Planning an Accessible Website:Beyond Alt TagsStephanie M. RandolphSchool of Health, Physical Education, and RecreationIndiana University

Session Outline

Section 508 WCAG 1.0 Resources

Section 508 1998 Amendment to the

Rehabilitation Act Federal agencies are required to

make their electronic and information technology accessible to employees and the public

Criteria for web-based applications based on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

What are the guidelines for evaluating accessibility? Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Current version 1.0 2.0 due out soon WCAG 1.0 versus WCAG 2.0

Applies more broadly to different technologies

More comprehensive Testable Organized differently (guidelines and

checkpoints versus principles and success criteria)

If you conform to 1.0, you will probably conform to 2.0

Guidelines 1 and 2

1. Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content Be as descriptive but succinct as

possible

Caption video and multi-media

2. Don’t rely on color alone Provide sufficient color contrastNot So Good – Our school is the best in the nation.Good – Our school is the best in the nation.

Not So Good – wedding photoGood – a bride feeds wedding cake to the groom

Guideline 3 and 4

3. Pages should be readable without a style sheet Separate structure from

presentation HTML and CSS

4. Clarify natural language usage Identify primary language – EN

Guideline 5 and 6

5. Create tables that transform gracefully Avoid using tables for layouts Identify row and column headers

<TH id="header1"> and <TD headers="header1">

6. Ensure that pages featuring new technologies can work in older browsers or for people who choose to turn off features

Guideline 7 and 8

7. Ensure user control of time-sensitive content changes Avoid screen flicker, scrolling and

text blink

8. Ensure direct accessibility of embedded user interfaces Javascripts and applets

Guideline 9 and 10

9. Design for device-independence Tab indexes and access keys

10. Use interim solutions No pop-ups or new windows

without alerting user Don’t use auto refresh

Guideline 11 and 12

11. Use W3C technologies and guidelines HTML, XHTML and XML for structure CSS and XSL for style Avoid deprecated tags

12. Provide context and orientation information Identify frames (or don’t use them) Group blocks of information

appropriately

Guideline 13 and 14

13. Provide clear navigation mechanisms

Site map, understandable navigation, skip over navigation

14. Ensure that documents are clear and simple

Simple language and grammar

Not So Good – for a description of our program, click hereGood – for a description of our program, please visit our program info page.

Resources Web Accessibility

Web Accessibility Initiative (http://www.w3.org/WAI/) WebAIM (http://www.webaim.org/) Accessibility Forum (http://

www.accessibilityforum.org/) Dive Into Accessibility (http://

diveintoaccessibility.org/) Web Axe (http://webaxe.blogspot.com/)

Section 508 Section508.gov (http://www.section508.gov)

Validation Tools Accessify.com (http://accessify.com/tools-and-

wizards/) Watchfire (http://webxact.watchfire.com/) ATRC Web Accessibility Checker (http://

checker.atrc.utoronto.ca/index.html) Hermish (http://www.hermish.com/) Cynthia Says (http://www.cynthiasays.com/) Anybrowser.com

(http://www.anybrowser.com/siteviewer.html)

Resources Browsers

Lynx (http://www.vordweb.co.uk/standards/download_lynx.htm)

JAWS (http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_products/software_jaws.asp)

Opera (http://www.opera.com/) Other

Colorblind Web Page Filter (http://colorfilter.wickline.org/)

Using Opera to check accessibility (http://www.webaim.org/resources/opera/)

Magpie (http://ncam.wgbh.org/webaccess/magpie/) Adobe Accessibility Resource Center

(http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/) Web developer toolbar

(http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/) Flash (http://www.webaim.org/techniques/flash/)