Accessibility

Why You Should Adopt An 'Accessible Content Strategy'

"With the burgeoning number of computing devices and software solutions, it is easier than ever before to deliver single-sourced content such that it is accessible, consumable and actionable by as many users as possible." (The Content Wrangler)

Posted on May 25, 2010 | Permalink

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?" - (Whitney Quesenbery - UXmatters)

Posted on February 24, 2009 | Permalink

This is How the Web Gets Regulated

"If a deaf person has a legal right to watch TV or movies with captions, that person has a legal right to watch online video with captions. The voluntary approach has done practically nothing to make that possible. Laws or human-rights regulations are necessary and inevitable. You should get behind them." (Joe Clark - A List Apart)

Posted on November 20, 2008 | Permalink

WCAG Samurai

"The WCAG Samurai was a group of developers, led by Joe Clark, that publishes corrections for, and extensions to, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0."

Posted on July 06, 2007 | Permalink

Improving Accessibility through Typography

"Typography has many facets which go beyond font faces, sizes, or the color of text. Taking typography into consideration at every step of the way can enable you to prepare a much more readable, accessible document." (Joe Dolson - Accessites) - courtesy of usernomics

Posted on June 11, 2007 | Permalink

Accessible Web 2.0 Applications with WAI-ARIA

"Web 2.0 applications often have accessibility and usability problems because of the limitations of (X)HTML. The W3C’s standards draft for Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) addresses those limitations. It provides new ways of communicating meaning, importance, and relationships, and it fills gaps in the (X)HTML specifications and increases usability for all users by enabling navigation models familiar from desktop applications. Best of all, you can start using ARIA right away to enhance the accessibility of your websites." (Martin Kliehm - A List Apart)

Posted on April 10, 2007 | Permalink

Ensuring Accessibility for People With Color-Deficient Vision

"This article is Part IV of my series 'Color Theory for Digital Displays'. It describes how you can use color in applications and on Web pages to ensure that they are accessible to people who have color-deficient vision. If you do not consider the needs of people with color-deficient vision when choosing color schemes for applications and Web pages, those you create may be difficult to use or even indecipherable for about one in twelve users." (Pabini Gabriel-Petit - UXmatters)

Posted on February 08, 2007 | Permalink

Roadmap for Accessible Rich Internet Applications

"The Roadmap for Accessible Rich Internet Applications addresses the accessibility of dynamic Web content for people with disabilities. The roadmap outlines the technologies to map controls, AJAX live regions, and events to accessibility APIs, including custom controls used for Rich Internet Applications. The roadmap also outlines new navigation techniques to mark common Web structures as menus, primary content, secondary content, banner information and other types of Web structures. These new technologies can be used to improve the accessibility and usability of Web resources by people with disabilities, without extensive modification to existing libraries of Web resources." (W3C WAI-ARIA)

Posted on September 26, 2006 | Permalink

The Web Standards Project: Education Task Force

"The WaSP Education Task Force was created in 2005 to work directly with institutions of higher education to help raise awareness of Web standards and accessibility among instructors, administrators, and Web development teams." (WaSP) - courtesy of 456breastreet

Posted on May 22, 2006 | Permalink

Inaccessibility of CAPTCHA: Alternatives to Visual Turing Tests on the Web

"A common method of limiting access to services made available over the Web is visual verification of a bitmapped image. This presents a major problem to users who are blind, have low vision, or have a learning disability such as dyslexia. This document examines a number of potential solutions that allow systems to test for human users while preserving access by users with disabilities." (W3C) - courtesy of accessify

Posted on November 24, 2005 | Permalink

Web accessibility: The basics and benefits

"Web accessibility is about making your website accessible to all Internet users (both disabled and non-disabled), regardless of what browsing technology they’re using. In addition to complying with the law, an accessible website can reap huge benefits on to your website and your business." (Trenton Moss - uiGarden.net)

Posted on November 22, 2005 | Permalink

Accessibility Is Not Enough

"A strict focus on accessibility as a scorecard item doesn't help users with disabilities. To help these users accomplish critical tasks, you must adopt a usability perspective." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted on November 20, 2005 | Permalink

Introduction to Web Accessibility

"Most people today can hardly conceive of life without the Internet. It provides access to information, news, email, shopping, and entertainment. The Internet, with its ability to serve out information at any hour of the day or night about practically any topic conceivable, has become a way of life for an impatient, information-hungry generation. Some have argued that no other single invention has been more revolutionary since that of Gutenberg's original printing press in the mid 1400s. Now, at the click of a mouse, the world can be 'at your fingertips' – that is, if you can use a mouse... and if you can see the screen... and if you can hear the audio – in other words, if you don't have a disability of any kind." - (Paul Bohman - uiGarden.net)

Posted on November 10, 2005 | Permalink

Web Accessibility: A Broader View

"In this paper, we take a broader view, discussing an approach that costs developers less and provides greater advantages to a larger community of users. While we have quite specific aims in our technical work, we hope it can also serve as an example of how the technical conversation regarding Web accessibility can move beyond the narrow confines of limited adaptations for small populations." (John T. Richards and Vicki L. Hanson - IBM Accessibility Center) - courtesy of joeclark

Posted on August 04, 2005 | Permalink

Web Accessibility and Design: A Failure of the Imagination

"Web Accessibility and Web Design are two disciplines with a common theory and divergent practices. Both endeavors rely on a standard set of techniques to ensure a consistent experience of data and content across a diverse set of end users. Both rely on creative individuals to build and deliver great sites and great experiences that have an impact on the user. Both seek to extend the reach of the end user and link individuals together to form a stronger collective whole. However, despite the common theory that links them, web accessibility and web design do not share a common set of practices. Sites hailed for their accessibility are rarely noted for their design. Sites hailed for their design are rarely noteworthy as models of accessibility. Few sites are ever held up as models of both great accessibility and great design." (Bob Regan - Designing for the 21st Century III) - courtesy of usability news

Posted on February 25, 2005 | Permalink

Guidelines for Accessible and Usable Web Sites: Observing Users Who Work With Screen Readers

"Our focus has been understanding how blind users work with Web sites and what that means for designers and developers. Our focus therefore is users rather than specific Web sites." (Mary Frances Theofanos and Janice (Ginny) Redish) - courtesy of guuui

Posted on January 18, 2005 | Permalink

A quick and dirty introduction to accessibility

"Accessibility is about building web pages that can be navigated and read by everyone, regardless of disability, location, experience or technology." - (Max Design)

Posted on October 26, 2004 | Permalink

Getting Lost in Cyberspace

"The separation of navigational components can greatly reduce the number of choices that need to be considered at anyone time. This can make it easier for people with cognitive or learning difficulties to use the site, and can also be helpful to people who are unable to use the mouse." (Roger Hudson - Web Essentials 04)

Posted on October 08, 2004 | Permalink

The Usability and Accessibility Working Group

"(...) a collaborative group of accessibility and usability experts, industry leaders and academics who have come together to encourage the spread of inclusive design within the digital economy." (About UA-WG) - courtesy of usability news

Posted on August 26, 2004 | Permalink

Debunking Web Accessibility Myths

"The Disability Discrimination Act says that websites must be made accessible to disabled people. The DRC's recent report has suddenly thrown this into the spotlight of the online community and a lot of misinformation has been thrown around. In this article, I shall attempt to put a stop to this misinformation and tell you the truth behind Web accessibility." (Usability News)

Posted on July 06, 2004 | Permalink

10 Accessibility Blunders of the Big Players

"Web accessibility is about making your Website accessible to all Internet users (both disabled and non-disabled), regardless of what browsing technology they're using. More and more countries have passed laws stating that Websites must be accessible to blind and disabled people. With this kind of legal pressure, and the many benefits of accessibility, the big players on the Web must surely have accessible Websites, right?" (Trenton Moss - sitepoint) - courtesy of deswozhere

Posted on June 25, 2004 | Permalink

Using Section 508 to Improve Internet Access to Information for Everybody

Society of Technical Communication's 51st Annual Conference - "The presentation is for a short format progressive session, where I gave the presentation three times in an hour and a half to three different groups." (Thomas Vander Wal)

Posted on May 13, 2004 | Permalink

Search Engine Optimisation and Accessibility

"The following chapters describe how search engines algorithms, and attempts to address them through search engine optimisation as marketing technique creates new opportunities for making web content accessible - and equally, how improving the accessibility of a site can help maximise both it's search engine promotion potential and increase user conversions and ROI." (Big Mouth Media)

Posted on April 21, 2004 | Permalink

High Accessibility, High Design: CSS to the rescue

"I'm going to make a sweeping generalization here and say there are two grand reasons why people get involved in Web development: They like the programming and coding (they're technical) or they like visual design on the Web (they're artistic)." (Joe Clark - Naar Voren)

Posted on March 25, 2004 | Permalink

Optimizing Your Chances with Accessibility

Effectively increasing search engine ranking with W3C Accessibility guidelines and Section 508 (Brandon Olejniczak - Digital Web Magazine)

Posted on March 11, 2004 | Permalink

Accessibility and Usability

"We see the outlines of a problem here. Does building a perfectly accessible site mean all usability extras should be perfectly accessible, too?" (Peter-Paul Koch - Digital Web Magazine)

Posted on February 19, 2004 | Permalink

Accessibility humanized: A user centred approach to web accessibility

"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 don't provide this insight. Accessibility for disabled users should be approached from a user centred perspective." (Henrik Olsen - guuui)

Posted on February 03, 2004 | Permalink

Dive Into Accessibility

"This book answers two questions. The first question is 'Why should I make my web site more accessible?' If you do not have a web site, this book is not for you. The second question is 'How can I make my web site more accessible?' If you are not convinced by the first answer, you will not be interested in the second." (Mark Pilgrim) - courtesy of guuui

Posted on January 05, 2004 | Permalink

Guild of Accessible Web Designers

"The Guild of Accessible Web Designers will promote a vision of the future that assumes accessible web design to be, relevant, obtainable, and not at odds with successful business practice, or good visual and usable design." (About the GAWDS) - courtesy of lucdesk

Posted on January 01, 2004 | Permalink

CSS, accessibility and standard links

"Here you'll find a whole bunch of links to some of the vast resources out there. These are places I've have gone to and still visit for help and to learn. As new resources are constantly popping up, watch this space for changes. I've tried to order stuff as logically as possible." (Andrew Fernandez - deswozhere) - courtesy of lucdesk

Posted on December 16, 2003 | Permalink

The principles of universal design

"The intent of universal design is to simplify life for everyone by making products, communications, and the built environment more usable by as many people as possible at little or no extra cost. Universal design benefits people of all ages and abilities." (The center for universal design) - courtesy of concent inc.

Posted on December 01, 2003 | Permalink

2004 Presidential homepage shootout targets speed and accessibility

"As candidates turn to web sites to help pump up support, the difference between winning and losing in a tight race could come down to satisfying donors and voters online. Fast page displays and easy accessibility are two measurable prerequisites to user satisfaction. To see how well the candidates fare online, we analyzed the ten presidential homepages for speed and accessibility, and compared these results to existing guidelines. So how did the candidate sites measure up? In a word, poorly." (Optimization Week Magazine) - courtesy of andy king

Posted on November 13, 2003 | Permalink

Attitudes to Web Accessibility

"During the summer of 2003, we ran an online questionnaire, conducted interviews and carried out a literature review on Web accessibility. One hundred and seventeen respondents participated and they included designers, information officers and accessibility advocates. This initial set of results are intended to encourage debate on the subject." (John Knight - Usability News)

Posted on October 17, 2003 | Permalink

Attitudes to Web Accessibility

"During the summer of 2003, we ran an online questionnaire, conducted interviews and carried out a literature review on Web accessibility. One hundred and seventeen respondents participated and they included designers, information officers and accessibility advocates. This initial set of results are intended to encourage debate on the subject." (John Knight - Usability News)

Posted on October 15, 2003 | Permalink

Website Accessibility And The Private Sector: Disability Stakeholders Cannot Tolerate 2% Access!

"(...) various Federal laws and Regulations (e.g. Section 508) have placed considerable pressure on web designers of all government entities and firms seeking to do business with the Federal government to make their websites fully accessible. To minimize the possibility of being sued, all web designers for firms, large and small, private or public, for-profit or not-for-profit must deal with this issue of web accessibility." (Ronald E. Milliman) - courtesy of digital web magazine

Posted on September 17, 2003 | Permalink

Access Keys: Unlocking Hidden Navigation

"Accesskeys can also be useful to people who have no trouble controlling the mouse and clicking on links." (Stuart Robertson - A List Apart) - courtesy of lucdesk

Posted on June 18, 2003 | Permalink

Web Accessibility Learning Modules

"Universal accessibility to the Web means that all people, regardless of their physical or developmental abilities or impairments, have access to Web-based information and services." (CSU Center for Distributed Learning) - courtesy of elearningpost

Posted on June 16, 2003 | Permalink

EuroAccessibility

"(...) to establish a European certification authority for Web Accessibility." - (EuroAccessibility.org) courtesy of logos

Posted on May 16, 2003 | Permalink

User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

"(...) guidelines for designing user agents that lower barriers to Web accessibility for people with disabilities (visual, hearing, physical, cognitive, and neurological)." (W3C)

Posted on October 29, 2002 | Permalink

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0

"(...) design principles for creating accessible Web sites." (W3C)

Posted on October 28, 2002 | Permalink

Auxiliary Benefits of Accessible Web

"This document is one of several resources created to assist the preparation of a business case for the implementation of Web accessibility." (W3C)

Posted on April 03, 2002 | Permalink