Disability Friendly

[michéal]

I am interested in creating a website completely accessible for people with disabilities regarding visionly impaired etc. I need to know exactly how to set up the pages and to navigate around the site.

 

Michéal

[bellringr]

I came up with this handy-looking link on Google:

 

ht*p://nadc.ucla.edu/dawpi.htm

[LisaJill]

You might be interested in section 508 useaility

 

and this site checker so you can see what your site looks to the color lind visicheck.

 

 

In addition to Section 508 you can get a VERY in depth, free report on site content accessiility here.

 

If you follow those guidelines when building your site you'll e off to a good start. =)

[TCH-Thomas]

W3C: How People with Disabilities Use the Web might be helpfull too.

[michéal]

thanks must get reading and learning all the info.

 

One question, what is the best way of navigation around a site, say with different areas and different categories keeping disability in mind. would it be by javascripts or are they others, like with drop down boxes but I dont think there are accessible.

 

Once again thanks

[LisaJill]

If you are worried about accessibility avoid javascript and use lots of plain text links, much better especially if someone is using a screen reader etc. You don't say what disabilities you're targetting so in general try to keep it simple.

[TCH-Thomas]

Dont forget alt tags.

Also, this site seems to have lots of info.

[michéal]

Lisa, it is mainly all people with disabilities, especially the visionally impaired who the need the screen readers.

 

Just after reading some of the information, avoid tables if possible, what about style sheet layouts, are they okay.

 

 

 

Jikrantz just checked out "this site" it uses tables and javascript does'nt that defeat the purpose of what is trying to do.

 

 

Again thank you all for your help

[cak]

JavaScript is not evil; it depends on the usage. If you utilize JavaScript to deliver content or for any important functionality (navigation), provide a textual equivalent. Like Lisa said, text links are ideal. Avoid Java applet navigation and links.

 

One of the most important steps you can take for blind/vision-impaired visitors is to provide a meaningful textual equivalent (alt attribute) for ALL your images. This is not necessarily a description of the image. In many instances, you'll want to express the image's function or the information it conveys. Use null alternative text (alt="") for purely decorative or spacer images.

 

Document structure is very important. Many screen readers can extract heading information (h1-h6), allowing users to skim a page without reading every word.

 

Joe Clark's excellent (and free ) book on Web accessibility can be found here:

ht*p://www.joeclark.org/book/

 

HTH,

Carol

[TCH-Thomas]

Jikrantz just checked out "this site" it uses tables and javascript does'nt that defeat the purpose of what is trying to do.

I didnt say that the site was built in a specially good way. I was just saying that it looks to have good info, like this one:

8. Are alternatives offered for JavaScript, applets, Flash or plug-ins?

If you are writing pages in anything other than HTML, you may be excluding some people from your site.

[TCH-Don]

Here is a site with many links to tools and articles about Usability

usabilityinfo.com