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by Bruce Hall

Designing Accessible Web Pages for the Internet:

The following resources provide information for artists and arts organizations on how to design accessible web pages for persons with disabilities. It addresses the following topics: Why Make a Web Site Accessible; How to Create an Accessible Web Site, Evaluating Your Sites Accessibility; Access in Action: Examples from the Arts. The list of resources is provided for information purposes only and does not denote endorsement by the National Arts and Disability Center. Sites that are accessible would typically have a designation such as a W3 emblem or “Bobby approved”.

WHY MAKE A WEB SITE ACCESSIBLE?

Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization
The Web is used for receiving information as well as providing information and interacting with society. It is essential that the Web be accessible in order to provide equal access and equal opportunity to people with disabilities. This page is the first in a series of five pages covering the business case for Web accessibility. The five pages, called a "resource suite", are designed to help develop a customized business case for Web accessibility for a specific organization. The resource suite presents many different aspects of Web accessibility and includes guidance on incorporating these aspects into a specific organization's business case.

Web Accessibility at the University of California: Resources for Designing Accessible Web Pages
This Web site has been created to help University of California Web developers understand how to make their sites accessible, and to point them to useful tools and resources. The University of California recommends that its Web developers follow the Section 508 technical standards for Web-based intranet and internet information applications.  

 

HOW TO CREATE AN ACCESSIBLE WEB SITE

A Guide to Making Documents Accessible to People Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired: An Online Technical Assistance Guide to Producing Documents in Alternative Formats by Jennifer Sutton, American Council of the Blind.
This document contains a comprehensive discussion about how to make print and electronic information available to people with visual impairments in a variety of accessible formats.

Designing Web Pages for the Blind and Visually Impaired
These tips will improve access for visually impaired readers who may not employ any special equipment as they view our pages. They will also facilitate Web page access by blind and visually impaired persons using screen readers and/or other access technology.

Introduction to Web Accessibility from WebAIM
This web site addresses rules for accessible web design. This web site shows how people with disabilities use the web, the frustrations they feel when they cannot access the web and how you can make your web site more accessible.

Making Text Legible: Designing for People with Partial Sight

This article covers basic guidelines for making effective legibility choices that work for nearly everyone, especially people with partial sight.

Effective color contrast for people with partial sight
This article covers principles of designing effective color contrast for people with partial sight or congenital color deficiencies.

Making Text Legible: Designing for People with Partial Sight
This article covers basic guidelines for making effective legibility choices that work for nearly everyone, especially people with partial sight.

UCLA Academic Technology Services Disability and Computing Web Accessibility Page
This page has been designed as a resource for UCLA Campus Web Publishers and others who are interested in how to make Web sites, electronic documents, and Web applications accessible to people with disabilities, which includes people whom have difficulty reading print, graphics and video, due to blindness, low vision, learning disability, and certain orthopedic disabilities, and people who have difficulty accessing audio due to hearing impairment and deafness. A Web designed for disability access is also a web that will be friendlier to people with bandwidth constraints, those who prefer to browse with graphics off for speed, and those who use character-based browsers for a variety of reasons.

Web Accessibility for Section 508
Section 508 was signed into law in 1998. Section 508 requires that electronic and information technology that is developed or purchased by the Federal Government is accessible by people with disabilities. This online course provides an overview of Section 508 and the specifics of making a web page accessible. It concludes with a summary section pegged to the sixteen Section 508 Standards.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are part of a series of Web Accessibility guidelines published by W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative. They consist of guidelines on making content accessible, primarily for disabled users, but also for user agents including highly limited devices such as mobile phones.

Webstandards, Accessibility and Usability at Penn State contains accessibility tutorials, references and links.

EVALUATING YOUR SITE'S ACCESSIBILITY

Cynthia Says
Cynthia Says is a free way to evaluate your web site. It is connected to a software for purchase.

"Rational Policy Tester Accessibility Edition
The Accessibility Edition helps ensure web site user accessibility by monitoring for over 170 accessibility checks. This service took over Bobby.

Steppingstones to Technology Project 

WebAIM will focus efforts on developing a set of evaluation rules and algorithms to be added to the popular WAVE evaluation tools (see http://dev.wave.webaim.org). The intent of the new functionality is to provide developers with feedback on how their web page designs might impact users with cognitive or learning disabilities.

UsableNet

UsableNet offers industry-leading information and expertise in the form of simple, easy-to-use software tools that automate website usability and accessibility testing.

 

EXEMPLARY ACCESSIBLE ART RELATED SITES

The following are provided as examples of web sites that have been given a Bobby Approved Stamp (previously used accessibility evaluation tool).

ArtsAccess Inc.
This site is an example of a Bobby Approved site. This site is also a Winner of the 1999 Raleigh Medal of Arts and a Universal Access Award.

Dayton Art Institute
This site is labeled, including extended descriptions of the exhibit objects.

Theatre in Motion
This site is an example of a Bobby Approved site.

 

 

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