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How To Make Your Website Accessible
Here is a checklist
you can use, to determine if your Website is as accessible
as it could be.
In 1990, the Americans
with Disabilities Act was passed by Congress. The law
was designed to protect people with disabilities from
being discriminated against, because of a physical or
mental disability. The act was put into place to help
guarantee equal opportunity for people with disabilities
in any public area – and it covers regulations
for employment, transportation, state and local government
services, telecommunications, etc.
But what about your Website? Have you
done all you can, to assure that your Website is accessible?
Here is a checklist you can use, to
determine if your Website is as accessible as it could
be. (Note: These actions vary from fairly simple to
complex, and this list is not meant to be considered
the only options or actions you can take to make your
site more accessible).
1. Have you provided a text equivalent
for every non-text element on your site? Non-text elements
include: images, graphical representations of text (including
symbols), animations (including animated GIFs), image
map areas, programmatic objects and applets, ASCII art,
scripts, spacers, frames, images used for list bullets,
buttons, sounds (whether automatic or by user interaction),
video, audio tracks of video and stand alone audio files.
2. Have you ensured that any information
conveyed with color is also available without it?
3. Are changes in the natural language
of all pages on your Website and any text equivalents
(such as captions) clearly identified?
4. Are all documents on your Website
organized so that they can be read without style sheets?
5. Do you update all equivalents for
dynamic content every time you update the dynamic content
itself?
6. Have you eliminated any special effects
from your Website that cause the screen to flicker?
7. Are you using clear and simple language
in all content placed on your Website?
8. If you use images and image maps,
are you providing redundant text links for each active
region of your server-side image map?
9. If you use images and image maps,
are you providing client-side image maps (instead of
server-side) whenever possible?
10. When using data tables, have you
identified the row and column headers?
11. If you use frames, have you titled
each frame to make it easier for users to navigate your
site and identify the frames?
12. When using applets and scripts,
have you made sure that the pages are useable when all
programmatic objects are not supported, or turned off?
(If that isn’t possible, have you provided the
information on an alternative accessible page?)
13. When using multimedia, have you
provided an auditory description of the most important
visual information on a multimedia presentation?
14. When using any time-based multimedia
presentation (such as a movie or animation), have you
synchronized the equivalent alternatives such as captions
or auditory descriptions of the visual track to the
presentation?
15. Have you made sure that the background
and foreground colors on your Website have enough contrast
so that when someone with a color deficit looks at it
(or your Website is viewed with a black and white screen)
they can still read it clearly?
16. Have you clearly identified the
target of each link?
17. Have you provided a place to get
information about your site, either through the use
of a site map, or table of contents?
18. Have you clearly identified the
primary language of your Website?
19. Have you provided information so
that users can choose how they want to receive documents
– by content type, language, etc.)?
20. Have you provided summaries for
all the tables on your site?
Here are some simple steps you can take
that don’t require much work or technical ability:
Graphs and Charts:
When working with graphs and charts, make sure you’ve
provided enough information that any graphs or charts
aren’t needed to understand the article, but are
just supplements to it. You can also use the “alt”
tag to provide information about them.
Image Maps:
Provide alternative text anywhere that the user must
click on your Website, so that if they’ve turned
off the graphics, or can’t view them, they can
still understand what your site is about and can navigate
around it. (Note: This method still doesn’t work
with all browsers, but at least you’re trying!)
Tables:
When working with headers, use the “th”
attribute so that users with a visual impairment can
hear the table headers from their screen reader.
Hypertext Links:
When using hypertext links, use text
that will make sense when a screen reader reads allowed
to a visually impaired user.
Bold Face
When writing your sales copy, use the
“em” instead of the “b” tag. By
using the emphasis tag, a screen reader’s tone
will change, adding emphasis to what is on the screen.
If you use a bold tag, the screen reader can’t
recognize the change, and all of the copy will be read
in the same tone.
Multimedia (Video, applets, and Plug-ins):
Try and provide alternatives when using
multimedia. If you’re using streaming video for
example, which has sounds or dialog, your two best options
would be to either provide closed-captioning for the
video or provide a text version for the dialogue. (This
actually helps non-visually impaired viewers who have
dial up instead of DSL, or for the times when the amateur
video sound quality is poor.
When you use applets or plug-ins, look
for alternative methods of presenting information such
as text links, without relying on the applet or plug-in
for navigating around your Webpages.
So, how do you know if your Website
meets the accessibility guidelines?
You can use the Bobby Program. “Bobby”
is a free Java-based program that searches through your
Website to check its accessibility. Although it can’t
analyze page content, it can analyze coding and the
readability of your Website.
If you’re interested in finding
out how accessible your Website is already considered
to be, you can go to: http://webxact.watchfire.com/
WebXACT is a free online service that
lets you test single pages of web content for quality,
accessibility, and privacy issues.
If you’re interested in learning
more about web accessibility, or you know someone who
needs information or access to resources for a disability,
you can get more information from the following links:
http://www.gatech.edu/accessibility/
AWARE: Accessible Web Authoring Resources & Education
http://www.awarecenter.org/
Bobby Version 3.2
http://www.cast.org/bobby/
CSS2 Tutorial
http://www.dynamicdeezign.com/css/introduction.html
IBM Accessibility Center
http://www-3.ibm.com/able/
IBM: Java Accessibility
http://www-3.ibm.com/able/accessjava.html
Is YOUR Website Accessible?
http://www.janejarrow.com/tv_station/webaccess/
WAI (Website Accessibility Initiative)
http://www.w3.org/WAI/
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