Designing for Disabled Users

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 ADA – Americans with Disabilities Act 1990 – gives civil rights protections to individuals with disabilities.  Section 508 (1998 amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973)- requires Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Others may be subject to these requirements if they receive Federal funds.

 You want to gain and retain users, so compliance is a good idea.  Opens up a world of possibilities for the disabled population

 A recent Harris Poll found that Americans with disabilities spend twice as much time on the Internet as those without disabilities. The Internet has given many disabled people easy access to news and information, more social interaction, and the ability to comparison shop. They are loyal, repeat customers.  You can earn their business with a few simple techniques that are quick, easy, and don't involve changing your basic page layout.  Source: Thomason, Larisa. "Designing Accessible Web Pages for the Disabled." Designing Accessible Web Pages for the Disabled. Net Mechanic, December

 Visual impairment - total or partial  Color blindness  Mobility issues  Age Related Conditions

 Poor Eyesight  Don’t make the text too small  Use relative font sizes  Color blindness – 10% of males  Do not make your site dependent on colors (i.e. green- go and red-stop)  Use contrasting colors

 Blindness  Meaningful ALT text on all non-trivial images  Use meaningful text for your links (no “click here”)  Do not make your page dependent on images  Provide alternate navigation if site uses imagemaps for navigation  Put a "Skip to main content" link at the top of the page (skip link).  If tabbing through form doesn’t result in logical order, specify tab index in form elements to change the order that tabbing produces  Check your work. Validate. Use tools, checklist, and guidelines at

 WAI (web accessibility initiative) works with organizations around the world to develop strategies, guidelines, and resources to help make the Web accessible to people with disabilities.  What is W3C - The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community where organizations and the public work together to web standards.  protocols  standards  html  css

 Screen readers –NVDA (free download), JAWS  Alternative keyboards -  Braille Displays - dots (pins) can be raised and lowered dynamically to allow any braille characters to be displayed  Screen Magnifier software  Visual alerts – for deaf users

 Blind Navigation Exercise  Turn off the IMAGES in your browser  IE – Tools>Internet Options>Advanced>Multimedia – uncheck “Show pictures”  Chrome – click the three horizontal bars at the upper right>Settings>Show advanced settings>Privacy>Content settings>Do not show any images  Firefox – Tools>Options>Content>uncheck Load images automatically  Go to – What is missing when you turn off images – is this accessible in other ways?