Accessibility

Introductory articles

  • Business benefits of accessible web design
    "This document is one of several resources created to assist the preparation of a business case for the implementation of web accessibility. It describes the many business, technical and other benefits to the organisation above and beyond the straightforward benefits to people with disabilities that can be realised by applying the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines to websites."
    (Andrew Arch, Chuck Letourneau - W3C)

  • Hearing disabilities
    "Most developers don't think about individuals who are deaf when they think of web accessibility. For too many developers, web accessibility consists of adhering to a few guidelines that ensure accessibility to screen readers for the blind. On one level, this is understandable. People who are blind will have the most trouble, since the web is a visual medium... or is it?"
    (WebAIM)

  • How people with disabilities use the web
    "This document provides an introduction to use of the Web by people with disabilities. It illustrates some of their requirements when using Web sites and Web-based applications, and provides supporting information for the guidelines and technical work of the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)."
    (W3C)

  • Introduction to web accessibility
    "Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can use the Web. More specifically, Web accessibility means that the Web is designed so that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with it effectively, as well as create and contribute content to the Web."
    (Shawn Lawton Henry - W3C)

  • Motor disabilities
    An article explaining how motor impairments, such as cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis and impairments resulting from brain injury, affect use of the web.
    (WebAIM)

  • Types of cognitive disabilities
    "The concept of cognitive disabilities is extremely broad, and not always well-defined. In loose terms, a person with a cognitive disability has greater difficulty with one or more types of mental tasks than the "average" person. There are too many types of cognitive disabilities to list here, but we will cover some of the major categories. Most cognitive disabilities have some sort of basis in the biology or physiology of the individual. The connection between a person's biology and mental processes is most obvious in the case of traumatic brain injury and genetic diseases, but even the more subtle cognitive disabilities often have a basis in the structure or chemistry of the brain."
    (WebAIM)

  • Types of cognitive disabilities
    Cognitive disabilities are not well understood. This article provides an overview of a range of cognitive disabilities that affect people's use of the web and concludes that in many cases, the techniques for more making web content accessible to people with cognitive disabilities are nothing more than techniques for effective communication.
    (WebAIM)

  • Visual disabilities
    This article discusses a range of visual disabilities--from poor eyesight through to blindness, low vision and colour blindness--and how they affect people's ability to access information online.
    (WebAIM)

  • What are screen magnifiers?
    "Software that interfaces with a computer's graphical output to give enlarged screen content is known as screen magnifier. This assistive technology can be useful for visually-impaired people with some functional vision."
    (Axistive Vision)

Discussion articles

  • 10 accessibility blunders of the big players
    "More and more countries have passed laws stating that websites must be accessible to blind and disabled people. With this kind of legal pressure, and the many benefits of accessibility, the big players on the web must surely have accessible Websites, right? Wrong."
    (Trenton Moss - Sitepoint)

  • 10 reasons clients don't care about accessibility
    "Working as an accessibility consultant in an IT company is a very frustrating job right now. Highly publicized lawsuits and deep-rooted accessibility myths leave us with a lot to explain when the final product does not really help visitors. Our clients simply don’t care about accessibility as much as we’d like them to, and there are several reasons for that."
    (Christian Heilmann - Digital Web Magazine)

  • Accessibility and usability
    "The delicate balance between accessibility and usability needs more thought. At the moment I don’t see any answers, only a few questions, one possible rule, and a potential danger. The rule is 'Accessibility should not restrict usability'. If your site badly needs a few advanced JavaScripts to make the navigation or a form more usable, don't hesitate to add the scripts."
    (Peter-Paul Koch - Digital Web Magazine)

  • Accessibility and user-centred design
    A brief introduction, with linked resources, for those unfamiliar with accessibility and/or user-centred design.
    (Shawn Lawton Henry, Mary Martinson Grossnickle - Information Technology Technical Assistance Center)

  • Accessibility as part of the search engine marketing strategy
    "Most search engine optimisation consultants won't admit it, but creating usable and accessible web sites is probably the most effective element of a long term SEO strategy."
    (Big Mouth Media)

  • Accessibility color wheel
    "This tool analyzes the contrast of a color pair. It simulates how people with three forms of colorblindness might see the colors."
    (Giacomo Mazzocato)

  • Accessibility from the ground up
    "You've seen it at all the design conferences. It's showing up on contracts and RFPs. They’re asking for it on your résumé. This accessibility thing sure is catching on. And it's ready for prime time."
    (Matt May - Digital Web Magazine)

  • Accessibility humanised: a user-centred approach to accessibility
    "Most web developers act in blindness when they design accessible websites, since they know next to nothing about disabled people and the technology they use. Accessibility guidelines and validation tools don't provide this insight. Accessibility for disabled users should be approached from a user-centred perspective."
    (Henrk Olsen - guuui.com)

  • Accessibility in the user-centred design process
    "Addressing accessibility with different approaches and resources from the beginning of design and throughout the design phase results in more effective and efficient incorporation of accessibility into product design. Common pitfalls to avoid in design are focusing only on limited standards and not considering accessibility until the end of design."
    (Shawn Lawton Henry, Mary Martinson Grossnickle - Information Technology Technical Assistance Center)

  • Accessibility in the analysis phase
    "It is most effective and efficient to incorporate accessibility from the very beginning of a project. When accessibility is only addressed late in product design, it can be very costly to make required design changes. Incorporating accessibility early in the project increases the potential positive design impact, and decreases the time and money required to design accessible products. This chapter provides information on setting usability goals, user analysis, workflow analysis and understanding accessibility issues."
    (Shawn Lawton Henry, Mary Martinson Grossnickle - Information Technology Technical Assistance Center)

  • Accessibility in the analysis phase: personas
    The purpose of personas is to make the users seem more real, to help designers keep realistic ideas of users throughout the design process. A persona with a disability includes the same specific characteristics, demographics, experience level, and personal details as other personas. Personas that include accessibility considerations also include a description of the limiting condition (disability or situational limitation) and the adaptive strategies for using the product."
    (Shawn Lawton Henry, Mary Martinson Grossnickle - Information Technology Technical Assistance Center)

  • Accessibility in the analysis phase: scenarios
    "Scenarios, which are built on the information gathered in user-centred design workflow analysis, vary widely. Some focus on the functional level, while others provide task-level detail. "Use case" is used to mean many different things, and some types of use cases are very similar to scenarios as described here. Scenarios that include accessibility provide details on how a "persona" in limiting conditions interacts with the product using adaptive strategies, often including assistive technology."
    (Shawn Lawton Henry, Mary Martinson Grossnickle - Information Technology Technical Assistance Center)

  • Accessibility in the analysis phase: user group profiles
    "User group profiles describe the characteristics of product users, the people who use a product. Because many designers start out with little or no familiarity with accessibility issues, adding accessibility considerations to user group profiles is particularly important."
    (Shawn Lawton Henry, Mary Martinson Grossnickle - Information Technology Technical Assistance Center)

  • Accessibility is just another language
    Although typically we think of accessibility in terms of visual, hearing, dexterity, cognitive disabilities and so on, this concept of disability is very limiting in terms of the need for accessible technology. More than 50 million Americans have some sort of disability, and the numbers are increasing as the population ages. Tens of millions of people in the European Union (EU) and half a million worldwide have a disability. Disability knows no boundaries, languages or borders.
    (Ultan Ó Broin)

  • Accessibility is not enough
    " When you want to improve your website for users with disabilities, remember the real goal: to help them better use the site. Accessibility is a necessary, but not nearly sufficient, objective. Your main focus should be on the site's usability for disabled users, with an emphasis on how well the design helps them accomplish typical tasks."
    (Jakob Nielsen, Alertbox)

  • Accessibility issues make a difference
    "I'm a big proponent of high-contrast color schemes: colors that stand out from each other (i.e., black text on a white background) and are easy to differentiate. The widely accepted reasons to have a high-contrast color scheme include an ageing population who can't see like they used to and older, lower-resolution monitors that may still be in use. However, an even more compelling reason to think about a high-contrast color scheme is the fact that there are more laptops being used than ever before. Most of the ultra-cool flat monitors use technology similar to laptop screens and display fewer colors in lower contrast when compared to a CRT monitor."
    (Scotty Claiborn - Web Pro News)

  • Accessibility of AJAX application, part 1
    "AJAX will not work in all web browsers. As its name suggests, AJAX requires JavaScript. This alone means that AJAX applications will not work in web browsers and devices that do not support JavaScript. For this reason it is not accessible to many typical Web users. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines also require that web applications function when JavaScript is disabled or not supported. AJAX also requires that XMLHttpRequest be supported, which many browsers do not."
    (Jared Smith - WebAIM)

  • Accessibility tips for website construction
    "This paper provides ten key tips to help improve the accessibility of any website, or intranet. It's not intended to be an introduction to web accessibility."
    (Patrick Kennedy - Step Two Designs)

  • Accessible by design
    "The demand for accessible sites is growing, but web workers, like you, are often unclear how to make sites more accessible. Designing an accessible site isn't necessarily harder, but it involves unique limitations that make you approach design from a different perspective."
    (Anitra Pavka - Digital Web Magazine)

  • Accessible folksonomies
    "Lately I’ve been thinking about one particular artifact of the folksonomy phenomenon--the folksonomy menu that serves as a sort of buzz index providing users with a quick visualization of the most popular tags (technically I think it’s called a weighted list). Popular tags are displayed in a larger font and it’s relatively easy to identify hot topics at a glance. This visual representation of the popularity of any given tag is undeniably cool. However, once the coolness factor wears off it becomes fairly obvious that these menus are also not very accessible."
    (Kirk Biglione - alt tags)

  • Accountability of accessibility and usability
    "Lawsuits make me nervous. Even if I'm not involved, precedents may be set that affect me or my life. As a person who makes my living off of the web, it concerns me that Access Now, Inc. and Robert Gumson have sued Southwest and American airlines because Southwest's site is allegedly 'inaccessible'. "
    (Anitra Pavka - Digital Web Magazine)

  • AJAX and screen readers: when can it work?
    "We've all heard a great deal of buzz about AJAX in the last few months, and with this talk has come a legion of articles, tips, presentations and practical APIs designed to explore the possibilities and try to arrive at best-practice techniques. But, for all of the excitement and hype, still very little has been said on the subject of AJAX and accessibility."
    (James Edwards - Sitepoint)

  • A journey through accessibility
    "From 'tag generation' to the 'WYSIWOYS (What You See Is What Only You See) generation'. Roberto Scano identifies web accessibility problems throughout the web generations, and summarises where we are now, and what we can expect for the future."
    (Robert Scano)

  • Alternative interfaces for accessibility
    "The key difference between user interfaces for sighted users and blind users is not that between graphics and text; it's the difference between 2-D and 1-D. Optimal usability for users with disabilities requires new approaches and new user interfaces."
    (Jakob Nielsen, Alertbox)

  • An accessibility frontier: cognitive disabilities and learning disabilities
    "With this paper... we are primarily concerned with the problems people with cognitive and learning difficulties might have when using the web and offering a few practical suggestions on how these problems might be addressed."
    (Roger Hudson, Russ Weakley, Peter Firminger)

  • Another -ability: accessibility for usability specialists
    "This paper discusses in depth the relationship between accessibility and usability in product design. It presents a definition of accessibility and introduces the concept of 'usable accessibility'."
    (Shawn Lawton Henry - UI Access)

  • Assessing assessments: the inequality of electronic testing
    "Computer and Internet based tests are used for a variety of purposes. From entering education or employment, to improving basic learning, people everywhere are taking electronically formatted tests. With the advancement of testing from traditional paper-based tests to technologically advanced electronic tests, people reap the benefits of easier access to tests, faster response times, and greater reliability and validity of tests. However, persons with disabilities are being left out of the picture and out of many typically-administered tests."
    (Michael Lyman, Cyndi Rowland, Paul Bohman - WebAIM)

  • Attitudes to web accessibility
    "During the summer of 2003, we ran an online questionnaire, conducted interviews and carried out a literature review on Web accessibility. One hundred and seventeen respondents participated and they included designers, information officers and accessibility advocates. This initial set of results are intended to encourage debate on the subject."
    (John Knight - UsabilityNews.com)

  • Attractive, accessible websites (aka disproving the myth of ugly)
    "Web accessibility is not the sexiest subject in the world. Let's be realistic. And selling the concept is never all that easy as a result. Sure, you can harp on about all the 'business benefits' (potential increased audienced, reduced bandwidth costs, good PR), but what you really need to be able to do is show that it's possible to do this without compromising on the design, and that's often where the problems begin."
    (Ian Lloyd - Accessify)

  • Benefits of an accessible website: part 1, increase in reach
    "Some organisations are making accessibility improvements to their websites, but many are seemingly not making the accessibility adjustments. Disabled people don’t access their website, they say, so why should they care?"
    (Trenton Moss - UI Garden)

  • Benefits of an accessible website: part 2, the business case
    "Some organisations are making accessibility improvements to their websites, but many are seemingly not making the accessibility adjustments. Disabled people don’t access their website, they say, so why should they care?"
    (Trenton Moss - UI Garden)

  • Building a barrier-free web
    "Architects call the concept of making choices that work best for the greatest number of people "barrier-free design." While no Web site--or building, for that matter--can be equally accessible to everyone, the intellectual shift from thinking of accessibility as an add-on can be liberating. There are plenty of good reasons for constructing your sites with as few barriers as possible."
    (Susan Kuchinskas - New Architect)

  • Captcha usability revisited: Google inaccessible to blind people
    "An online petition is being circulated to all Internet users for the purpose of collecting signatures showing support for Google to make its word verification scheme accessible to the blind and visually impaired."
    (Jesper Rønn-Jensen)

  • Cognitive disabilities part 1: we still know too little and we do even less
    "Cognitive disabilities are the least understood and least discussed type of disability among web developers. As a result, developers rarely design web content to be accessible to people with cognitive disabilities. This is unlikely to change overnight, because the amount of research related to the accessibility of web content is relatively scarce."
    (Paul Bohman - WebAIM)

  • Cognitive disabilities part 2: conceptualising design solutions
    "It is an unfortunate fact that the web accessibility community has struggled for some time to come to a consensus on guidelines that can be applied to web content for individuals with cognitive disabilities. Many authors propose specific, commonsense, considerations while others wait for more definitive research."
    (Paul Bohman - WebAIM)

  • Considering the user perspective: a summary of design issues
    A useful summary of accessible design challenges and solutions.
    (Paul Bohman - WebAIM)

  • Constructing a POUR web site
    "Web developers can create Web sites that are possible for people with disabilities to access, but only with great difficulty. The technical standards are important, but they may be insufficient on their own. Developers need to learn when and how to go beyond the technical standards when necessary."
    (Paul Bohman - WebAIM)

  • Creating accessible applications with RUP
    "This article briefly outlines an integrated approach for developing accessible software applications through use cases and personas that drive product development and dictate evaluation points for iterative testing. Embedding this approach into a proven process framework, such as RUP, is an ideal way to introduce it into a development organization. Eventually, RUP plug-ins could be developed to integrate elements of this approach into the standard RUP framework."
    (Gottfried Zimmerman, Gregg Vanderheiden)

  • Defining Acrobat PDF accessibility
    "The appropriate use of PDF files is a hotly debated topic, both inside and outside the field of Web accessibility. Some people would argue that there is no place for PDF files, while others suggest that appropriately prepared PDF's are basically as accessible as HTML. We think the truth lies somewhere in-between. PDF files do have their place--displaying documents that print exactly as the author intends"
    (WebAIM)

  • Designing websites with senior citizens in mind
    "It's an area that a growing number of companies and organizations are paying attention to, and with good reason. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, roughly one quarter of all Americans age 65 and over use the Internet. Just over 40 percent of all wired seniors use the Internet to find financial information, and 15 percent use it to buy or sell stocks, bonds, or mutual funds."
    (Emily Shartin - Boston.com)

  • Developing and publishing a workable accessibility strategy
    "This article looks at the increasing need for developers of institutional and educational websites to develop and follow a strategy for ensuring optimal accessibility of online content. In particular the need is stressed for careful thought about the aims of such a strategy, and to ensure that the strategy meets a balance between ambition, legal responsibility and equitable access to learning and teaching. As an example, the need for a well written public online accessibility statement is discussed, not only as a demonstration of awareness and proactivity, but also as an important factor in its own right in optimising access."
    (Lawrie Phipps, Sue Harrison, David Sloan, Betty Willder - Ariadne)

  • Do accessible websites have to be boring?
    "All too often, designers think that accessibility means boring. That's usually because they think that accessible websites have to be all text or mostly text. If that were the case, then sure, accessible websites would be boring. Fortunately for all of us, graphics are perfectly acceptable in accessible web design. In fact, they're encouraged."
    (Paul Bohman - WebAIM)

  • Dynamic accessible web content roadmap
    "The Dynamic Accessible Web Content Roadmap addresses the accessibility of dynamic web content for people with disabilities. The roadmap outlines the technologies to map controls and events to accessibility APIs, including custom controls. The roadmap also outlines new navigation techniques to mark common web structues as menus, primary content, secondard content, banner information and other types of web structures. These new technoloiges can be used to improve the accessibility and usability of web resources by people with disabilities, without extensive modification to existing libraries of web resources."
    (Rich Schwerdtfeger - W3C)

  • Essential components of web accessibility
    "This document shows how Web accessibility depends on several components working together and how improvements in specific components could substantially improve Web accessibility. It also shows how the WAI guidelines address these components."
    (Shawn Lawton Henry - W3C)

  • Facts and opinions about PDF accessibility
    "PDF files on the web are sometimes annoying and very often unnecessary. But when they aren't either of those things, we need to make them accessible for the same reasons we make other web content accessible."
    (Joe Clark)

  • Fast track to web accessibility in 5 steps
    "Sometimes you don't have the time to sit down and plan out the ideal website. Maybe you've just recently been appointed as your organisation's webmaster, or have recently been assigned to oversee accessibility operations at your organisation, and you discover that your website has gaping holes in its accessibility. Rather than panic, you should start with the biggest problems and work your way through the site until you have fixed all of the accessibility errors. After you've 'plugged the holes', then you can start thinking about a new design, but not until then. This workshop presents a 'fast track to accessibility' that prioritises your tasks of sorting through and fixing your site's accessibility problems."
    (Paul Bohman - WebAIM)

  • Flash and accessibility
    "With the release of Flash MX and Flash Player 6, Macromedia demonstrated a clear ongoing commitment to accessibility that has been widely acknowledged and praised by many people working in the area of disability support. A number of significant issues however, remain unresolved."
    (Roger Hudson)

  • Guidelines for accessible and usable web sites: observing users who work with screen readers (PDF)
     "To truly meet the needs of all users, it is not enough to have guidelines that are based on technology. It is also necessary to understand the users and how they work with their tools. For example, just realising that vision-impaired users do not listen to the entire page is critical for designing usable pages for them. In this paper, we have developed
    guidelines for bringing accessibility and usability together based on observing, listening to, and talking with blind users as they work with websites and their screen readers."
    (Mary Frances Theophanus, Janice [Ginny] Redish)

  • High accessibility is effective search engine optimisation
    "I have been a search engine optimizer for several years, but only recently have become infatuated with web accessibility. After reading for weeks and painstakingly editing my personal website to comply with most W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, I have come to a startling revelation: high accessibility overlaps heavily with effective white hat SEO."
    (Andy Hagans - A List Apart)

  • How to save web accessibility from itself
    "A new revision of the international guidelines for web accessibility, WCAG 2.0, is being written. The development process is going slowly and is in danger of recapitulating many of the errors of WCAG 1.0--unrealistic guidelines divorced from real-world web development that are at once too vague and too specific. In order to prevent this, developers are urged to invest a small period of time in one of a few limited areas that may interest you. Instead of working on the entire WCAG, we need you to focus on topics in which you may have expertise or experience."
    (Joe Clark - A List Apart)

  • How will the new Disability Standards for Education affect what universities do on the web?
    "On August 18, 2005 new Disability Standards for Education came into effect in Australia. Questions have been raised about they may impact on the way we publish resources on the web. In this article, I provide an overview of the new Standards, their general impact, and conclude that if organisations are already following the advice of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (on how to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 in relation to the web), the introduction of the Standards should make no appreciable difference."
    (Dey Alexander)

  • Inaccessible website demonstration
    "When people consider disability and web use they often only think of blind people. But of course there are many types of disability which need to be considered when designing web pages. In this demonstration we try to give you a flavour of the kind of difficulties a range of disabled visitors can face."
    (Disability Rights Commission)

  • Innovative design inspired by accessibility
    "To design innovative Web applications that create opportunities rather than barriers, study the variety of characteristics of people, situations, and devices in your audience--it will give you new perspective from which to approach your design."
    (Wendy Chisholm - Digital Web Magazine)

  • Introduction to web accessibility
    "Despite the Web's great potential for people with disabilities, this potential is still largely unrealized. Where can you find Web-based video or multimedia content that has been fully captioned for the deaf? What if the Internet content is only accessible by using a mouse? What do people do if they can't use a mouse? And what if Web developers use all graphics instead of text? If screen readers can only read text, how would they read the graphics to people who are blind? As soon as you start asking these types of questions, you begin to see that there are a few potential glitches in the accessibility of the Internet to people with disabilities. The Internet has the potential to revolutionize disability access to information, but if we're not careful, we can place obstacles along the way that destroy that potential, and which leave people with disabilities just as discouraged and dependent upon others as before."
    (Paul Bohman - WebAIM)

  • Keys to access: accessibility conformance in VET (PDF)
    "In this research, we aimed to investigate what VET training providers have achieved in terms of accessibility conformance; to reveal and understand the obstacles that may be blocking conformance and suggest strategies that will speed conformance."
    (Reece Lamshed, Marsha Berry, Laurie Armstrong)

  • Let the buyer beware: the importance of procurement in accessibility policy
    "Most policies in education focus exclusively on the practices of in-house Web development professionals. Few institutions are looking at the Web content and Web-based applications that come to them from other sources (e.g., content management systems, finance systems, student information systems, healthcare or benefit systems, human resource systems). So, what is missing in current policy? A mechanism to procure accessible Web products and services is missing. Without procurement as part of the policy, true system-level accessibility can only be an illusion."
    (Cyndi Rowland - National Center on Disability and Access to Education)

  • Manchester United: top of the web accessibility league?
    Manchester United have received a lot of press coverage for the separate accessible version of their website. They've probably invested a lot of time and effort to make this separate website, which according to Trenton Moss is totally unnecessary.
    (Trenton Moss - Ecademy)

  • Navigation accessibility 1: menus and links
    "There are many good books and websites with information about designing usable navigation systems. Rather than going over well-travelled ground, this document is the first of two that will consider the accessibility implications of website navigation and how access to site content for people with disabilities might be enhanced.
    (Roger Hudson)

  • Navigation accessibility 2: accessing page content
    "Helping the user locate and go to a web page is crucial to site navigation, but it is only part of the story. Once the user has arrived at the page they should then be able to easily access the content it contains. This is not likely to be problem for an able-bodied person who can use a mouse and quickly scan the content of the page."
    (Roger Hudson)

  • Observing users who listen to websites
    "The Communications Technology Branch at the United States National Cancer Institute (part of the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services) has been conducting usability testing with blind and low-vision users. In this article, they provide some of the fascinating findings about how vision-impaired users work with websites."
    (Janice [Ginny] Redish and Mary Frances Theofanos - Usability Interface)

  • PDF accessibility
    "The appropriate use of PDF files is a hotly debated topic, both inside and outside the field of web accessibility. Some people would argue that there is no place for PDF files, while others suggest that appropriately prepared PDF's are basically as accessible as HTML. We think the truth lies somewhere in-between. PDF files do have their place—displaying documents that print exactly as the author intends."
    (WebAIM)

  • PDF and accessibility
    "The commitment Adobe has made to improving the accessibility of PDFs has been widely recognised by disability groups and accessibility advocates and has directly benefited many users of assistive technologies. The general opinion of the accessibility community world wide however, is that the use of PDFs on websites still presents a significant barrier for people with disabilities, in particular for sight impaired web users who rely on screen reader technology."
    (Roger Hudson)

  • Screen readers and CSS layout
    "Current versions of the three leading screen readers speak page contents in the exact order the content is coded in the HTML source. CSS positioning is irrelevant."
    (Bob Easton - Access Matters)

  • Screen reader usability at a standards-compliant e-commerce site
    "It appears that mere standards compliance does not always translate into full accessibility for screen-reader users. First of all, the screen readers themselves fall down on the job of interpreting compliant HTML and CSS. Moreover, some site designs whose interfaces are understandable when viewed in a gestalt do not translate well into sequential viewing."
    (Joe Clark)

  • Secret benefits of accessibility part 1: increased usability
    "Web accessibility has so many benefits that I really do wonder why such a large number of Websites have such diabolically bad accessibility. One of the main benefits is increased usability, which, according to usability guru, Jakob Nielsen, can increase the sales/conversion rate of a Website by 100%, and traffic by 150%."
    (Trenton Moss - Sitepoint)

  • Secret benefits of accessibility part 2: better search ranking
    "One of the main benefits of Web accessibility is that a Website that's more accessible to people is also usually more accessible to search engines. The more accessible your site is to search engines, the more confidently they can guess what the site's about, giving your site a better chance at the top spot in the search engine rankings."
    (Trenton Moss - Sitepoint)

  • Separate text-only version? No thanks
    "One of the myths of web accessibility is that accessibility is only about blind and disabled users. Accessibility is actually about everyone being able to access your website, both disabled and non-disabled, regardless of the browsing technology they're using."
    (Trenton Moss - Web Credible)

  • Seven accessibility mistakes, part 1
    "Here are some of the major mistakes I encountered during my years as a professional Web developer. If we keep an eye open for them in the future, we are a lot more likely to create accessible, beautiful Web products without much hassle--and make both clients and visitors happy."
    (Christian Heilman - Digital Web Magazine)

  • Seven accessibility mistakes, part 2
    "This two part-article discusses reasons why some projects fail to result in properly accessible products. Last week we discussed the first three of seven accessibility mistakes I’ve encountered in my work... This week we’ll wrap up with four more scenarios to avoid. If budgets or client relationships constrain you, these ideas might at least inspire you to nudge the client in the direction of user-centric development or provide ammunition in meetings."
    (Christian Heilman - Digital Web Magazine)

  • Seven screen reader usability tips
    "Simply ensuring that your Website is accessible to screen reader users is, unfortunately, not enough to guarantee that these users can find what they're looking for in a reasonably quick and efficient manner. Its usability could be so poor that they needn't have bothered stopping by in the first place. The seven easy tips below will drastically improve a site's usability for screen reader users, as well as all other visitors."
    (Trenton Moss - Sitepoint)

  • Speaking ALT text
    "I have a few late model screen readers and I also have simple audio recording tools. I’ll use them to get you closer to what these screen readers actually say. I’ll start a collection of recordings so you can hear for yourself what these tools say. "
    (Bob Easton - Access Matters)

  • The convergence of the ageing workforce and accessible technology
    "This paper discusses the effects of America's ageing work force on business growth and productivity and illustrates how accessible technology can equip employers and mature workers to face the challenges posed by this demographic trend. As the work force ages, accessibility challenges and disabling conditions will escalate, increasing the need for employers to find ways to accommodate people with disabilities and age-related impairments. Changes in vision, hearing and manual dexterity will directly affect ageing workers' ability to use computing devices and the Internet, tools that have become fixtures in today's economy."
    (Ellen Mosner - Microsoft Corporation, Craig Spiezle - AgeLight Marketing Consultancy)

  • The lifecycle of web accessibility
    "Nowadays, building a web site is a task that requires many different professional skills, each one with its own lifecycle. Development, as we learned in some software engineering class, has a lifecycle and so have usability, design and content. However, when we discuss web accessibility, it often seems that this discipline comes into play only when we develop templates or write content. This is rarely the case."
    (Antonio Volpon - Evolt.org)

  • Tools of inspiration
    "UTOPIA (Usable Technology for Older People: Inclusive and Appropriate) is a Scottish Higher Education Funding Council funded project, involving the Universities of Dundee, Napier, Glasgow and Abertay Dundee, researching the relationship between older people and technology. Newell and his team were charged with convincing industry that it is important to consider older people when developing new products, and to educate them in how to do so. "
    (Ann Light - UI Garden)

  • University web accessibility policies: a bridge not quite far enough
    "Most university Web accessibility policies fall short of achieving their purpose. The Web sites of these universities often fail to meet minimum Web accessibility standards. Part of the problem lies with the policies themselves. Many of them fail to delineate a specific technical standard, fail to indicate whether compliance with the policy is required, fail to indicate a timeline or deadline for compliance, fail to define a system for evaluating or monitoring compliance, and fail to enumerate any consequences for failure to comply.
    (Paul Bohman - WebAIM)

  • Visual versus cognitive disabilities
    "Some people advocate creating a text-only version of websites. These people often assume that "text-only" and "accessible" are the same thing. In the case of blind users, this may be true, but the problem with this assumption is that it ignores other types of disabilities."
    (Paul Bohman - WebAIM)

  • WAI resources on introducing web accessibility
    A collection of resources from the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative aimed at those with no former experience of accessible design.
    (W3C)

  • WCAG and the myth of accessibility
    "It's become my firm belief that accessibility is little more than a myth. Why? Because the WCAG are designed to cater almost exclusively for those with a physical disability such as a visual impairment. Those web users with learning or perceptual disability are just as excluded as before. Indeed, I would argue that making a site 'accessible' by the terms outlined by WCAG 1.0 would actually increase the level of inaccessibility to a visitor with a learning or perceptual disability."
    (Kevin Leitch - Juicy Studio)

  • Web accessibility myths
    "With more and more countries around the world passing laws about blind and disabled access to the Internet, web accessibility has been thrown into the spotlight of the online community. This article attempts to put a stop to the misinformation that has been thrown around and tell you the truth behind web accessibility."
    (Trenton Moss - Web Credible)

Research articles

  • Access to electronic resources by visually impaired people
    "This research aimed to develop understanding of user behaviour with web based resources, with particular reference to retrieval of information by blind and visually impaired people. Using a sample of 20 sighted and 20 visually impaired people, users undertook a number of information seeking tasks using four different electronic resources. Results revealed that visually impaired users spend more time searching or browsing the web with times varying considerably depending on the design of the site."
    (Jenny Craven - Information Research)

  • Research studies about accessible technology
    Microsoft commissioned Forrester Research to conduct a study to measure the current and potential market of accessible technology in the United States and understand how accessible technology is being used today. The key findings of that study were that 44% of computer users use some form of accessible technology and 57% of computer users are likely or very likely to benefit from the use of accessible technology.
    (Microsoft)

  • Web accessibility: a broader view
    "Web accessibility is an important goal. However, most approaches to its attainment are based on unrealistic economic models in which web content developers spend too much and receive too little. We believe this situation is due, in part, to the overly narrow definitions given both to those who stand to benefit from enhanced access to the web and what is meant by this enhanced access. In this paper, we take a broader view, discussing an approach that costs developers less and provides greater advantages to a larger community of users. While we have quite specific aims in our technical work, we hope it can also serve as an example of how the technical conversation regarding web accessibility can move beyond the narrow confines of limited adaptations for small populations."
    (John T. Richards, Vicki L. Hanson - IBM T. J. Watson Research Center)

  • The Web: Access and Inclusion for Disabled People (PDF)
    A formal investigation conducted by the Disability Rights Commission in the United Kingdom revealed not only that most organisations breach guidelines on making sites accessible to disabled users and risk legal action under disability discrimination laws, but that the guidelines themselves may be inadequate.
    (Disability Rights Commission)

Design guidelines

  • A comparison of WCAG and Section 508 standards
    "The intention here is to compare the Priority 1 Web Content Accessibility checkpoints with the Section 508 Web Accessibility standards."
    (Jim Thatcher)

  • Section 508 standards
    Section 508 requires that when US federal agencies develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology, Federal employees with disabilities have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to the access and use by federal employees who are not individuals with disabilities, unless an undue burden would be imposed on the agency.
    (Section508.gov)

  • Web accessibility podguide
    An iPod-ready version of the W3C's international web accessibility standards (ATAG, UAAG, WCAG) along with the Section 508 standards that apply to Federal agencies in the United States.
    (Dey Alexander)

  • Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
    International standards for web accessibility.
    (Web Accessibility Initiative - W3C)

  • Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0
    The next version of the international standards for web accessibility.
    (Web Accessibility Initiative - W3C)

  • Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 quick reference
    "A summary of all WCAG 2.0 requirements (success criteria) and techniques sufficient to meet them using HTML, and any combination of CSS, Multimedia, Scripts and Applet technologies."
    (Web Accessibility Initiative - W3C)

  • Web design for dyslexic users
    A short list of guidelines for designing for users with dyslexia.
    (Davis Dyslexia Association International)

Case studies

  • Accessites.org
    "Here at Accessites.org we will prove that accessible, usable websites built with universality and standards in mind need not be boring. We will show you stunning works of art crafted by some of today’s most progressive accessible web developers and designers."
    (Mike Cherim)

  • How Nationwide tackled accessibility - the whole story
    "Ian Lloyd describes how the Nationwide Building Society's web design team embraced the notion of web accessibility, the lessons learnt along the way and how these can be put to use in any organisation aiming to manage it into the project lifecycle."
    (Ian Lloyd - Usability News)

  • Working toward an accessible website
    "This article is written for those who already have a general knowledge about the reasons for, and the techniques of, designing accessible websites. In this article, I will share the steps that I have taken to work toward transforming a website that I manage to one that is accessible according to the W3C recommendations."
    ( Kim McConnell - Usability Interface)

Presentations

  • A quick and dirty introduction to accessibility
    A presentation providing an overview of accessibility that discusses disabilities that affect use of the web, devices and technologies used by disabled users.
    (Max Design)

  • Getting lost in cyberspace
    Presentation notes on accessible navigation, from the Web Essentials 04 conference.
    (Roger Hudson)

  • Page source order and accessibility
    In this presentation, from the OZeWAI conference in December 2005, the authors report on a survey and user testing of screen readers users designed to determine how source order - in particular the placement of navigation before content or vice versa - impacts accessibility.
    (Roger Hudson, Russ Weakley)

Interviews

  • Digital Web Magazine interviews Derek Featherstone
    "Many people attempt to make their sites accessible by simply complying with items on a checklist. But when designers aren’t doing accessibility testing with real people they can end up with some misconceptions, can’t they? What accessibility myths have you encountered?"
    (Carolyn Wood - Digital Web Magazine)

Books and book reviews

Resource collections

  • AWARE Centre
    A collection of accessible design resources from the HTML Writers' Guild.

  • LD web
    LD Web is a website aimed at making the Internet a better place for people with learning disabilities. LD Web develops guidelines and practical "how to" techniques to help web designers understand this underserviced community. LD Web is also meant to be an open discussion forum for dialogue, questions, and experiences in dealing with learning disabilities on the Web.

  • Skills for access: the comprehensive guide for creating accessible multimedia for e-learning
    "A comprehensive resource on issues relating to multimedia, e-learning and accessibility. Whether you're new to e-learning, want to know more about specific accessibility issues, or are an expert multimedia developer, we believe you'll find information relevant to your needs."

  • TechDis Web Accessibility and Usability Resource
    The TechDis Web Accessibility and Usability Resource has been produced for lecturers, students and Internet media professionals who work within education. The resource provides information on, the technical and practical aspects of accessibility (including usability issues) and its evaluation, information on how disabled users access the Internet.

  • Web Accessibility Initiative resources
    The World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) maintains an extensive list of resources on all aspects of accessible design.

  • Web design references on accessibility
    An extensive list of resources on web accessibility, including articles, tutorials, and tools covering topics from "alt" text to testing and validating accessible markup and just about everything in between.