the NOAA disability page--make your web pages usable by everyone
The night is warm and dark clouds race across a full moon. The breeze is
blowing in fitful gusts from the northeast and you have heard that a hurricane
is approaching your area. So you decide to cruise the web for the latest
information. You click on what looks like the page you want and see the
following:
SELECT FROM THE CHOICES
BELOW:
[IMAGE] [IMAGE]
[IMAGE] [IMAGE]
[IMAGE] [IMAGE]
[IMAGE]
[IMAGE]
Unless you have used a text-only browser before you may think this is some sort
of code devised by the Sentinel, the enigmatic alien machine in "2001: a Space
Odyssey". What it really is of course, is inaccessible HTML to anyone unable to
read graphics. The goal here is to write "good" HTML that anyone can use without
degrading the quality of your pages.
Section 508 regulations now determine how United States
government web pages are to be written.
Here is a list of different guidelines on how to make your web
sites accessible, including the latest from the "web access initiative" of
the W3C. Please note that at this writing the W3C standards for web
accessibility and Section508 are not the same thing.
Though accessing the web is not normally a problem for
the hearing impaired, (except for spoken real audio without any accompanying
text) deaf individuals face other challenges.
Information on IBM Home Page Reader a web browser tailored to
the needs of the blind. This product is very sophisticated and is now in its
3rd version. It even contains a built-in email program. It certainly has
gained features since the relatively simple first version!
You guessed it, there are laws that say we have to do
this!
Here, you will find information on how to write accessible web pages.
In addition, there is information about the accessibility features in html 4.0,
in cascading style sheets, smil and mathml.
A speculative look, at how
access problems will change and evolve.
do you have any ideas on how to make your web pages easier
for everyone to use? Anyone out there who has a reliable counter that displays
text? Any snazzy alternatives to an image map? Any creative uses of CGI scripts
to aid the disabled web surfer?
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This page was last updated on May 4, 2005.
This page was last reviewed on May 4, 2005.