aware.hwg.org: accessible web authoring resources and education center

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Tips and Techniques for Accessible Web Authoring

These links are specific information or "how to" articles on accomplishing certain tasks related to accessible web authoring, rather than comprehensive guidelines covering all aspects of designing for accessibility.

General Web Design

• HTML 4.0 Accessibility Improvements
  Specific changes in HTML 4.0 that increase accessibility, when used correctly.
• Web Accessibility Icons and Graphics
  Proudly display your support for accessible web design! Graphics that say "this page is usable by anyone".
• Access.Adobe.Com
  Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) is used by many sites when HTML is not sufficient -- often because a specific appearance or layout must be preserved, for whatever reason. However, these documents are usually very inaccessible to users with screen readers or text-only browsers, so Adobe has provided a web service that will let you give the URL of a PDF file anywhere on the WWW and convert it to simple text-based HTML. It should be noted, however, that the existence of this converter does not release web authors from the obligation to make sure the information in a PDF file is otherwise accessible!
• Web Authoring Strategies for Voice Browers
  A HWG paper by AWARE Center director Kynn Bartlett for a 1998 W3C conference on using voice-based browsers to navigate the web.
• Diversity Compliance in Web Design
  Tom Christiansen, Perl guru, takes on web accessibility; included are links to several nifty Perl scripts.
• Effective Web Design Considerations for Older Adults
  Microsoft's Senior Initiative describes the effect of an aging population of web users, and how you can take steps to make your pages more accessible to that audience.

Color and Web Design

• Colour Blind Design Hints and Tips
  Andrew Oakley gives "do's" and "don't's" on designing pages that can be used by people who can't see color.
• Color Vision, Color Deficiency [new!]
  Diane Wilson gives some examples that bring home the issues involved with color perception.
• Color Contrast and Partial Sight
  How to mix and match colors so that those with impaired vision -- which doesn't necessarily mean complete blindness! -- can use your website.

Accessible CSS

• Accessibility Features of CSS
  A W3C note from June 1999 that explains what features of Cascading Style Sheets benefit accessibility. A good summary.
• CSS2 Accessibility Improvements
  Level 2 of Cascading Style Sheets includes specific instructions that can increase the accessibility of a website; these are summarized here.
• Accessibility and Cascading Style Sheets
  An "essay lecture" from the HTML Writers Guild's online course in web accessibility.
• User-Defined Style Sheets and Accessibility
  Another essay lecture from the HWG course, this one explaining the accessibility benefits of user-definted style sheets and how to enable them in common web browsers.
• Use CSS to make your site more accessible
  Part of a Builder.com article, "What you can do with CSS right now"

Accessible Java

This section blatantly cribbed from WebABLE!'s featured links from April.

• Sun's Java Accessibility API
  The Accessibility API from Sun offers a way for Java applications to utilize assistive technology, such as voice recognition or screen magnifiers. If you're building Java apps, read about the accessibility features of the Java Foundation Classes.
• IBM Guidelines for Writing Accessible Applications Using 100% Pure Java
  IBM's Special Needs Systems team has developed a set of guidelines for Java programmers about how to design accessible Java applications.
• IBM'S Self Voicing Kit for Java
  IBM has also created a Self Voicing Kit (SVK) which can be used to easily add audio output to Java applications.
• Microsoft Active Accessibility for Java
  Microsoft has their own "active" version of accessibility for Java, which you can read about here.
• Trace Center's Java Accessibility and Usability Work
  The Trace Center at the University of Wisconsin has an ongoing study of accessibility in Java implementations.

Browser Compatability

• Lynx Viewer
  See what your page will look like in the Lynx text-only browser. This is useful for checking ALT text and other non-graphical factors, such as the use of tables for layout.
  
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• Viewable With Any Browser
  The Any Browser Campaign is a grass-roots effort to promote a non-browser-specific web. This essay explains some of the best ways to make your pages useful by any user agent out there, not just the current popular browsers.
• Developing for WebTV
  As an example of an "Internet appliance" that's not truly a stand-alone computer, the WebTV set-top boxes provide an interesting challenge for web authors. The official WebTV developers' site includes tips on "designing for" WebTV (which could be interpreted as "designing around WebTV's faults), but the best thing here is the WebTV Viewer, an application which runs on Mac or Windows machines and simulates what WebTV viewers see when looking at your website.
• AOL's Webmaster Website
  America OnLine may be the largest Internet Service Provider in the world, and so many of your users could be coming from AOL. This site from AOL provides webmasters with details on which versions of the AOL software use which browsers, including early proprietary AOL-Iweng browsers and custom versions of Internet Explorer.

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This page is maintained by aware@hwg.org. Last updated on 16 June 1999.
Copyright © 1999 by the HTML Writers Guild, Inc.