WANAU: Web Accessibility Network for Australian Universities
Design guidelines and techniques
Guidelines
Techniques
- Accessible forms
This document is concerned with what the user of a website form "sees" and interacts with. It outlines how you can create forms for the web that are more accessible and describes the appropriate use of label, fieldset and tabindex elements.
- Accesskeys and reserved keystroke combinations
In a non-scientific study conducted in the summer of 2002, we researched the availability of available accesskeys which had not already been reserved by various other software technologies which might be employed by various users. The results indicated a real problem in that most ALT + keystroke combinations (assuming the Windows operating platform) have already been reserved by one type of application or another.
- Accesskeys: unlocking hidden navigation
People with limited mobility may have a hard time controlling a mouse to click on links, and tabbing through menus can be slow going. The W3C introduced the accesskey attribute to enable users to select the appropriate key on their keyboards and navigate to a particular link.
- 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.
- CSS in Action: Invisible Content Just for Screen Reader Users
Though somewhat rare, there are occasions when the accessibility needs of screen reader users appear to be at odds with the needs of visual users. This kind of conflict occurs when web developers put form elements inside a data table matrix, when they want to use images as headings instead of text, and in other situations. Adding extra text helps screen reader users, but can complicate the visual layout, thus reducing understandability. One solution is to use CSS to hide the text from sighted users in a way that is still accessible to screen readers.
- Best practices for online captioning
Joe Clark has written 21 chapters on the topic of best practices in online captioning. Among many other things, you'll find: a list of every known method of using embed and/or object with valid code; illustrated examples; a host of guidelines on how to handle exceptional cases (how do you caption a videoclip that's also audio-described?).
- Bring on the tables
Do your best to avoid using tables for layout, but for tabular data, tables are what you should use. I'd like to talk about how tables should be used when marking up tabular data. There's a lot more to tables in HTML and XHTML than just rows and cells. Much more. Especially if you want to make them accessible.
- Contradictions in accessibility: hidden information
Many of the techniques we employ as developers to make our web sites more accessible result in hidden information that may only make them more accessible to a small portion of users rather than more accessible to everyone.
- Creating accessible JavaScript
JavaScript allows developers to add interaction and processing functionality to otherwise static web pages. Though commonly used, JavaScript introduces some very unique and challenging accessibility issues. This article presents an overview of JavaScript accessibility as well as advanced techniques and examples of how JavaScript can be used and made natively accessible.
- Designing web content for people with learning disabilities
Learning disabilities, incorporate a wide variation of memory, perception, problem-solving, and conceptualising problems. Some impairments in this category are severe and have a can have significant effect on the person's ability. Impairment can also be developed with the ageing process.
- Don't 'click here': writing meaningful link text
Using "click here" as link text should be avoided as it makes navigating the web difficult for both sighted and unsighted users.
- Easy Read and other advice about writing for people with learning disabilities
"For a long while now, I've been worrying about how to design forms for people with learning disabilities. It's not been a pressing problem because frankly, a lot of the forms that I work with don't even work for people with post-graduate degrees and specific training in the subject area of the form. But recently I've noticed a trend: sometimes I come across a form that's really not too bad. So I'm increasingly thinking about how to make forms more accessible--and that's restarted an interest in learning disabilities."
(Caroline Jarrett)
- Creating Accessible Flash Content
"Despite the ability of Flash to create highly accessible content, there are some major issues you must be aware of regarding Flash and accessibility."
- Guidelines for accessible and usable web sites: observing users who work with screen readers
"To truly meet the needs of all users, it is not enough to have guidelines that are based on technology. It is also necessary to understand the users and how they work with their tools. For example, just realizing that vision-impaired users do not listen to the entire page is critical for designing usable pages for them. In this paper, we have developed guidelines for bringing accessibility and usability together based on observing, listening to, and talking with blind users as they work with Web sites and their screen readers."
(Mary Theofanos, Ginny Redish)
- Inaccessibility of CAPTCHA
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.
- Making Flash usable for users with disabilities
Jakob Nielsen advises that Flash designs are easier for users with disabilities to use when designers combine visual and textual presentations, minimise incessant movement, decrease spacing between related objects, and simplify features.
- Making it accessible: a look at weighted lists
"Most implementations of weighted lists that I've seen rely on visual styling to convey the information. This means that it won't be accessible, and it doesn't degrade gracefully. A screen reader user will not be able to get at the information--it is entirely contained within the visual rendering of the document, with no other means of getting the information."
(Derek Featherstone)
- On scalable text
In order to provide scalable text, make textual information text (rather than images), and use relative text sizes (rather than absolute). Scalable text is important for people with low vision. The basics of providing scalable text are very simple. However, strict design requests can pose challenges.
- Readability and its implications for web content accessibility
One area of accessibility often overlooked is the readability of the content of your web pages. Not every user may be familiar with terms or terminology being used. Others may not have the same socio-political background, literacy skills or capacity to fully comprehend what it is you are saying. One goal of the content author then is to try and identify their target audience, and then ensures that they are not "writing over their heads".
- Relative sizing and images
Few people realise that with today's modern browsers, relative sizing can be added to images as well as text elements on your web page.
- Skip links
"Skip links are an accessibility feature to help visitors navigate their way around a document. Ask two different developers on how best to implement skip links, and you'll very likely receive two different replies. Some people like visible skip links, others like hidden skip links, and some people don't like skip links at all. This article examines the different approaches of implementing skip links."
(Gez Lemon)
- Skip navigation links
This is an analysis/study of techniques for "skip navigation" links--links that allow users who cannot use a mouse, to jump over repeated navigation blocks to access page content.
- Using accesskeys is easy
Quite a few web developers still get a glint of terror in their eyes when someone suggests they add accesskeys to their sites. Well, don't be scared. This article is very short for a very good reason. If you want to use them, accesskeys are so easy to add, you'll wonder why you never did before.
- Using accesskeys: is it worth it?
The HTML4 feature known as ACCESSKEY is a navigational enhancement that allows you to jump to an active element (such as a form control or a link) on a page with a single keystroke.
- Web accessibility for screen magnifier users
"The needs of screen magnifier users are overlooked when implementing web accessibility on to a website. Screen magnifiers are used by partially sighted web users to increase the size of on-screen elements. Some users will magnify the screen so that only three to four words are able to appear on the screen at any one time. The good news is that some of the basic principles for improving accessibility and usability for screen magnifiers users, also increase usability for everyone. To help, we've listed six ways to improve accessibility and usability for screen magnifier users."
(Trenton Moss)
Tutorials
- Accessibility techniques and concepts
A series of articles from WebAIM on a range of topics from markup to multimedia.
- Curriculum on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
Extensive online curriculum that explains and gives examples for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Can be used as a self-study material or for presentations to groups.
- How to Make Accessible Web Content Using FrontPage
FrontPage is one of the most popular HTML editors on the market. Just like every tool, FrontPage does have its weaknesses. Despite some of these shortcomings, it is definitely possible to create accessible Web pages in FrontPage, often without leaving the WYSIWYG environment.
(Jon Whiting).