June 21, 2001
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Transcript June 21, 2001
June 21,
2001
(are you ready?)
Web Design
for the Visually Impaired
Compliance with Section 508 of the
Rehabilitation Act Amendments,
1998
Americans with Disabilities Act
1990 Law ensures equal opportunity for
persons with disabilities in employment,
State and local government services,
public accommodations, commercial
facilities, and transportation
Section 508 of the 1998 Rehabilitaion Act
Amendment requires standards for
information technology under ADA.
Rehabilitation Act Amendments
Sets standards for access to
information technology by the
disabled.
Applicable to government agencies and
organizations which prepare info for
the U.S. government.
Prepare anyway! Sooner or later, the
standards will be extended under ADA
Section 508 Requirements
Disabled individuals must have
comparable access to information as
the non-disabled do. Few exceptions.
Standards apply to computers,
software, operating systems, and the
techniques of presentation of
information, such as Internet and
Intranet web pages.
Focusing on the Web
How do visually impaired and blind
access the web?
What can we, responsible for web
development, do to ensure good
compliance?
Two Approaches
Develop alternate sets of materials
Develop materials which are adaptable
Visually Impaired
Those with partial vision
The colorblind
The dyslexic
Those susceptible to seizures
Visually Impaired
For partial vision, make text resizable
without L-R scrolling. Design for it.
Test it.
For colorblind, avoid passing
information through color alone.
Underline links.
For dyslexic, best assisted by readers
For seizure susceptible, avoid blink
rates between 2 and 55 cycles per
second.
The Blind
Two modes: text to braille and text to
speech
Software: JAWS, Connect Outloud,
Outspoken (Mac), PW Webspeak,
Reader software varies in capabilities.
The best will announce links, headers,
table structure, frame structure, etc., as
it reads the text and your descriptions!
Blind Navigation
Can you navigate a complex web page
without touching a mouse?
Consider navigation of frames, tables,
ads, long header menus, pop-ups, etc.
Keystrokes can select next and
previous link, jump to top or bottom of
page, shift frames, close a window,
stop reading, restart reading, etc.
Learn, design for it.
Graphics
Make sure ALL graphics have alt=""
parameters.
Explain the purpose thoroughly in alts
Purely decorative graphics should use
alt="" with no content between quotes
Avoid all color cues and graphical cues
(image maps). Think it through.
Links
Make sure the link text is thoroughly
descriptive.
Avoid "click here" links. (The blind
can skip from link to link.)
Provide links at the top to skip over
long repeated navigational link series
(pages are revisited frequently).
Image maps MUST have alternate
menus.
Underline links!
Tables
Readers describe table structure.
Always use <TH> tags where
applicable, both for columns and rows.
Never omit your closing </TR>,
</TH>, and </TD> tags
Generally, use percentages, not pixels
Testing Your Pages
WAVE 2.01, Pennsylvania's Initiative
on Assistive Technology
Bobby, Center for Applied Special
Technology
Forms
Is everything well labeled?
Planning for Compliance
What are your priorities?
Inventory your problems.
Always put yourself in the shoes of the
disabled
Create a plan
Do the most important things first.
Do it right the first time.
Links to Disability Resources
www.walthowe.com/disabilitylinks.html