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Accessibility

design42 has experience with W3C and Section 508 accessibility guidelines.

design42 has experience implementing the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) guidelines. These are usability guidelines to provide web site usability for people with disabilities.

In most countries, it is a legal requirement that sites be accessible.

Yes, there actually is at least one case of a successful complaint for not having an accessible web site. Bruce Maguire is a blind person who went to Australia's Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission because the Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games web site was inaccessible to him as a blind person. You can see the details of the case: Bruce Lindsay Maguire v Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games.

Section 508 applies only to US Federal agencies. It provides that electronic and information technology is accessible to people with disabilities.

But that is not the best reason to have a compliant site.

What's in it for my business?

Increase Market Share and Audience Reach

Everybody benefits when your site is accessible and usable. The same guidelines that make your site accessible for those with disabilities, really enhances usability for all of your potential customers. And the proportion of people with disabilities can range up to 20 percent in some populations. Do you really want to alienate 20 percent of your potential customers?

And, potentially even more importantly, following these guidelines improves search engine listing and ranking. Search engines see text. If your site content is not searchable. It is not findable. Following these guidelines significantly increases your findability. If someone is looking for what you sell, can they find you?

How can we help your business? sales@design42.com

Jump to more about W3C and the Web Accessibility Initiative
(WAI) >>

Jump to more about the US Department of Justice's Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act implementation >>

There are many accessibility evaluation tools available.

Click to go to the Bobby Website Bobby

Click to go to the LIFT Website LIFT

Click to go to the WebKing Website
WebKing

 

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What is W3C?

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international organization that develops specifications, guidelines, software, and tools for the Internet. It was created in October 1994 to lead the World Wide Web to to develop common protocols for the web. W3C has offices worldwide.

The World Wide Web Consortium was founded by Tim Berners-Lee at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Laboratory for Computer Science [MIT/LCS] in collaboration with CERN with support from DARPA and the European Commission.

The Web has evolved at an unbelievable rate. The World Wide Web Consortium guidelines have helped to provide consistency and usability.

The W3C site says: "The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), is pursuing accessibility of the Web through five primary areas of work: technology, guidelines, tools, education and outreach, and research and development." You can get more information here: www.w3.org/WAI/.

W3C's long term goals for the Web are:

Universal Access: To make the Web accessible to all by promoting technologies that take into account the vast differences in culture, languages, education, ability, material resources, access devices, and physical limitations of users on all continents.

Semantic Web: To develop a software environment that permits each user to make the best use of the resources available on the Web.

Web of Trust: To guide the Web's development with careful consideration for the novel legal, commercial, and social issues raised by this technology.

 

For more information, visit www.w3.org/Consortium/

W3C Design Principles of the Web

The Web is an application built on top of the Internet and, as such, has inherited its fundamental design principles.

Interoperability: Specifications for the Web's languages and protocols must be compatible with one another and allow (any) hardware and software used to access the Web to work together.

Evolution: The Web must be able to accommodate future technologies. Design principles such as simplicity, modularity, and extensibility will increase the chances that the Web will work with emerging technologies such as mobile Web devices and digital television, as well as others to come.

Decentralization: Decentralization is without a doubt the newest principle and most difficult to apply. To allow the Web to "scale" to worldwide proportions while resisting errors and breakdowns, the architecture (like the Internet) must limit or eliminate dependencies on central registries.

These principles guide the work carried out within W3C Activities.

 

Get your site checked for the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) WAI Accessibility guidelines at Bobby >>

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World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) WAI Accessibility Checklist.

You can reach it on there web site here: www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/full-checklist.html

In General (Priority 1)

1.1 Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element (e.g., via "alt", "longdesc", or in element content). This includes: images, graphical representations of text (including symbols), image map regions, animations (e.g., animated GIFs), applets and programmatic objects, ascii art, frames, scripts, images used as list bullets, spacers, graphical buttons, sounds (played with or without user interaction), stand-alone audio files, audio tracks of video, and video.

2.1 Ensure that all information conveyed with color is also available without color, for example from context or markup.

4.1 Clearly identify changes in the natural language of a document's text and any text equivalents (e.g., captions).

6.1 Organize documents so they may be read without style sheets. For example, when an HTML document is rendered without associated style sheets, it must still be possible to read the document.

6.2 Ensure that equivalents for dynamic content are updated when the dynamic content changes.

7.1 Until user agents allow users to control flickering, avoid causing the screen to flicker.

14.1 Use the clearest and simplest language appropriate for a site's content.

And if you use images and image maps (Priority 1)

1.2 Provide redundant text links for each active region of a server-side image map.

9.1 Provide client-side image maps instead of server-side image maps except where the regions cannot be defined with an available geometric shape.

And if you use tables (Priority 1)

5.1 For data tables, identify row and column headers.

5.2 For data tables that have two or more logical levels of row or column headers, use markup to associate data cells and header cells.

And if you use frames (Priority 1)

12.1 Title each frame to facilitate frame identification and navigation.

And if you use applets and scripts (Priority 1)

6.3 Ensure that pages are usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported. If this is not possible, provide equivalent information on an alternative accessible page.

And if you use multimedia (Priority 1)

1.3 Until user agents can automatically read aloud the text equivalent of a visual track, provide an auditory description of the important information of the visual track of a multimedia presentation.

1.4 For any time-based multimedia presentation (e.g., a movie or animation), synchronize equivalent alternatives (e.g., captions or auditory descriptions of the visual track) with the presentation.

And if all else fails (Priority 1)

11.4 If, after best efforts, you cannot create an accessible page, provide a link to an alternative page that uses W3C technologies, is accessible, has equivalent information (or functionality), and is updated as often as the inaccessible (original) page.

In General (Priority 2)

  • Ensure that foreground and background color combinations provide sufficient contrast when viewed by someone having color deficits or when viewed on a black and white screen. [Priority 2 for images, Priority 3 for text].
  • When an appropriate markup language exists, use markup rather than images to convey information.
  • Create documents that validate to published formal grammars.
  • Use style sheets to control layout and presentation.
  • Use relative rather than absolute units in markup language attribute values and style sheet property values.
  • Use header elements to convey document structure and use them according to specification.
  • Mark up lists and list items properly.
  • Mark up quotations. Do not use quotation markup for formatting effects such as indentation.
  • Ensure that dynamic content is accessible or provide an alternative presentation or page.
  • Until user agents allow users to control blinking, avoid causing content to blink (i.e., change presentation at a regular rate, such as turning on and off).
  • Until user agents provide the ability to stop the refresh, do not create periodically auto-refreshing pages.
  • Until user agents provide the ability to stop auto-redirect, do not use markup to redirect pages automatically. Instead, configure the server to perform redirects.
  • Until user agents allow users to turn off spawned windows, do not cause pop-ups or other windows to appear and do not change the current window without informing the user.
  • Use W3C technologies when they are available and appropriate for a task and use the latest versions when supported.
  • Avoid deprecated features of W3C technologies.
  • Divide large blocks of information into more manageable groups where natural and appropriate.
  • Clearly identify the target of each link.
  • Provide metadata to add semantic information to pages and sites.
  • Provide information about the general layout of a site (e.g., a site map or table of contents).
  • Use navigation mechanisms in a consistent manner.

And if you use tables (Priority 2)

  • Do not use tables for layout unless the table makes sense when linearized. Otherwise, if the table does not make sense, provide an alternative equivalent (which may be a linearized version).
  • If a table is used for layout, do not use any structural markup for the purpose of visual formatting.

And if you use frames (Priority 2)

  • Describe the purpose of frames and how frames relate to each other if it is not obvious by frame titles alone.

And if you use forms (Priority 2)

  • Until user agents support explicit associations between labels and form controls, for all form controls with implicitly associated labels, ensure that the label is properly positioned.
  • Associate labels explicitly with their controls.

And if you use applets and scripts (Priority 2)

  • For scripts and applets, ensure that event handlers are input device-independent.
  • Until user agents allow users to freeze moving content, avoid movement in pages.
  • Make programmatic elements such as scripts and applets directly accessible or compatible with assistive technologies [Priority 1 if functionality is important and not presented elsewhere, otherwise Priority 2.]
  • Ensure that any element that has its own interface can be operated in a device-independent manner.
  • For scripts, specify logical event handlers rather than device-dependent event handlers.

In General (Priority 3)

  • Specify the expansion of each abbreviation or acronym in a document where it first occurs.
  • Identify the primary natural language of a document.
  • Create a logical tab order through links, form controls, and objects.
  • Provide keyboard shortcuts to important links (including those in client-side image maps), form controls, and groups of form controls.
  • Until user agents (including assistive technologies) render adjacent links distinctly, include non-link, printable characters (surrounded by spaces) between adjacent links.
  • Provide information so that users may receive documents according to their preferences (e.g., language, content type, etc.)
  • Provide navigation bars to highlight and give access to the navigation mechanism.
  • Group related links, identify the group (for user agents), and, until user agents do so, provide a way to bypass the group.
  • If search functions are provided, enable different types of searches for different skill levels and preferences.
  • Place distinguishing information at the beginning of headings, paragraphs, lists, etc.
  • Provide information about document collections (i.e., documents comprising multiple pages.).
  • Provide a means to skip over multi-line ASCII art.
  • Supplement text with graphic or auditory presentations where they will facilitate comprehension of the page.
  • Create a style of presentation that is consistent across pages.

And if you use images and image maps (Priority 3)

  • Until user agents render text equivalents for client-side image map links, provide redundant text links for each active region of a client-side image map.

And if you use tables (Priority 3)

  • Provide summaries for tables.
  • Provide abbreviations for header labels.
  • Until user agents (including assistive technologies) render side-by-side text correctly, provide a linear text alternative (on the current page or some other) for all tables that lay out text in parallel, word-wrapped columns.

And if you use forms (Priority 3)

  • Until user agents handle empty controls correctly, include default, place-holding characters in edit boxes and text areas.

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US Department of Justice's Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act

The Section 508 site is here: www.section508.gov/

In 1998, the Rehabilitation Act was amended by the US Congress to require all Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities.

Inaccessible technology interferes with an individual's ability to obtain and use information quickly and easily.

Section 508 was enacted to eliminate barriers in information technology, to make available new opportunities for people with disabilities, and to encourage development of technologies that will help achieve these goals.

The law applies to all Federal agencies when they develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology.

Under Section 508 (29 U.S.C. ‘ 794d), agencies must give disabled employees and members of the public access to information that is comparable to the access available to others.

A Summary of Section 508 Standards can be found here:
www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=11

The complete Section 508 Standards can be found here:
www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=12

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