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 tags where applicable, both for columns and rows.  Never omit your closing,, and 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