Two interesting accessibility links

The Technology section of the Monday, November 15, 2004, edition of the 
Wall Street Journal had an article about designing web sites for the 
elderly entitled, "Memo to Web Sites: Grow Up!".  It contained a reference 
to a site developed by the US National Institutes for Health specifically 
for the senior population [1].  This site is interesting in that it allows 
the user to turn on speech in the site to speak the items on the page when 
the user mouses over them.  It does also work to some extent with the 
keyboard.   In addition to sound it has controls on each page for changing 
the font size and the contrast.

The article also mentioned that the AARP (American Association of Retired 
People) site has a section on designing sites for older adults [2].  There 
were also references to Jakob Nielson and research the Norman Nielson 
group has done with older populations.  There were no links mentioned in 
the article but you can find out more here [3].

-becky

[1] http://nihseniorhealth.gov/
[2] http://www.aarp.org/olderwiserwired/
[3] http://www.useit.com/


Becky Gibson
Web Accessibility Architect
                                                       
IBM Emerging Internet Technologies
5 Technology Park Drive
Westford, MA 01886
Voice: 978 399-6101; t/l 333-6101
Email: gibsonb@us.ibm.com