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Resources > Accessibility European year of people
with disabilities Introductory For an introduction to the subject, try Introducing Web Accessibility on the WebReview site. To gain an idea of the issues involved, see this demo on the Disability Rights Commission website. For a background paper, see Judy Brewer's How people with disabilities use the Web, on the W3C website. European Year of People with Disabilities Disability.gov.uk European Year website. The UK Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) web access centre. Designing Accessible Websites provides guidance on implementing Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act. Joe Clark answers 10 accessibility questions on Slashdot. Jim Thatcher's online course has a US focus but is very useful. Jim Thatcher is one of the authors of Constructing Accessible Websites (see Books, below). Evaluating
websites for accessibility - guidelines from W3C. For the US, section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act has its own website. For UK legislation, information about the Disability Discrimination Act can be found at the government's disability website. UK Disability Discrimination Act Code of Practice. WC3 Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) site provides a wealth of information, and is as official as you get on the 'Net. Accessify - a frequently updated weblog run by Ian Lloyd. The site has many other accessibility resources too. Making Connections Unit from Jim Clark. Abilitynet - UK national charity assisting disabled people to use technology. Extensive list of links related to accessibility. Disability Rights Commission. The latest DRC report on website accessibility (April 2004). Foundation for Assistive Technology. Institute
on Independent Living includes links to disability resources related
to computers ITCH Network - UK computer literate volunteers sought who are able to offer free local computer assistance to disabled people. You define how much time you volunteer. Backed by the British Computer Society. Adobe Acrobat PDF conversion - online tool for converting Adobe PDF files into HTML 'on the fly'. Just submit the source URL. The site includes other Adobe tools in English and French. Bobby - online testing tool (now taken over by Watchfire) designed to assess websites for accessibility, but it has its critics. Its analysis of accessibility is based on the WC3 Web Accessibility Initiative. It checks for compliance with W3C guidelines. Bobby, however, can't check that the page contents are in the right order or that the ALT tags make sense to the user. Submit the URL for a single page or download the software to test a complete site. Wave 3.0 accessibility tool (beta) from Leonard Kasday and WebAIM. HTML validators from W3C and WDG. A-Prompt web accessibility verifier. Lynx is public domain text browser that can be used to evaluate a web page. Lynx displays a site in a similar way that a voice browser such as JAWS would read a site. You can therefore check whether a site makes sense. As an alternative, check out this Lynx viewer, which renders pages in a similar way to Lynx without you having to download the Lynx browser. Screen readers and talking browsers from the University of Toronto Adaptive Technology Resource Centre website. IBM's HomePage Reader to hear what a site sounds like. Free 3 month trial. Low cost (compared to JAWS). Tablin, an HTML table linearizer. Opera browser enables you to turn off scripts and CSS for testing. See also Mozilla Firebird. Jim Thatcher's Accessible Forms. Vischeck simulates the various types of colour deficient vision of your website. You can submit a site URL, or download a zipped version of the program. Can Colour-Blind Users See Your Site? is an in-depth discussion of the issues with many highly informative examples (Robert Hess, Microsoft). Safe web colours for colour-deficient vision (Christine Rigden, BT Labs) covers similar ground to Robert Hess's site. Vischeck simulates the various types of colourblind vision of your website. You can submit a site URL, or download a zipped version of the program. A while ago I ran some screens from a hospital drug administration system through Vischeck and the results were startling. Making your website accessible for people with a learning disability - a 3-page guide from Mencap. Am I Making Myself Clear? is a guide from Mencap on accessible writing. [PDF] Jargon buster - a brief list from Mencap. Widgit and Change provide symbols for use on websites. The Change images are illustrative, while Widgit's are symbols. Accessify articles, tools and links, as well as a blog to keep you up to date. Demos hosts a large colleciton of materials connected to improving accessibility for students in higher education. Dive in Accessibility 30 days to a more accessible web site. Loads of information and very thoughtfully structured to boot. Designing More Usable Web Sites a vast collection of resources, including accessible website guidelines, statistics, information on low vision and colour blindness and contact information for forums. IBM's Web Accessibility Centre, Europe. Microsoft's website has a collection of accessibility resources. ATRC papers from the University of Toronto Adaptive Technology Resource Centre. ATRC Research & Development information about current and completed projects. Accessibility glossary from Glasshaus. Technical glossary from University of Toronto Adaptive Technology Resource Centre. Books on the subject of accessibility have recently started to appear. These include: Building
Accessible Websites by Joe Clark. Constructing Accessible Web Sites by Jim Thatcher et al. Web Accessibility for People With Disabilities by Michael G. Paciello. (these links are to amazon.co.uk) uvip is a discussion list for people interested in usability
and for people concerned with visual impairment issues to discuss in collaboration
various aspects of the usability needs of people with visual impairments. uvip-web-test is a discussion list bringing together website
developers concerned with accessibility concerns and users with visual
impairments willing to act as testers. Rafael Romero Zúnica, Francisco Alcantud Marín and Antonio M. Ferrer Manchón of the University of Valencia have written a report in Spanish on web accessiblity, Estudio de Accesibilidad a la Red, which can be accessed on the University's website. Microsoft's accessibility resources in Spanish are located at Accesabilidad - Tecnologia para todos. Fundación Sidar - Acceso Universal.
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