| ACCESSIBILITY: Designing For Accessibility |
Updated March 22, 2008 | ||
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Design Information & Resources Accessibility tutorial for course designers: Georgia Tech Research offers this FREE online tutorial, "...comprised of 10 modules that offer information, instructional techniques, and practice labs on how to make the most common needs in distance education accessible for individuals with disabilities, and enhance the usability of online materials for all students." 03/22/08 Accessibility in Distance Education ~ A Resource for Faculty in Online Teaching: "The Accessibility in Distance Education (ADE) Web site focuses on helping faculty develop accessible online learning materials for people with disabilities. It is divided into five major sections, targeting common accessibility questions." 03/22/08 DO-IT (Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology): "DO-IT serves to increase the participation of individuals with disabilities in challenging academic programs and careers. It promotes the use of computer and networking technologies to increase independence, productivity, and participation in education and employment." 03/22/08 List-serve: Designing accessible distance learning courses: Click the link for information about how to join this list-serve. "The purpose of this list is to discuss issues related to creating accessible distance learning courses. This list fosters ongoing discussion about accessible website design, policy, and practice. It is supported by DO-IT [see link above] at the University of Washington." 03/22/08 10 Quick Tips to Make Accessible Web Sites: From the W3C Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative, these 10 Quick Tips "summarize key concepts of accessible Web design. These tips are not complete guidelines; they are only excerpts of concepts from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG 1.0)." 03/17/08 Captioning for Windows Media ~ Getting Windows Media Captions on the Web: A very helpful page from WebAIM (Web Accessibility In Mind) provides several methods to include captioning, illustrated with code. Discusses how to include a SAMI file, whether to embed or not -- Win Media Player 9+ do not "support embedded captions when the browser uses the embed tag to display Window Media content"; includes ideas for how to get around this issue. 06/11/07 Skills for Access: Creating Accessible Multimedia for e-learning: "This web site provides you with 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." 05/23/05 Accessible Web-based Distance Education: Principles and Best Practices: Laurie Harrison, ATRC, University of Toronto, Canada. "Participants in online activities include an increasing group of users with sensory, physical or learning disabilities, for whom adaptive technologies provide a gateway to information and education. Current estimates based on U.S. Statistics suggest that approximately 20% of the population have some type of disability.1 Legislation in both Canada and the USA supports development of accessible standards for Web-based resource development. Furthermore, today's technological environment is fostering public demand for accommodation of a growing number of user interface models, ranging from screen readers to palm pilots to telephone browsers. All of this points to the need for Web authors to increase their understanding of the principles and practices which support universal design." 01/06/04 Web Accessibility Learning Modules: "A precursor to building a sustainable training effort is the development of learning materials that can be used as the foundation for instruction in Web accessibility. These learning modules will provide valuable instructional materials for training efforts in Web accessibility. These modules not only describe web accessibility but how to achieve it with specific design and coding techniques. This modular approach will:
Accessibility and Universal Design: a collection of links and articles from WebCT's library 09/30/02 Accessible Webpage Design Resources: Created by Axel Schmetzke, Library, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. "This site was created to promote awareness about the need for accessible web design and to steer those who wish to learn more about the topic into the right direction. The audience for this resource guide include public school teachers and administrators; college and university instructors, administrators, and policy makers; distance educators; librarians; and disability professionals." 09/26/02 WebAim.org's Accessibility Training: I took this training course online in early 2002. I can attest to the quality and usefulness of the course content and materials. Now they've published the course on CD-ROM and made it available online for purchase. The educational prices are well worth every dollar. 07/26/02 Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST): For web site designers and/or educators. Offers "clear means of providing accessibility to users and learners of all types." Design for Accessibility - Online Courses for Web Designers: Offered by EASI (Equal Access to Software and Information), partnering with U. of S. Maine" to provide a certificate in accessible information technology delivered entirely online [throughout the year 2002] at any time from any where. EASI's instructors are all experienced online trainers with extensive knowledge in the various areas of accessible information technology." 02/24/02 Designing More Usable Web Sites: Lots of links to guides, reference materials, author tools and accessibility tools, such as browsers with access features, screen readers, resources, etc. 04/13/02 Flash - Making Flash Usable for Users With Disabilities: an article from Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, October 14, 2002. 11/25/02 Making Educational Software Accessible: Design Guidelines Including Math and Science Solutions: This Access Project was made possible by funding from the National Science Foundation's Program for Persons with Disabilities. More information about the project is available in the project description. 12/04/00 Practical Strategies for Accommodating Students With Special Needs: 03/24/01 Accommodations for Students With Special Needs: Preferred Terms and Practical Strategies 02/24/01 W3C WEB AUTHORING ACCESSIBILITY GUIDELINES: The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) put its final stamp of approval on these Authoring Tools Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (ATAG). 02/03/00; updated link 10/03/04 W3C's Quick Tips to Make Accessible Web Sites: a quick-reference card of things to check. 04/13/02 W3C's Checklist of Checkpoints for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 Color Vision Simulator: This site lets you experience any site as if you were color blind; it also provides a download of software to help you check this on your own computer as you design your pages. 04/13/02
A-Prompt Toolkit: Assists "Web authors in improving the accessibility and usability of HTML documents..." The Adaptive Technology Resource Centre (ATRC) and the Trace Center have jointly released this free web accessibility validation and repair kit. It checks HTML code for conformance with the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. If an accessibility problem is detected, the software guides the user through the repair process and then can be set to insert the corrected HTML into the original document. 08/11/01 Bobby: A web-based tool that analyzes web pages for their accessibility to people with disabilities.10/09/99 (see next item also) Why Bobby Approved is Not Enough: "Many organisations...falsely believe that simply passing the Bobby test will satisfy their accessibility obligations. ...It should be remembered that the Bobby test does not ensure 'real' accessibility. 05/05/02 W3C's Appendix on validation: 11/05/01 W3C's Webpage Validation Service: 11/05/01 |
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