision impairments, low vision resources and adaptive technologies.
- A Brief
Introduction to Disabilities.
http://trace.wisc.edu/docs/population/populat.htm
Discusses the nature and causes of visual, hearing, physical and cognitive/language impairments and related functional limitations.
- E.A.S.I. - Equal Access to Software and
Information.
http://easi.cc
Provides online training on accessible information technology.
- El Paso Community
College (E.P.C.C.) Web Publishing Guidelines.
http://ww1.epcc.edu/resource/webguide.htm
Requirements for El Paso Community College web pages. Accessible only from E.P.C.C. computers.
- The
Growing Digital Divide In Access for People with Disabilities.
http://www.icdri.org/CynthiaW/the_digital_divide.htm
Summary of the problem, legal implications of barriers to Web access, emerging solutions, and accessibility rules and research.
- How
People with Disabilities Use the Web.
http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/PWD-Use-Web/Overview.html
Scenarios include an online shopper with color blindness, a reporter with repetitive stress injury, a classroom student with dyslexia, etc.
- The
National Center for Accessible Media (N.C.A.M.) Web Access Projects.
http://www.wgbh.org/wgbh/pages/ncam/webaccess/index.html
Develops software to aid in captioning and describing audio and video on web sites. Provides guides to creating your own accessible multimedia clips. N.C.A.M. is also the home of the Web Access Symbol which denotes sites that contain special disability accommodation features.
- The
Principles of Universal Design.
http://www.design.ncsu.edu/cud/about_ud/udprinciples.htm
Summary of the seven principles chosen to guide a wide range of design disciplines in creating products and environments which accommodate different user needs and computer platforms.
- Trace Research and Development
Center.
http://trace.wisc.edu/
Works to make off-the-shelf technologies and systems more accessible for everyone through the process of universal, or accessible design.
- WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind).
http://www.webaim.org/
The organization's goal is to "improve accessibility of online learning for all people" with a particular emphasis on those with disabilities. Many free online accessibility design tutorials. Also check out their online screen reader simulation and low vision simulation.
Legal Issues.
- Federal I.T. (Information
Technology) Accessibility Initiative.
http://www.section508.gov
The 1998 amendment of the Rehabilitation Act, Section 508, requires electronic and information technology developed, maintained, procured or used by the U.S. federal government to be A.D.A. compliant.
- The
Growing Digital Divide In Access for People with Disabilities.
http://www.icdri.org/CynthiaW/the_digital_divide.htm
See section IV, "Disability Rights Law and Policy Impacting Web Page Transactions and the Internet Environment."
- Is
Your Site A.D.A.-Compliant . . . or a Lawsuit-in-Waiting?
http://www.icdri.org/CynthiaW/is_%20yoursite_ada_compliant.htm
- Policies Relating
to Web Accessibility.
http://www.w3.org/WAI/Policy/
Click on "United States of America" to review U.S. law and policy regarding Web accessibility. Note: This is NOT a legal site and makes NO claim to be).
Design Specifics.
- Designing
and Understanding Accessible W.W.W. Pages.
http://www.ataccess.org/rresources/webaccess.html
Ideas for overcoming vision, hearing, cognitive, physical and economic barriers. Links to adaptive technology products. Also good tips for users with access disabilities.
- DO-IT
(Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking and Technology) at the University
of Washington.
http://www.washington.edu/doit/Resources/web-design.html
Megasite of links to accessible design tips, including web video captioning.
- Effective
Color Contrast.
http://www.lighthouse.org/accessibility/effective-color-contrast/
How to design web pages for people who have deficits in color perception.
- Examples
of Accessible (and Inaccessible) Web Design.
http://www.Microsoft.com/usability/webconf/lowney/lowney.htm
See the results of bad coding from a user's perspective! Produced by the Microsoft ™ Corporation.
- H.T.M.L. 4.01 Specification.
World Wide Web Consortium (W.3.C.) Recommendation, 24 December 1999.
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
Full definition of the HyperText Markup Language, version 4.01. Available to read online or download (warning - these are large files). Also links to the latest XHTML specs.
- I.B.M.
Web Accessibility Checklist
http://www-03.ibm.com/able/guidelines/web/ibm508wcag.html
Checklist with sample accessible code.
- Java
™ Accessibility.
http://www-03.ibm.com/able/guidelines/java/accessjava.html
Checklist, techniques and test strategies for designing accessible Java software, from the I.B.M. ™ Accessibility Center.
- User-Defined
Style Sheets and Accessibility.
http://aware.hwg.org/tips/essay_kb_03.html
Users can create their own Cascading Style Sheets to customize the appearance and the audio output of web pages they access.
- Viewable
with any Browser.
http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/abdesign.shtml
Nine pages of guidelines for making web pages browser-independent. For each design area (e.g. graphic images, tables, etc.) provides links to sites with more detailed information.
- What's Wrong
with the FONT Element?
http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~mudws/font.html
A simple yet thorough discussion of Font dos and don'ts for accessible web design.
- World Wide Web Consortium (W.3.C.).
http://www.w3.org/
W.3.C. publishes current H.T.M.L. standards, X.H.T.M.L. as well as recommendations and working drafts. W.3.C. is led by the Laboratory for Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics, and Keio University in Japan.
- W.3.C. Web Accessibility
Initiative. Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0.
November 2000.
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-TECHS/
Promotes accessibility through technology, guidelines, education, research and development. This is the gateway to their Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and techniques. Includes links to Cascading Style Sheets (C.S.S.) design guidelines.
Test Your Web Site for Free.
- A-Prompt.
http://aprompt.snow.utoronto.ca/
Download this PC software which tests your site for accessibility and usability, then guides you through any necessary corrections to your code.
- Cynthia Says.
http://www.icdri.org/test_your_site_now.htm
Is your site compliant with federal government standards?
- Lynx Viewer.
http://www.delorie.com/web/lynxview.html
See how your page looks when viewed with Lynx, a text-mode web browser.
- The WAVE 3.0 Web Accessibility
Tool.
http://wave.webaim.org/index.jsp
Tests multiple pages. From WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind).
- World Wide Web Consortium H.T.M.L.
Validation Service.
http://validator.w3.org/
Test your web site for compliance with the World Wide Web Consortium's H.T.M.L. recommendations and other H.T.M.L. standards. Also links to their Cascading Style Sheets Validation Service. Finally, check out their extensive links to other Web Evaluation Tools.
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Last Updated: August 25, 2008
Created and maintained by K.A. Gardner, E.P.C.C. Librarian
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