Download 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