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Some Basic Tests To Check Your Website For AccessibilityTrenton Moss The Disability Discrimination Act says that websites must be made accessible to disabled people. So how can you check that your website is up to par There are a number of basic tests you can make to address some of the main issues. Webcredible http://www.webcredible.co.uk, a web accessibility and usability consultant, suggest a number of guidelines that provide a good start in increasing accessibility to your site visitors: 1. Check informational images for alternative text Place the cursor over an informational image, for example, the organisation logo. Does a yellow box appear with a brief, accurate description of the image For users whose browsers do not support images, this alternative text is what they will see or hear in place of the image. 2. Check decorative images for alternative text Place the cursor over a decorative image that does not have any function other than to look nice. Does a yellow box appear with a description of the image It should not. There is no reason for users whose browsers do not support images to know that this image is there, as it serves no purpose. Be careful though as this is not a foolproof test. If a yellow box does not appear, this could mean one of two things: - The alternative text of the image is assigned a null value, which means that it will be ignored by browsers that do not support images. This is the ideal scenario. - The alternative text of the image is simply not set at all, which means that users whose browsers do not support images will be alerted to its existence but will be unable to find out what purpose it carries – something which is very frustrating! This is certainly not the desired outcome. 3. ‘Listen’ to any video or audio content with the volume turned off If you turn your speakers off, you are clearly unable to listen to, or follow, any audio content. This situation is faced by a deaf person on a daily basis. Ensure your website supplies written transcripts, so that deaf people can understand the message that your website is conveying. 4. Check that forms are accessible Usually there is prompt text next to each item in a form. For example, a contact form might have the prompt text ‘name’, ‘e-mail’, and ‘comments’, each one next to a box where your site users will enter the information. When you click on the prompt text, does a flashing cursor appear in the box next to that text If not, your forms are inaccessible. 5. Check that text can be resized In Internet Explorer used by over 90% of Internet users go to View > Font size > Largest. Does the text on your website increase in size If not, then your website is inaccessible to web users with poor visibility. 6. Check your website in the Lynx browser The Lynx browser is a text-only browser and does not support many of the features that other browsers such as Internet Explorer have. You can check how your site looks in this browser with the Lynx Viewer, available at http://www.delorie.com/web/lynxview.html. If your website makes sense and can be navigated through the Lynx browser, then it will be fulfilling many of the web accessibility guidelines. 7. Check that you can access all areas of your website without the use of a mouse Can you navigate through your website using just tab, shift-tab and return If not, then neither can keyboard- and voice-only users. 8. Check that there is a site map Can you find a site map If not, then neither can people who are lost on your website. 9. Ensure link text makes sense out of context Blind Internet users often browse websites by tabbing from one link to the next. Does all the link text on your website make sense out of context ‘Click here’ and ‘more’ are two common examples of non-descriptive link text. 10. Check your web pages with an automated program Two programs available for free on the Internet are Bobby http://bobby.watchfire.com and Wave http://www.wave.webaim.org. They are unable to provide you with all the information that you need, as some checks must be done by humans, but they can tell you some of the areas where your site might be going wrong.
| | | | RELATED ARTICLES Be the King of Your Domain So there you are. You’ve got a topic that you really love. You’ve done your research. You’re ready to start your new website. As good as it is, you’re certain to get traffic and tons of sales. All you need to do now is register a domain name and start designing the site to end all sites! If you need More Targeted Visitors to Your Site this Will get the Free Traffic Flowing If you dont know by now one the best ways to attract free traffic to your site is with articles. You find them in your email. You find them on any website that provides useful content. Take a look and you will see they are all formatted the same way. Marketing Your Web Site Congratulations!Your Web Site is finished!Now whatYour first instinct is to submit to every search engine possible and leave it up to them to bring traffic to your site.Despite what you may have been told, it doesn’t happen quite that way.Yes, you will need to submit to the search engines, and they will eventually bring traffic your site.It will take anywhere from 3 – 6 months for a search engine to even get you listed.After that another year or so to make it to the top of the listings, that is, if you are extremely diligent in promoting to them monthly and following all the different rules for each search engine. What makes a good Web Hosting Provider! When building your website and getting it hosted online, you want your site to be up and running on the World Wide Web 24/7 without any hitches so that it is making you money all the time and all you have to worry about then is getting visitors to your site, doing seo, getting repeat visitors, maximizing your sites revenue, etc. You don’t want to have to worry about your web hosting and it’s stability. The Importance of Links Link: {noun - lin[ng]k} 1 : a connecting structure: 2 : something analogous to a link of chain: as a : a connecting element or factorb : a unit in a communication system c : an identifier attached to an element as an index term in a system in order to indicate or permit connection with other similarly identified elements as defined by Merriam-Webster Online - http://www.m-w.com/ Optimal Website Design The idea behind good website design is to offer your viewer a logical flow while making it interesting and easy to navigate. Traditional businesses on the Internet Have you ever thought of putting your business on the Internet, but simply not known where to start or youre not sure whether the Internet is really meant for your business Why a CSS Website Layout Will Make You Money Although CSS layouts have been around for years, they havent become so commonplace until recently. This was basically due to limited browser support especially from Netscape 4 - nowadays though, CSS 2.0 which introduced positioning is compatible with over 99% of browsers out there check out the browser stats over at http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2004/August/browser.php. Building Web Sites Using Web Templates Gone are the days when you had to rely on a web-designer to design your websites. New technologies with innovative ideas have brought out a new variant to this trend in the form of ready to use website templates. Beautiful Web Sites Seldom Make More Sales Designing an E-commerce Web site is not as simple as having a "pretty" site that is a pleasure to visit. While it is important to have an attractive site, as much thought must be given to functionality as to appearance. Adding Sound to your Web Site - The Good, The Bad And The Ugly Many webmasters like the idea of adding background music to their web sites but most shy away from doing it worrying about slow loading pages and large file sizes. There are many different ways to add background music to your site and some of them dont require large files to achieve professional results. Lets examine all the different ways to add background music to your site and rate them to find the best solution for you. Top Five Most Profitable Color Combinations Used In Cover Design! "Two days ago, an old man stopped me on the street and asked me who my stylist is. How Disabled Users Access The Internet In 1995 a new era of accessibility for disabled people began. The Disability Discrimination Act was passed, stating that: How to Choose a Quality Webhost If you are anything like me, you’d probably like to have a website on the Internet but you just have no idea how to go about it. All this talk of web hosting, bandwidth, disc space, and other jargon can cause one to say, “This is too complicated and technical, I just wanted to have a place to put all of my favorite skateboarding photos, cool information on ramp designs, and the best places to skate!” To get a website on the Web you have to go through a web host. The question is how do you find the web host for you Growing Your Business In CyberSpace A synopsis of Philippa Gamses Presentation to the National Speakers Association, Washington DC chapter on Saturday, January 10, 2004 Absolute & Relative Links How Do They Rank The question for this article is whether or not you should use "absolute urls" or "relative urls" Not only that, this article researches whether or not Google ranks these methods differently. Eliciting Constructive Website Feedback "Its good." "Youve done a nice job." "I dont like it." Web Accessibility. . . Making your Pages Friendly to People with Disabilities Did you know that nearly 20 percent of all Web users have some form of disability Building a Church Website Have you been asked to build a website for your churchBuildingThere are thousands of people building websites everyday.It is becoming increasingly important for many small organizations and groups to build their online presence.This helps in getting their ideals, goals, and mission out to the general public.Therefore at an increasing rate many of us with computer skills are asked by organizations to put together a website.This happened to me about two years ago when the school I worked at asked me to build a website for them to help advertise their special arts programs. How I reached #1 in Yahoo! By accident, no all that reading and studying statistics finally paid off.I started out by reading articles from people with opposing views and trying to figure out who was wrong and who was right.To find the right person to listen to I didn’t only look at his educational background, but was more interested in his results.Good thing too, because results I found.And I hope people look at my results to help them reach #1. |
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