http://www.diveintoaccessibility.org/by_design_principle.html
This article made me want to poke my eyes out! It was not easy to read and did not hold my interest. I don’t think this article is very helpful in describing each of the issues below, in definition.
Browse tips by design principle:
- Perceivable. You should ensure that all content can be presented in forms that can be perceived by everyone.
- Operable. You should ensure that the interface elements in the content are operable by everyone.
- Navigable. You should facilitate content orientation and navigation.
- Understandable. You should make it as easy as possible for people to understand your content and controls.
- Robust. You should use technologies that maximize the ability of your content to work with current and future web browsers, assisting technologies, and other programs.
Perceivable
- Day 12: Using color safely – helps colorblind people
- Day 18: Giving your calendar a real caption – helps blind people
- Day 19: Using real table headers - helps deaf people
- Day 21: Ignoring spacer images – having spacer images is very annoying for the deaf & blind, remove them.
- Day 22: Using real lists (or faking them properly) -using alt text, it helps colorblind and blind people. With real list markup, all the visual presentation is in the CSS declarations, none of it clutters up the page, so both JAWS and Home Page Reader read it.
- Day 23: Providing text equivalents for images - each image should also have descriptive text. Screen readers read it, text-only browsers display it, Google indexes it, and visual browsers can display it as a tool-tip or on the status line.
- Day 24: Providing text equivalents for image maps - every image map and every clickable area of the image map needs a text equivalent.
- Day 25: Using real horizontal rules (or faking them properly) - using alt text
- Day 26: Using relative font sizes - using relative font sizes allow the user to change the font size to be more legible
- Day 30: Creating an accessibility statement - you can create a list of features you’ve added to your site to make it more user friendly, especially for those with disabilities.
Operable
- Day 13: Using real links -Because 11% of Internet users don’t use Javascript for one reason or another, including many disabled users whose browsers simply don’t support it. These pseudo-links won’t work for them; use real links instead.
- Day 15: Defining keyboard shortcuts - good way for those with disabilities to navigate through the site quickly.
- Day 28: Labeling form elements - good way to navigate through forms, sor the visually impared.
- Day 30: Creating an accessibility statement - you can create a list of features you’ve added to your site to make it more user friendly, especially for those with disabilities.
Navigable
- Day 9: Providing additional navigation aids- don’t work in IE
- Day 11: Skipping over navigation links- provide an link to skip over your navigation links
- Day 14: Adding titles to links- add titles to your links to show up as a tooltip in visual browsers and it can be presented in non-visual browsers as well
- Day 16: Not opening new windows- don’t do it, it breaks the back button
- Day 27: Using real headers- use real
<h1>,<h2>,<h3>tags - Day 29: Making everything searchable- Put the search box on every page, preferably above the fold.
- Day 30: Creating an accessibility statement you can create a list of features you’ve added to your site to make it more user friendly, especially for those with disabilities.
Understandable
- Day 7: Identifying your language- tell your readers what language you use… and their software.
- Day 8: Constructing meaningful page titles- Homepage can be title of your web page; Category pages should include the name of your web site, followed by the name of the category; and Individual entry archive pages should include the name of your web site, followed by the entry title
- Day 17: Defining acronyms- for acronyms and abbreviations use the <acronym> tag; Hover your cursor over each acronym to see what it stands for.
- Day 20: Providing a summary for tables- it’s a a longer description than the caption and is exclusively designed for screen readers and speech browsers.
- Day 30: Creating an accessibility statement -you can create a list of features you’ve added to your site to make it more user friendly, especially for those with disabilities.
Robust
- Day 6: Choosing a DOCTYPE- You start your sentences with a capital letter; start your HTML with a
DOCTYPE. It’s just basic grammar. - Day 10: Presenting your main content first- present your main content first so screen readers say that first.
- Day 30: Creating an accessibility statement- you can create a list of features you’ve added to your site to make it more user friendly, especially for those with disabilities.
