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.
#25290
Writing Effective ALT Text for Images
Simply inserting ALT text isn't necessarily enough to ensure accessible images - the text must also be effectively written. Find out how to achieve this...
Moss, Trenton. Webcredible (2005). Design>Web Design>Accessibility
#18784
Writing for the Disadvantaged Reader 
Technical communicators usually write professsionally for both technical people and the general public. Within both of these groups are disadvantaged readers. Disadvantaged readers include natives of countries where the primary language is other than English, prelingually deaf persons, and persons with alexia, aphasia, dyslexia and/or schizophrenia. This paper briefly reviews the syntax of English and recommends language strictures that will facilitate communication to the groups of people listed above, not visual impairment.
Malcolm, Andrew. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>Writing>Accessibility
#24256
Persons who are born hearing-impaired or who become hearing-impaired during the critical early language learning years of life often have deficient vocabulary development and difficulty reading certain language structures. A panel of educators of the hearing-impaired will present their views on the needs of prelingually deaf and hard-of-hearing readers and the moderator will focus the discussion on writing techniques which technical communicators might use communicate to those with such language deficits.
Malcolm, Andrew and Carl Kirchner. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Writing>Accessibility
#20998
Writing Science for Children in an Age of Discovery
Writing a children's book is never easy. But the challenges are multiplied for children's books about science. It is all too common for the paramount importance of accuracy to conflict with the need to make a book enticing, or at least accessible.
Nagourney, Eric. New York Times, The (2003). Articles>Scientific Communication>Accessibility>Children
#23126
The library is committed to serving the entire public, and that means striving to ensure that all pages of our site are accessible to the greatest possible number of people and devices (including audio browsers, Braille readers, and other specialized browsing environments).
New York Public Library (2004). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>XHTML
#18634
This document provides guidelines for designing Extensible Markup Language (XML) applications that lower barriers to Web accessibility for people with disabilities (visual, hearing, physical, cognitive, and neurological). XML, used to design applications such as XHTML, SMIL, and SVG, provides no intrinsic guarantee of the accessibility of those applications. This document explains how to include features in XML applications that promote accessibility.
W3C (2002). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>XML
#19246
XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is a meta-syntax, used to create new languages. It can be seen as a simplification of SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language), designed to promote a wider acceptance in Web markets, but serving the same functionality of extensibility and new language design. XML is therefore not to be seen as a replacement of HTML, but as a new building layer, usage examples of which are: XHTML (for general HyperText content). Furthermore, it is important to understand that XML is not only a User Interface technology (like HTML), but can and is often used in protocol communication, to serialize and encode data to be sent from one machine to another.
Franklin, Tom. TechDis (2002). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>XML
#19500
Year II and Growing: 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). Articles>Usability>Accessibility>Audio
#19204
Informationen zum Instrument Zielvereinbarungen nach §5 Bundesgleichstellungsgesetz.
Rothe, Stephan. Stero.de. (German) Resources>Accessibility>Standards>Germany
#30605
A zoom layout uses CSS (cascading stylesheets) to automatically reformat a page so it's easier for a low-vision user to read. Multiple columns become single columns, navigation gets simplified and put at the top, fonts become bigger, and (usually) colours are set to light on dark.
Clark, Joe. JoeClark.org (2005). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>Typography
#28460
経済的要因による格差は、たいした問題ではないが、ユーザビリティと活用性の格差は、膨大な数の人たちをインターネットの潜在的利益から引き離している。
Nielsen, Jakob. Usability.gr.jp (2006). Articles>Usability>Accessibility>Online
#27666
この文書は2つの質問に答えるために書いてみたんだ。 1コ目は、「なんでサイトをアクセシブルにした方がいいのか」。だから、ここの情報はサイトを持ってない人には向かないかも。 2コ目は、「じゃどうしたらサイトをアクセシブルにできるのか」。 1コ目の答えが納得できるものじゃなかったら、2コ目はどうでもいいってことになるよね。
Pilgrim, Mark. Dive Into Accessibility (2002). (Japanese) Books>Web Design>Accessibility
#27662
這本書要回答兩個問題：第一個問題是「為什麼該讓我的網站更具親和力？」如果妳根本就沒有網站的話，顯然就不會成為本書的讀者了。第二個問題是「該如何讓我的網站更具親和力？」如果第一個問題的回答說服不了妳，那麼第二個問題大概也將無法引起妳的興趣。
Pilgrim, Mark. Dive Into Accessibility (2002). (Chinese) Books>Web Design>Accessibility
#31765
和许多其它国家一样，日本在努力使残障人士融入主流社会方面也遇到很多困难。
Kose, Satoshi. uiGarden (2008). (Chinese) Design>Accessibility>Regional>Japan
#31572
对设计者来说，使环境能够符合人体的机能是老生常谈的事。但是从消费者的观点来看，设计能够增加个体的能力和其在社区参与的程度则是一个相对来说比较新的想法。在以技术驱动的全球经济中，生活的节奏使得可用性更加重要。低生产力，不便和错误的设计带来的损失往往是巨大的。全球人口老化是另外一个重要的驱动力，尤其是在消费产品的主要市场——发达国家。
Steinfeld, Edward. uiGarden (2008). (Chinese) Design>Usability>Accessibility>Universal Usability
#31766
Ron Mace, Ruth Lusher和我在1998年一起写作的一篇关于通用设计的文章我相信是这方面第一篇发表的参考文献。我们的目的是推广一个设计概念积极的方面，这个概念以前被与为有限的人群（残疾人士）消除拙劣的设计相联系。我们要强调的是这个概念为所有的人士设计这一积极的方面。 1992年，当第一期通用设计新闻邮件出版的时候，我们在网络上进行了一次对于可能存在的侵权的搜索，没有发现任何关于通用设计这一名词的参考文献。今天，当我写作这篇文章的时候，我的 Google搜索发现了“大约13，200，000”条参考文献。毫无疑问，通用设计这一概念取得了广泛的使用。然而，这个名词到底是什么意思？
Salmen, John. uiGarden (2008). (Chinese) Design>Accessibility>Usability>Universal Usability
#32264
Checkpoints for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
This document is an appendix to the W3C "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0". It provides a list of all checkpoints from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, organized by concept, as a checklist for Web content developers.
W3C (2005). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Standards
#32265
Exploiting Web Tools to Make HTML Documents Accessible
More accessible documents through authoring tool supports. Exploit mainstream tools for easier information retrieval and document manipulation.
Treviranus, Jutta and Jan Richards . University of Toronto (2004). Presentations>Web Design>Accessibility>Software
#32266
SNOW (Special Needs Opportunity Windows) Just-in-Time, On-Line Information for Educators
Computer hardware, software and Internet connections - these are the new tools for education which are appearing in classrooms everywhere. At the same time, more and more students with special needs are taking part in the "regular" school activities as educators are asked to integrate these learners into their mainstream classrooms.
Gay, Greg and Laurie Harrison. University of Toronto (2006). Articles>Education>Accessibility
#32267
Access to Web-Based Special Education
Although, web-based distance education programs address geographical and cost barriers, they usually ignore access barriers to students with special needs (i.e. those with sensory, motor or cognitive disabilities). Distance education programs should ensure that conduits, and not barriers, to information are created. When planning a web-based special education program the following concerns should be considered: how to increase Web access to persons with disabilities by addressing access issues on both the client and the service side; how to optimize the use of innovative web technologies to transmit interesting yet accessible learning materials; how to increase community amongst special education students and teachers.
Nguyen, Kevin K. University of Toronto (2008). Articles>Education>Accessibility>Online
#32268
Web Browsing through Adaptive Technology: A Consumer Information Resource
The Adaptive Technology Resource Centre (ATRC), University of Toronto coordinated efforts with the Diversity Management Directorate (DMD), Public Services Commission of Canada to systematically evaluate how commercial World Wide Web (WWW) browsers functioned with various types of adaptive technology under different operating systems. The types of adaptive technology examined include screen magnifiers, scanning / switch access systems, alternative keyboards, screen readers, Morse code input devices and voice recognition systems.
Nguyen, Kevin K. and Linda S. Petty. University of Toronto (2007). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Web Browsers
#32425
Multiple Form Labels and Screen Readers
Just about every website needs some forms. Sometimes there are many of them, sometimes just a single contact form. Regardless of their number, they need to be usable and accessible, which can sometimes be a little more work than it would be if theory and practice aligned a little better.
Johansson, Roger. 456 Berea Street (2008). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Forms
#32441
Helping Others Understand Web Accessibility
When I hold workshops for people who want to learn more about web standards and accessibility, I often notice that the attendants really have tried to improve their accessibility knowledge. But they get overwhelmed when they go to the official documentation from the W3C and try to understand it.
Johansson, Roger. 456 Berea Street (2008). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Standards
#32442
Making Web Accessibility Accessible
when first learning web accessibility and uncovering its secrets, like many things, it can seem daunting and difficult. I think a lot of developers are downright intimidated by web accessibility — maybe even scared to go that route. But why? I suspect the reason is web accessibility is a discipline that lacks accessibility.
Cherim, Mike. Beast-Blog (2006). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Education
#32445
Sometimes when people first learn about Web accessibility they look for quick ways of improving the sites they build. This often leads to misuse or overuse of certain HTML features that are meant to aid accessibility, but when used wrongly have no effect and can actually have the opposite effect by making the page less accessible and less usable.
Johansson, Roger. 456 Berea Street (2008). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility
