Accessibility Primer Page
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The Internet and the World Wide Web are tremendous resources for all who
can use them. It is a fact that certain segments of the population have a
more difficult time accessing these resources than other segments. Accessibility
simply means making resources usable by the largest number of people possible. This
includes people with disabilities. In fact the issues faced by people with
disabilities in accessing the Internet and World Wide Web are wide and diverse.
The
techniques used to make the Internet and World Wide Web accessible range from the simple
to highly complex.
Laws and policies are now beginning to appear that mandate that web pages be
accessible to people with disabilities. These are the legal underpinnings of accessibility
for people with disabilities in the parts of the world where they exist.
These laws and policies are now starting to deal with Electronic and Information
Technology and accessibility for people with disabilities. They have begun
to broaden their scope from just the idea that web pages must be accessible to
the idea that all Electronic and Information Technology must be accessible to
people with disabilities.
Below are some links to sites that explain some of the issues in
usability and accessibility and some links explaining some of the legal issues involved in making a web
site accessible to people with disabilities as well as other legal issues
involved with accessibility of Electronic and Information Technology and people
with disabilities.
Constructing Accessible Web Sites
This is the most complete book ever published on the
subject! Including extensive legal and policy sections!
Kynn
Bartlett's New Book
A terrific book on Cascading Style Sheets by one of the leading
experts in the field....
Legal and Policy Issues
Section 508 Resource Page
We have collected a number of resources to help those who are
looking for help with Section 508 issues. The Section
508 Resource Page contains both legal and technical resources. For
those who are looking for assistance in making their resources compliant with
Section 508 please visit our Products and
Services Page to find out more about what the
Center offers in this area.
Section 508 Summary Table
In order to help with web site accessibility problems, we are
providing a basic checklist with references to the W3C. Visit
the 508 Checklist for more information. Also
visit our Products and Services page to find out how to order the Web
Site Accessibility Guidelines and Tutorial which included material on
Section 508.
U. S. Legal and Policy Issues
There are many issues and policies involved with the
disabilities. These have been collected in the U.S.
Legal and Policy Issue section. A more detailed description and
discussion of many of these issues can be found in the
Works of
Cynthia Waddell. Much of this has to do with
Electronic and Information Technology access for people with disabilities but
there are many other references there as well.
Global Legal and Policy Issues
A great deal of activity on accessibility for people with disabilities
is occurring on a global basis. To check where this activity is occurring
please go to the Global
Legal and Policy Resources
section of the site.
Accessibility Issues
Accessibility Issues Collection
For additional resources about Accessibility issues check the collection on this site devoted
to Accessibility Issues.
Universal design
Universal Design simply stated says that products and services should be usable by the
as many people as possible. This is regardless of disability, language barriers, or
other obstacles to use. A good place to start to learn about this is at the Trace Center which can be found at http://www.trace.wisc.edu/world/
Human Computer Interface Issues
Bill LaPlant's paper on Human Computer Interfaces makes some important points
and proposals about how to shorten the time from research to implementation in
this area. His Paper A Proposal for a Research Agenda in Computer Human Interaction
is now available on the site.
W3C Accessibility Initiative
The World Wide Web Consortium is engaged in a project to help people to understand
accessibility of web pages and to set up some standards on how to judge if pages are
accessible and how to make sure the pages that are written are accessible. These
guidelines and other information can be found at: http://www.w3.org/WAI/
HTML Writer's Guild AWARE Center
AWARE stands for Accessible Web Authoring Resources and Education, and their mission is
to serve as a central resource for web authors who wish to learn about web accessibility. http://aware.hwg.org/
The Center is proud to present an outstanding paper and Guidelines on
Accessible Web Design by Jorge Plano of Argentina, the paper and Guidelines are in Spanish and
the Center very much appreciates being able to publish a copy of the paper and
Guidelines....
UIAccess (www.uiaccess.com) is
an up-to-date, practical resource for universal interface design and usable
accessibility information. Popular resources include Web Accessibility
Introduction, U.S. Legal Activities on Web Accessibility, and Comparison of
[Section 508] EITAS Paragraphs and [W3C WAI] WCAG Checkpoints, as well as
articles on specific web accessibility issues such as scalable text, spawned
windows, and evaluation tools.
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