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.
#33046
Be a White Hat SEO for Your Intranet: It's Good for Accessibility
The SEOs with white hats conduct legitimate optimising of web pages to make the site come up appropriately in the Search Engine Results Pages (also called SERPs). The back hat SEOs implement tricks to appear high in the results pages even if the web site is not necessarily relevant. The range of tricks is astonishing. But most of the techniques used by white hat SEOs were similar if not identical to the guidelines given by accessibility experts.
NetStrategy-JMC (2006). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Search Engine Optimization
#33114
It is most effective and efficient to incorporate accessibility from the very beginning of a project. When accessibility is only addressed late in product design, it can be very costly to make required design changes. Incorporating accessibility early in the project increases the potential positive design impact, and decreases the time and money required to design accessible products. This chapter provides information on setting usability goals, user analysis, workflow analysis and understanding accessibility issues.
UIaccess (2007). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Usability
#33132
Ask anyone who has had to fix a Website that's littered with accessibility howlers, and top-most in their list of problems encountered will be forms, closely followed by tables. These two topics always seem to present the most difficulties, but they needn't be a problem. For the most part, forms are a problem because the extra accessibility tags are simply not known to the Web designer -- after all, it looks right, it seems to work... what's the problem? Only by switching off the monitor and using a screen-reader can our oblivious Web developer understand the issues.
Lloyd, Ian. SitePoint (2003). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Forms
#33192
The Guild of Accessible Web Designers
The Guild of Accessible Web Designers (GAWDS) is a worldwide association of professional organisations, web designers and developers working together to promote the use and preservation of accessible design standards.
#33195
Web Accessibility Network for Australian Universities
We are an informal group of university people who share a common interest in web accessibility. Our members are from universities all over Australia.
#33212
Moving Towards Accessible Development
Below is a bit of an accessibility round up of a few useful tools, articles, sites, and informative podcasts about the topic that may help inform/convince you about the importance of accessibility.
Walter, Aarron. AarronWalter.com (2006). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility
#33232
Serving Citizens’ Needs: Minimising Online Hurdles to Accessing Government Information 
With the rapid spread of the Internet across society, government institutions are taking advantage of digital technology to distribute materials to citizens. Is merely having a website enough, or are there certain usability considerations site creators must keep in mind to assure efficient public access to online materials? This project looked at typical people's ability to locate various types of content online, in particular, their ability to find tax forms on the web. Findings suggest that people look for content in a myriad of ways, and there is considerable variance in how long people take to complete this online task. Users are often confused by the ways in which content is presented to them. In this paper, two common sources of confusion in users' online experiences with locating tax forms online are distinguished: (1) URL confusion and (2) page design layout. Ways are also suggested to decrease these two sources of frustration, yielding less exasperating and more productive user experiences.
Hargittai, Eszter. Human Factors International (2003). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Government
#33309
This is How the Web Gets Regulated
As in finance, so on the web: self-regulation has failed. Nearly ten years after specifications first required it, video captioning can barely be said to exist on the web. The big players, while swollen with self-congratulation, are technically incompetent, and nobody else is even trying. So what will it take to support the human and legal rights of hearing impaired web users? It just might take the law, says Joe Clark.
Clark, Joe. List Apart, A (2008). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Government
#33373
We are all impaired to some amount. I realized this a few years ago as a musician, moving heavy amplifiers to gigs. Those little ramps that had been required by law (at least here in Australia) for wheelchairs were my saving grace.. instead of lifting the hefty equipment I could roll it into the building. It probably saved me more than once from back injury. And yet, there would be no way the institutions would have put in those ramps for my convenience.
Lang, Keith. UI and Us (2008). Articles>User Interface>Accessibility
#33471
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 covers a wide range of recommendations for making Web content more accessible. Following these guidelines will make content accessible to a wider range of people with disabilities, including blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, learning disabilities, cognitive limitations, limited movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity and combinations of these. Following these guidelines will also often make your Web content more usable to users in general.
Caldwell, Ben, Michael Cooper, Loretta Guarino Reid and Gregg Vanderheiden. W3C (2008). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Standards
#33472
A Personal Reflection on the WCAG 2.0 Publication
Let's work together as a community to make WCAG 2.0 a unifying force for web accessibility. There are so many websites and exciting new web applications being created today with accessibility barriers that make it difficult or impossible for some people with disabilities to use them. Let's change that, with WCAG 2.0.
Henry, Shawn Lawton. W3C (2008). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Standards
#33473
The point of this blog is to look at all the things happening on the web now and in the future; the good, the bad and the downright fugly. But we'll be looking at it from the point of view of inclusivity.
#33475
Accessing Information: Not Everyone Does it the Same Way
As some in our profession have come to realize, social media and use of the Web in general have changed (and are still changing) the way in which people access and use information.
DMN Communications (2008). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>User Centered Design
#33548
New Accessibility Features in Internet Explorer 8
Hi, my name is JP Gonzalez-Castellan and I’m the Accessibility Program Manager for IE8. The IE team has been working towards making IE8 the most accessible browser possible, and we wanted to detail some of the work we’ve done toward this end. In this post I will provide you with some background on Accessibility, I’ll cover new UI features (Caret Browsing, Find on Page, Adaptive Zoom, High DPI, etc) and also platform features (support for ARIA, support for IAccessibleEx, and support for additional WinEvents) that improve the Accessibility of the browser.
Gonzalez-Castellan, J.P. Microsoft (2008). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Web Browsers
#33664
Are Accessibility Statements Useful?
An accessibility statement provides website visitors with information on how to utilize any accessibility features implemented, together with known barriers and how to overcome them. This information is usually presented on a dedicated page within the website. This article will look at the benefits of providing an accessibility statement together with common problems, before evaluating whether accessibility statements are useful.
Tomlinson, Leona. Digital Web Magazine (2008). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Policies and Procedures
#33685
A simple checklist that presents the principles and techniques of WCAG 2.0 in a user-friendly, understandable format. The language has been significantly changed and simplified from the official WCAG 2.0 specification to make it more easily tested and verified for web pages.
WebAIM (2009). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Standards
#33748
Ten Things You Should Know About WCAG 2.0
With the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines being made a Candidate Recommendation on 30th April 2008, many companies are starting to prepare for the arrival of the new Accessibility Guideline. What exactly is different though? User Vision's Mark Palmer takes you through some key things you should know about the document commonly known as WCAG 2.0.
Palmer, Mark. User Vision (2008). Articles>Accessibility>Standards
#33853
Yes, if you do it right, using Ajax techniques can improve accessibility. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Ajax is like most techniques and technologies on the web—they are what you make of them.
Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2009). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Ajax
#33953
Usable Accessibility: Making Web Sites Work Well for People with Disabilities
When people talk about both usability and accessibility, it is often to point out how they differ. Accessibility often gets pigeon-holed as simply making sure there are no barriers to access for screen readers or other assistive technology, without regard to usability, while usability usually targets everyone who uses a site or product, without considering people who have disabilities. In fact, the concept of usability often seems to exclude people with disabilities, as though just access is all they are entitled to. What about creating a good user experience for people with disabilities—going beyond making a Web site merely accessible to make it truly usable for them?
Quesenbery, Whitney. UXmatters (2009). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Usability
#33973
The Struggle for Book Access: Amazon
The Kindle2 is a hot topic in the disability field right now. Many print-disabled people (people who are blind, severely dyslexic or a have a physical disability that keeps them from reading regular print books) see electronic books as a dream come true. But, it's a dream that the commercial ebook vendors keep dashing.
Fruchterman, Jim. Benetech (2009). Articles>Publishing>Accessibility>eBooks
#34001
Forms are often the most tricky aspect of web development for beginners to get their head around, largely because it means stepping out of the comfort zone of one-way information - no longer are you simply presenting information at the person viewing your site, now you are asking for input, for feedback that you have to process in some way. And just as it may be difficult for HTML beginners to understand just how they handle form data, so is it difficult to understand some of the issues relating to accessibility.
Lloyd, Ian. Web Standards Project (2004). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Forms
#34003
Current Browsers and the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
Any effort on the part of web authors to add accessibility features is rendered useless if browsers and assistive technologies don’t take advantage of them. User agent developers need to ensure that their products support these features and, most crucially, make them available to users in an accessible and obvious manner. What follows is a quick run-down of most of UAAG’s guidelines and checkpoints, annotated with comments, suggestions, personal gripes about current levels of implementation, and wishlists for future browser versions.
Lauke, Patrick H. Web Standards Project (2009). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Web Browsers
#34049
Empathy is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. We have an ability to imagine things the way that others see them and how it makes them feel. We don’t even have to have a disability ourselves. Accessibility is NOT a checklist. Accessibility is about usability. Accessibility is a paradigm shift. Accessibility is a personal issue.
Foster, Rob. northtemple (2009). Articles>Accessibility>User Centered Design>User Experience
#34072
Accessible Web Video: JW Player Controls
Our JW Player Controls is an attempt to get around the limitations for access that Flash presents, to provide a richer user interface to the JW FLV Player, and to enhance the contrast and readability of captions by providing an alternate viewing area for caption content.
Ohio State University (2009). Resources>Accessibility>Streaming>Video
#34147
My business and passion is accessibility and there is obviously a huge problem with these visual CAPTCHAs. If you used alt-text on this image, alt="e3TJ6Jdp", that would be fine and very welcome for blind visitors. It would also be welcome for any computer system seeking to sign up for lots of emails. Using alt-text on the image does not solve the problem! The visual image CAPTCHA is fundamentally inaccessible. For the example above, this means very simply that Yahoo excludes people who are blind (or vision impaired) from signing up for Yahoo email accounts.
Thatcher, Jim. JimThatcher.com (2009). Articles>Accessibility>Security>Web Design
