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.
#34868
Accessibility is not something to be left to specialists hired to clean up our mess at the end. It should be a priority of the entire development team from the beginning. Yes, companies should definitely have accessibility people on-board, but they should act as much as educators and coaches as designers. Everyone on the development team must be aware of and responsive to the full spectrum of identified users if your product is to sell to the widest possible audience. That’s the only way to achieve inclusive design.
Tognazzini, Bruce. Nielsen Norman Group (2009). Articles>Accessibility>Usability>Universal Usability
#34869
Have you ever thought about what it would be like to be disabled? Well, you better start thinking about it! As my collegue Gregg Vanderheiden is fond of pointing out, 'We all will have disabilities eventually, unless we die first.'
Tognazzini, Bruce. Nielsen Norman Group (2009). Articles>Accessibility>Usability>Universal Usability
#34936
According to a study by the Annenberg School at USC, American Internet users include: 75% of adults aged 56-65 and 41% of adults over 66. If we want to design for the bulk of our users, we had best consider the more mature user groups.
Hall, Mark D. UI Design Newsletter (2007). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Elderly
#34958
This study provides a new and valuable insight into the information behaviour of visually impaired people, as well as testing the applicability of a specific and generic information model to the information behaviour of visually impaired people seeking health and social care information.
Beverley, C.A., P.A. Bath and R. Barber. Journal of Documentation (2007). Articles>Scientific Communication>Accessibility>Biomedical
#35115
Baby Boomers May Drive Accessibility
The millions in America who navigate the world with a physical disability are poised to receive a lot of company over the next 20 years. The Baby Boomer generation is about to flood the population and promises to create a future in which centenarians are not at all unusual. With increased longevity comes more frequent occurrence of disabilities, thus demanding increased attention to making accessible technology more widely available.
Patterson, Darby. Simply Raydeen (2009). Articles>Accessibility>Usability>Elderly
#35150
Engineering Software for Accessibility 
If a majority of your users could benefit from your product being accessible, doesn’t it just make sense to build an accessible product? If you have decided to do so, you are sending a message to your customers that their needs matter. Populations in many countries are getting older. Civil rights for people with disabilities are gradually being extended to encompass digital inclusion. Governments are requiring procurement officials to purchase products that are the most accessible (mandated in the U.S. by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act). For technology producers, creating accessible products is just the right thing to do, and it makes good business sense.
Grieves, Jason and Masahiko Kaneko. Microsoft (2009). Books>Accessibility>Programming>User Interface
#35152
Ten Ways To Make Your XHTML Site Accessible Using Web Standards
Let’s take a look at 10 ways to improve the accessibility of your XHTML website by making it standards-compliant. We’ll go the extra mile and include criteria that fall beyond the standards set by the W3C but which you should follow to make your website more accessible. Each section lists the criteria you need to meet, explains why you need to meet them and gives examples of what you should and shouldn’t do.
Irigoyen, Michael. Smashing (2009). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Standards
#35187
Are you aware that PDF documents are readable by your computer? You can listen to any PDF instead of reading it!
CyberText Consulting (2009). Articles>Accessibility>Visual>Adobe Acrobat
#35188
Creating Accessible Tabular Data Tables: A Help Authoring Guide
This Fast Track tutorial demonstrates and employs web standards and accessibility methods for tabular data table creation. It is presented free of charge to the community as a help authoring, technical writing and web design guide.
Palinkas, Frank M. helpware.net (2009). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Help
#35350
Before looking at tools, please look at the DMCP Captioning Key to get familiar with captioning standards.
Creswell, Bill. WordPress (2009). Articles>Multimedia>Accessibility>Software
#35387
Bringing Gaming to the Disabled
To a huge number of gamers and would-be gamers, though, even the most sensible and well-laid-out controller scheme is unplayable. For them, accessibility and interface issues make gaming at best an incomplete experience and at worst a total impossibility.
Hartford Courant (2009). Articles>Accessibility>User Interface>Games
#35388
Probably the most worrying thing about the HTML Working Group is the lack of respect for differing opinions that some working group members have. The apparent disinterest in accessibility is another troublesome factor.
456 Berea Street (2009). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>HTML
#35389
HTML 5, Microformats and Testing Accessibility
Testing is vital, particularly at the border of accessibility theory and practice. I wonder, for example, if tabindex and accesskey would have made it to the HTML4 spec if there had been full testing with assistive technology users? What I really want to know from the HTML5 people is who they think is going to do this research that will provide the evidence that their gang requires before useful attributes are restored to the specification.
Lawson, Bruce. BruceLawson.co.uk (2009). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>HTML5
#35391
VoiceOver and Safari: Screen Reading on the Mac
One of the most interesting features of Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger, the newest version of Apple's operating system, is VoiceOver, a built-in screen reader. Up until now, people needing a screen reader have been more or less forced to use Windows because of the lack of decent screen reader software for the Mac, but now it's built right into the Mac OS.
456 Berea Street (2007). Articles>Accessibility>Software>Macintosh
#35392
HTML 5 and the Summary Attribute
As I wrote in Help screen reader users by giving data tables a summary, the summary attribute on the table element can be used to provide information that helps non-sighted users understand data tables. The current draft of HTML 5 requires that validators display a warning if they encounter a summary attribute, since it is now an 'obsolete but conforming feature.'
Johansson, Roger. 456 Berea Street (2009). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>HTML5
#35396
Keyboard Accessibility: Basic Steps Towards a More Usable and Accessible Site
A presentation which shows examples of best-practices in web design for accessibility to users who interact with sites exclusively through the keyboard.
Lauke, Patrick H. Splintered (2009). Presentations>Web Design>Accessibility
#35524
Accessibility—Good Business, Best Practice 
Roberts and Pappas introduce their new column on accessibility by showcasing how accessibility can be a good business practice and increase a company’s bottom line.
Roberts, Linda Enders and Lisa Pappas. Intercom (2009). Articles>Accessibility>Business Case
#35548
米国IBMアクセシビリティ・センターの提供情報や、IBMアクセシビリティ・リサーチ・グループによる高齢者・視覚障害者関連情報の公開など、アクセシブルな情報社会のための関連リソース。インターネット閲覧支援ソフト「らくらくウェブ散策®」の紹介など。
#35638
Using color and color alone as a visual cue is appealing because it’s usually an aesthetically pleasing and a minimalist design technique. Calls to action and visual cues are critical to interface designers because users, especially on the web, have limited patience and are looking to process information and make decisions quickly. Since the brain recognizes and forms an emotional bond with colors almost immediately, colors are a natural choice for visual cues. Unfortunately, it’s easy to alienate or confuse some of your users when some of those aesthetically pleasing colors look very similar. To point out a few interfaces that use hard to differentiate colors as visual cues, here are a few examples that have given me some trouble.
Campbell, Chris. Particletree (2008). Articles>Graphic Design>Accessibility>Color
#35856
Yesterday we launched a new version of our developer community website. It doesn’t have many ‘community’ features as yet but that’s all to come. One thing it does now have is an HTML version of all of our product documentation, in an easily searchable format. This new format of the product documentation is largely to move us away from PDF only documentation. At present we still have a set of PDFs but they aren’t particularly usable.
McLean, Gordon. One Man Writes (2009). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Documentation
#35894
Accessible Online Video for Keyboard-Only Users
Sorted out transcripts and subtitles to make your online videos accessible? This is important, but there are other accessibility considerations which are often overlooked. Here are some other things you must consider.
Moss, Trenton. Webcredible (2009). Articles>Accessibility>Video>Web Design
#35976
An Idiot’s Guide To Accessible Website Design
If you are designing web sites in the UK, you probably already know that the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) mandates web sites be accessible by visually and physically disabled persons. But even if you work in a locale that doesn’t have any accessibility requirements yet, web designers have an obligation to make their clients’ web sites available and accessible to anyone who wishes to visit. Why? According to a report by the Danish Center for Accessibility, as many as 25% of the world’s Internet users have some sort of visual, auditory or mobility disability.
Butler, Sandy. Web Design Ledger (2009). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility
#36134
Involving Users in Web Projects for Better, Easier Accessibility
Involving people with disabilities from the beginning of a project helps you better understand accessibility issues and implement more effective accessibility solutions. It also broadens your perspective in a way that can lead you to discover new ways of thinking about your product that will make it work better for more people in more situations.
W3C (2009). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>User Centered Design
#36178
Why Bother Hiring People with Disabilities
Persons with disabilities still face much difficulty in finding a suitable job. A lot of companies are still reluctant to hire disabled people, although they may be well qualified for a specific job. Nevertheless, it is a fact that there are a handful of reasons why hiring persons with disabilities is a good idea.
Even Grounds (2009). Careers>Management>Accessibility
#36179
To the Employers Who Refused Me a Job, You Lose!
To those employers who refused to hire me because of my typing speed and “poor” communication skills, you failed to think creatively and to think outside of the box – an ability I could have brought to your organization. The name, reputation and exposure, which I have created for myself, I would have willingly and gladly created for your business, had I been given the opportunity. But, you didn’t look beyond my cerebral palsy to see what I could offer. For that reason, you lose!
Hyatt, Glenda Watson. Do It Myself (2009). Careers>Management>Accessibility
