Americans with Disabilities Act Ms. Sam Wainford

Outline  History and basis for ADA  ADA requirements  How the ADA applies to web sites  Use of color in web site design Americans with Disabilities Act.ppt 2

History and Basis for ADA  ADA was signed into law in 1991  Became law in 1992  Purpose : ensures equal opportunity for persons with disabilities in employment, state and local government services, businesses that are public accommodations, in transportation  Americans with Disabilities Act.ppt 3

ADA  Fundamentally, it prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in everyday activities Americans with Disabilities Act.ppt 4

ADA Requirements  Businesses that serve the public must:  Modify policies and practices that discriminate against people with disabilities  Comply with accessible design standards  Remove barriers in existing facilities  Provide auxiliary aids and services Americans with Disabilities Act.ppt 5

ADA Requirements  All businesses must comply with accessible design standards when constructing or altering facilities Americans with Disabilities Act.ppt 6

ADA and the WWW  How does it apply?  Guidelines:  W3C Accessibility Initiative W3C Accessibility Initiative  WebAIM Section 508 Checklist WebAIM Section 508 Checklist Americans with Disabilities Act.ppt 7

ADA and Web Sites  Requires reasonable accommodations  This includes ability to read a web site easily:  Internally - by law  Externally - by law and good idea  Organizations that accept federal funds are required to meet Section 508 standards  Accessibility improves Usability for all. Americans with Disabilities Act.ppt 8

W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines  Perceivable  Operable  Understandable  Robust Americans with Disabilities Act.ppt 9

Perceivable  Provide text alternatives for non-text content.  Provide captions and other alternatives for multimedia.  Create content that can be presented in different ways, including by assistive technologies, without losing meaning.  Make it easier for users to see and hear content. Americans with Disabilities Act.ppt 10

 Make all functionality available from a keyboard.  Give users enough time to read and use content.  Do not use content that causes seizures.  Help users navigate and find content. Americans with Disabilities Act.ppt 11 Operable

Understandable  Make text readable and understandable.  Make content appear and operate in predictable ways.  Help users avoid and correct mistakes. Americans with Disabilities Act.ppt 12

Robust  Maximize compatibility with current and future user tools. How will HTML5 affect Accessibility? Americans with Disabilities Act.ppt 13

Accessibility Best Practices  If images, Flash, or DHTML is the main navigation, clear text links are in the footer section of the page  Navigation is structured in an unordered list  Navigation aids, such as site map, skip navigation link, or breadcrumbs are used  Color is not used alone to convey meaning  Image tags use the alt attribute to configure alternate text to display if the browser or user agent does not support images  If graphics and/or media is used to convey meaning, the alternate text equivalent of the content is provided Americans with Disabilities Act.ppt 14

Accessibility Best Practices (continued)  Captions are provided for each audio or video file used  Use attributes designed to improve accessibility such as title and summary when appropriate  Use the id and headers attributes to improve the accessibility of table data  If the site uses frames, use frame titles and place meaningful content in the noframes area  To assist screen readers configure the html element's lang and xml:lang attribute to indicate the spoken language of the page. Americans with Disabilities Act.ppt 15

What is Color Blindness?  Often think of color blindness of not being able to see color at all.  Only a small fraction of people have this problem  More common is the inability to see certain colors Americans with Disabilities Act.ppt 16

Color Blindness  Deuteranope - red/green color deficit  Protanope - another red/green color deficit  Tritanope - blue/yellow deficit Americans with Disabilities Act.ppt 17

Causes of Color Blindness  What causes color blindness?  Hereditary  Age  Medicine  Cataracts  Who is most likely to be color blind?  Color blindness is sexist!  Men are 20 times more likely to be color blind than women. ~10% of men Americans with Disabilities Act.ppt 18

Example Let’s Pick Strawberries Americans with Disabilities Act.ppt 19

Test for Color-Blindness  Ishihara Test for Color Blindness Ishihara Test for Color Blindness  tests/ishihara-colour-test-plates/ tests/ishihara-colour-test-plates/  tests/colour-arrangement-test/ tests/colour-arrangement-test/  Americans with Disabilities Act.ppt 20

Other Issues with Color  Saturated colors can cause problems  Eye cannot focus on two saturated colors at the same time  Result text can appear to float on background  Can be visually tiring  Reference: Other Color Design GuidelinesOther Color Design Guidelines    ColorWizard Generate GREAT color schemes ColorWizard  Americans with Disabilities Act.ppt 21

Web Color Solutions  How to Test Your Web Site  ColorWizard Auto-Generate GREAT color schemes for your website: ColorWizard  Americans with Disabilities Act.ppt 22