How to Make Your Blog Accessible to Blind Readers

So you have a blog, and you're worried that it might not be accessible to people with disabilities? Don't worry! A few simple changes can increase your blog's potential readership.

American Foundation for the Blind (2006). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Blogging

Designing Web Content for People with Learning Disabilities

We need to design sites to include as many people as possible so that we have a fairer world. We need accessibility to bridge differences and integrate more people into society. If someone who could understand Web content is unable to because of the design choices of the Web author, then that Web content is not as accessible as it could be - even if it can be used by all types of physically disabled users.

Seeman, Lisa. UBaccess (2002). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility

Designing Pages Accessible to Limited Textual Comprehension Users

Little has been written or done to advance the cause of web users with cognitive disabilities -- users who may actually require the use of graphics in order to make sense of a web site. For purposes of this document, we will use the term "Limited Textual Comprehension" to refer to anyone, disabled or not, who is unable to understand a web page -- and thus cannot access the information contained within in it -- due to the textual content of the page.

Bartlett, Kynn. AWARE Center (1999). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility

How to Avoid Screen Reader 'Noise Pollution'

Surely there can't be a skill to writing ALT text for images? You just pop a description in there and you're good to go, right? Well, kind of. Sure, it's not rocket science, but there are a few guidelines you need to follow.

Moss, Trenton. Digital Media Europe (2005). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Visual

Demonstration of the LONGDESC Attribute and the 'd' Link

When images are provided to illustrate complex ideas, the same information MUST also be provided in an accessible form.

WATS.ca (2007). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Charts and Graphs

CSS in Action: Invisible Content Just for Screen Reader Users

Most of the techniques for making web content accessible to screen readers are invisible to visual users. Alternative (alt) text, table header tags, table summaries, and form tags are examples of techniques that make a big difference for screen reader users, but which have little or no impact on the visual appearance of the web content. Every once in a while, though, web designers confront situations in which the addition of accessible markup does have an impact on the visual layout. In some cases, this visual impact can decrease the usability of the content for visual users. In other cases, designers simply want to provide a more pleasing layout or appearance that would be compromised by including all of the text in a semantically correct format.

WebAIM (2007). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>CSS

A More Accessible Map

Most online mapping applications do not address issues of web accessibility. For a visually impaired web user, these highly visual maps are essentially useless. Is there a way to display text-based data on a map, keeping it accessible, useful and visually attractive? Yes: using an accessible CSS-based map in which the underlying map data is separated from the visual layout.

Duffey, Seth. List Apart, A (2006). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Geography

A Dyslexic Perspective on e-Content Accessibility

This paper gives the web developer an insight into the issues of web accessibility for users with dyslexia (and/or other specific learning difficulties). It covers the four main areas of accessibility: presentation, content, structure and navigation.

Rainger, Peter. TechDis (2006). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility

Accessible Folksonomies

I’ve been thinking about one particular artifact of the folksonomy phenomenon — the folksonomy menu that serves as a sort of buzz index providing users with a quick visualization of the most popular tags (technically I think it’s called a weighted list). Popular tags are displayed in a larger font and it’s relatively easy to identify hot topics at a glance. This visual representation of the popularity of any given tag is undeniably cool. However, once the coolness factor wears off it becomes fairly obvious that these menus are also not very accessible.

alt tags (2005). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Metadata

Accessibility Humanized

Most web developers act in blindness when they design accessible websites, since they know next to nothing about disabled people and the technology they use. Accessibility guidelines and validation tools doesn't provide this insight. Accessibility should rather be approached from a user centred perspective.

Olsen, Henrik. GUUUI (2004). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility

Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design

The Web is providing unprecedented access to information and interaction for people with disabilities. It provides opportunities to participate in society in ways otherwise not available. With accessible websites, people with disabilities can do ordinary things: children can learn, teenagers can flirt, adults can make a living, seniors can read about their grandchildren, and so on. With the Web, people with disabilities can do more things themselves, without having to rely on others.

Henry, Shawn Lawton. UIaccess (2007). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility

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

Analysis Phase

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

Build Accessible Online Forms

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WCAG 2.0 Checklist

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

AJAX Aids Accessibility?

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

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