Designing for Accessibility
Posted in Design and Knowledge Base 3 years, 11 months ago at 4:08 pm
Readings
- An Introduction to Accessibility
on the Web - Macromedia Training Cafe
- The Unusually Useful Web Book
- June Cohen. New Riders. 2003.
- Pages 182 to 183.
- 250 HTML and Web Design Secrets
- Molly E Holzschlag. Wiley Publishing. 2004.
- Page 3, 243, 246 and 267.
- What’s All This Talk About Web Accessibility, Part 1: Inside Adaptive Technology
- Lisa Jahred. New Riders. Dec 21, 2001
- EM vs. Pixel and why EM is better
- Ruben at Astahost left this indepth explanation.
If you want all visitors to your site to immediately get your message and act on it, then it’s important to design the site so they can all see it, hear it, navigate through it, and participate in it. Therefore ensure that:
- The color contrast is suitable for poor eyesight and the color blind.
- Even a visitor with good eyesight can have trouble seeing your links and text if the contrast, size, and and weight of the font is too light, too dark, too small, or too faint.
- All images have alternative text or longer descriptions above, below, or in a separate file linked from "long description".
- Placeholder and spacer images use the<empty> description so the screen readers will not have to read it.
- Changes in windows, such as popups, are obvious.
- Provide a note that warns the user that a link opens in a new window.
- The tab key moves the visitors focus in the most logical order on the page, in tables, in forms, and in frames.
- Frames and content in the frames are included in the tab order.
- The submit and reset/cancel buttons are tab key and return key accessible.
- Skip navigation is implemented to allow those listening with a screen reader to skip over the navigation each time they get to a new page.
- Alternatives for interactive media are provided.
- Detailed descriptions of embedded media are provided, so the visitor knows how long a file will play, what plugins are required, and how to adjust sound level.
- Transcriptions for audio files are highly recommended.
- Instructions are provided for any interactions.
- Detailed descriptions of embedded media are provided, so the visitor knows how long a file will play, what plugins are required, and how to adjust sound level.