Accessibility is a general term used to describe the degree to which a product (e.g., device, service, environment) is accessible by as many people as possible, and the ventures to produce accessible products and services. Accessibility is often used to focus on people with disabilities and their right of access to entities, often through use of assistive technology.
#19187
Automated tools can make our jobs significantly easier, more thorough, and more cost effective. But, they are only the first necessary step in addressing accessibility-removing the barriers. We must now address the special condition of usability related to handicapped users and accept that user-based evaluation is the only true test of success.
Killam, Bill and Bill Holland. Usability Interface (2003). Design>Web Design>Accessibility
#22994
PowerPoint Accessibility Techniques
There's nothing wrong with posting presentations in their original format; however, you must also post an HTML-based version to ensure maximum accessibility.
WebAIM (2003). Presentations>Accessibility>Design>Microsoft PowerPoint
#29279
Practical Plans for Accessible Architectures
Accessible design requires a deeper understanding of context. It's about providing alternative routes to information, whether that route is a different sense (seeing or hearing), a different mode, (using a tab key or a mouse), or a different journey (using an A to Z site index instead of main navigation). However, accessibility is much easier to achieve when the right foundations are put in place as prerequisites during site planning and strategy.
Forman, Frances. Boxes and Arrows (2007). Design>Web Design>Accessibility
#27855
Forms are a pain. You can make them pretty, make them accessible, or go a little crazy trying to achieve both. Nick Rigby offers a happy solution.
Rigby, Nick. List Apart, A (2006). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>Forms
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Print and Online Resources about Web Accessibility: An Annotated Bibliography 
This annotated bibliography discusses over 120 print and online resources related to Web accessibility. It lists and describes resources that offer practical advice on how to implement accessibility, particularly in relation to the WCAG 1.0 and Section 508 standards. It also summarizes the findings of empirical studies that have examined Web site accessibility via automated tests, such as Bobby, and studies that have gauged user performance with assistive technologies, such as screen readers. The bibliography lists forums for discussing accessibility with other practitioners and researchers, and it cites sources for news and events related to accessibility. The bibliography concludes with a short discussion of trends in accessibility research.
Mackiewicz, Jo M. Technical Communication Online (2006). Resources>Bibliographies>Accessibility>Web Design
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The Problem with Automated Accessibility Testing Tools
Automated accessibility testing tools can be useful, but there are a number of disadvantages with relying on them.
Moss, Trenton. Webcredible (2005). Design>Web Design>Accessibility
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The Product Design Ideas Browser is a reference tool that focuses on design strategies used to address the Telecom Act Accessibility Guidelines. Select an item from the list of Accessibility Guidelines in the navigation pane to find ideas and strategies that will be helpful in the design of more accessible and usable products.
#19036
Once the information on a web page has been made, strictly speaking, accessible to assistive technologies, the question then becomes whether or not that site is 'easy-to-use' for people with impairments. It is not always enough to retrofit accessibility features to a pre-existing site that was designed without considering the needs of these users.
Frontend Infocentre (2001). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>Usability
#29680
The presenter describes a long series of technological assistive devices she has used to overcome a double disability--—blindness and deafness—--over the past 30 years in pursuing a highly successful career in technical communication. She also demonstrates the equipment and shows how it makes it possible for her to do her job.
Hogg, Maureen. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>TC>Accessibility>Universal Usability
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Quick Tips to Make Accessible Web Sites
Ten tips for making Web sites accessible, available on a business-card sized reference card. Can be ordered from Web site.
W3C (2002). Design>Web Design>Accessibility
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Reading Expository Text on a Computer Screen 
Issues of legibility, restricted screen space, and the resulting effects on reader efficiency have hampered efforts to bring expository text to the computer screen. Previous research focused on character-based displays, a technology that is rapidly being supplanted by equipment capable of improved resolution and visual symbol generation. These issues, which affect both authors and readers, need to be investigated in light of current screen and user interface technology. It may well be that linear expository texts are easily adaptable to contemporary computer screens.
Ham, Eardley L. STC Proceedings (1994). Design>Document Design>Accessibility
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Redesigning the AccessAbility SIG Web Site for Accessibility
Assuring the accessibility of a Web site is an ongoing process. Hear how the Web team for the AccessAbility SIG redesigned the SIG's Web site to incorporate more accessible features and how they stay on the accessibility road.
Lockley, Cynthia A. and Ann Leslie Reed. STC Proceedings (2004). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>STC
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A Report from the STC Special Needs Committee: The Nature of Deafness
Deaf persons are not a monolithic group. Persons born deaf or who become deaf before learning the language of their environment (prelingual deafness) have a significant educational challenge as well as a communication challenge. Other deaf persons have a communication challenge. Deaf persons may be divided into five categories. For the purposes of this paper the categories are prelingual deafness, prelingual hard-of-hearing, postlingual deafness, postlingual hard-of-hearing, and presbyacusis. (oldage deafness) Each of these categories are discussed in detail including the characteristics of persons within the categories, and the nature of the problems they encounter.
Malcolm, Andrew. STC Proceedings (2001). Design>Accessibility>TC>Audio
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Research-Based Web Guidelines: Accessibility
Ensure that text and graphics are understandable when viewed without color. If designers depend on color to convey information, colorblind users and users with devices that have noncolor or nonvisual displays cannot receive the information. When foreground and background colors are close to the same hue, they may provide insufficient contrast on monochrome displays and for people with certain types of color deficits.
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Responsive—and Responsible—Web Site Design for Disabled Users
Urges professors of technical communication to teach their students how to design Web sites that accommodate disabled users.
Hawkes, Lory. Intercom (2004). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>Education
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Review: A Review of Free, Online Accessibility Tools
This article reviews eight, free, online web accessibility tools and examines the general characteristics of accessibility tools. The review provides a comparison between tools, and offers suggestions as to which tool would be appropriate for each of the following audiences: web designers, web developers and web evaluators.
Blair, Peter. WebAIM (2004). Articles>Reviews>Accessibility>Software
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RNIB's Campaign for Good Web Design
There are two million people with sight problems in the UK - can they use your website?
RNIB (2003). Organizations>Accessibility>Web Design
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Safe Web Colours For Colour-Deficient Vision
Colour is increasingly used these days to help convey information. When one in twelve men have some measurable degree of colour vision deficiency, the use of certain colours in certain ways can cause difficulty when navigating web pages or software, and even total illegibility in some cases. The key issue is to know when you are using colours which some people will not be able to differentiate - because that (for them) removes the benefit of using colour for visual cues. Colour scientists have long known which colours are confused by colour blind people, but this tends to be expressed in a way difficult for designers to utilise.
BT Group (2004). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Color
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This simulation will help you to understand what it is like for a person with visual impairments to access the Internet using a software program called a 'screen reader.'
WebAIM (2005). Design>Web Design>Accessibility
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Screen Readers and 'display:none'
When an element is hidden with display: none, the browser doesn't generate a box for the element; the element is not visible on the screen, and the layout of the page isn't effected by the element. As screen readers are supposed to read the screen, it makes sense that they do not announce content that is hidden with display: none.
Lemon, Gez. Juicy Studio (2007). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>CSS
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Search Engine Optimisation - A Positive Influence on Web Accessibility
The paper focuses on how some of the W3C Accessibility Guidelines are currently used in optimising web sites for search engines and how the rest will be or should be used in the near future for the same purpose. The paper studies the influence search engines have over marketers and optimisers and how they have a moral responsibility to their users to make web content more accessible. There have been papers before pointing out various benefits of web accessibility. This particular paper targets search engine optimisers and site owners, in fact, a large percentage of people who have influence over how accessible content is. It gives them the right incentive to use the W3C guidelines more widely.
Mardiros, Carmen. Bigmouthmedia (2004). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>Search
#29881
Secondary Disabilities: The Vicious Circle
This progression round-table discussion explores the role of secondary disabilities that can magnify the effects of primary disabilities, triggering a downward spiral that leads to greater impairment, depression, and even total surrender--a classic vicious circle. The objective is to share personal experiences and look for ways to break the vicious circle early-- before the secondary disability compounds the effects of the primary disability. The strategy to combat this insidious syndrome is three-fold: (1) optimal medical treatment of the primary disability to minimize its effects, (2) maximum technological accommodations to compensate for the remaining deficit after medical options have been exhausted, and (3) psychological intervention to interrupt and reverse the secondary disability pattern before it creates the downward spiral--in essence, 'blasting a hole' in the vicious circle.
Voss, Ria and Daniel W. Voss. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Accessibility
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The Secret Benefit of Accessibility, Part 2: A Higher Search Engine Ranking
One of the lesser-known benefits of web accessibility is the fact that a website more accessible to people is also more accessible to search engines. This article outlines the ways the two areas overlap.
Moss, Trenton. Webcredible (2004). Design>Web Design>Accessibility
#20658
The following standards are excerpted from Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, §1194.22. Everything in the left hand column is a direct quote from Section 508. The other two columns are only meant to serve as helpful guidelines to comply with Section 508.
WebAIM (2001). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>Section 508
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Section 508 from the Hearing Loss Perspective
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, as amended in 1998, requires federal departments and agencies, including the United States Postal Service, to comply with accessibility requirements when procuring, developing, using or maintaining electronic and information technology (E&IT), unless doing so causes an undue burden (significant difficulty or expense). E&IT with accessibility requirements pertinent to people with hearing disabilities include: telephones; televisions; videotapes and DVDs; multimedia web sites; interactive voice response systems, and information kiosks. Where steps and physical barriers kept people with physical disabilities out of the workforce and out of government buildings three decades ago, videos and web pages without captioning; telephones without amplification; interactive voice response systems that do not support TTY signals; phone configurations that do not support VCO (voice carry over); and phone systems with no TTY jacks are examples of barriers today. Congress identified the federal government as the proper place to begin tackling these problems. Through the Section 508 amendment, the federal government has been given the responsibility to set an example for the rest of the country by being a model employer and providing exemplary service to its customers with disabilities by showing that access can be achieved in a reasonable way and that information technology access will benefit all people. The Section 508 statute directed the U.S. Access Board to develop access standards for this technology. The process began with a report presented to the board by an advisory committee it convened and ended with the 508 Standards being incorporated in their entirety into the federal procurement regulations.
Baquis, David. Usability Interface (2003). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>Section 508
