- From: Stella O'Brien <smo-brien@lioness.demon.co.uk>
- Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 18:20:44 +0000
- To: WAI Education and Outreach <w3c-wai-eo@w3.org>
Title: Basic Guide to Accessible Web Design Author: Stella O'Brien Version: 1.1 Status: Draft Date last modified: 12th August 1998 Word count (excluding document information): <350 Maximise your audience. Make sure your web site communicates effectively even with the graphics, sounds, and moving images, turned off. Supply text versions of visuals. Well written text alternatives communicate the content or purpose of a picture or display to people who can not see them. Provide access to audio-visual materials. Create text transcriptions and descriptions of audio and visual material. Important auditory and visual information is now available to users who have partial or no access to the original material. Make text easy to read for users with vision impairments. Keep the background simple and use a high contrast colour for the text. Make pages easy to scan. Users scan pages to pick out interesting material quickly and easily. Similarly, users scan a speech output to listen for cues to relevant information. Provide an organised framework of summaries, headings, and lists to aid scanning for all users. Make the main text clear, short, and relevant. Provide easy navigation and links. Users need constant, easy access to an appropriate version of a site map and information about their current position. Users need to have a clear idea of the content of a link, and where it will take them. Allow alternative input for people who can not use a mouse. Support alternative input and user control such as keyboard access or voice control. Supply a list of text links for clickable regions in images. Use accessible layout which supports users' personal preferences, and technical resources. If complex data are to be presented then provide text alternatives which summarise the data, explain the interpretation, and allow access to the raw data. Test the accessibility of the web site with several browsers, in various ways (e.g., with graphics loading turned off; or without plug-ins), using alternative input (e.g., keyboard rather than mouse), and on different monitors. Evaluate the site with an automated analysis tool. Make sure the web page still communicates the relevant information. Get more information For more detailed guidelines, examples, and other useful techniques see ***. Stella O'Brien, KO2 email: smo-brien@lioness.demon.co.uk
Received on Thursday, 27 August 1998 13:24:31 UTC