Design Accessible Web Sites: 36 Keys to Creating Content for All Audiences and Platforms (Pragmatic Programmers)

303 Pages·2007·4.57 MB·English

by  Jeremy Sydik

Thank you for taking part in this experiment.
Andy and Dave
Design Accessible Web Sites
Thirty-Six Keys to Creating Content for All Audiences and Platforms
Jeremy J. Sydik
The Pragmatic Bookshelf
Raleigh,NorthCarolina Dallas,Texas
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Contents
Acknowledgments 10
Preface 12
Getting to Know Each Other . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Finding Your Way Through This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Principles Before Guidelines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Part I—Laying the Foundation 18
Why Be Accessible? 19
1.1 It’s the Right Thing to Do . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.2 Accessibility is Good Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.3 Accessible Sites are More Usable . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.4 It’s the Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.5 Building with Accessibility Can Make You More Capable 24
A Brief Introduction to Disabilities 26
2.1 Visual Impairments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.2 Auditory Impairments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.3 Mobility Impairments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.4 Cognitive Impairments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.5 Multiple Disabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
An Environment for Access 35
1. Making a Team Effort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2. Plan for Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3. Multiple Access Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4. Don’t Get WET! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
5. Guidelines for Accessibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
CONTENTS 7
Testing for Accessibility 64
6. Testing as a Design Decision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
7. Building a Testing Toolbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
8. Getting Your Hands Dirty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Part II—Building a Solid Structure 81
The Structured Life 82
9. Say It With Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
10. Keeping It Simple is Smart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
11. Minding Your <p>’s and <q>’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
12. Linking It All Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
13. Styled To The Nines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
14. Welcome To The Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Round Tables 110
15. Setting The Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
16. Ah, <table>, I Hardly Knew Ye! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
17. Layout And Other Bad Table Manners . . . . . . . . . . 122
The Accessible Interface 130
18. It’s Their Web—We’re Just Building In It . . . . . . . . 131
19. Getting <form>al . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
20. Tickling The Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
21. Your Interface Has Some Explaining To Do . . . . . . . 145
Part III—Getting the Perfect View 149
A Picture is Worth... 150
22. Stoplights and Poison Apples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
23. Thinking in Terms of Black and White. . . . . . . . . . 157
24. To Put it Another Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
25. More Than alt= Can Say . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
26. alt.text.odds-and-ends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Video Killed the Something-Something 179
27. It’s Not Polite to Flash the Audience . . . . . . . . . . . 181
28. Words That Go [Creak] in the Night . . . . . . . . . . . 185
29. Describe it to Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
30. On the Cutting Room Floor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
CONTENTS 8
Part IV—Putting on Some Additions 206
Not All Documents Are Created Equal 207
31. Back at the Office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
32. PDF: Trying to Make Portable Accessible . . . . . . . . 213
Scripted Responses 221
33. Unassuming Scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
34. Higher Order Scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Embedded Applications: Rinse and Repeat 232
35. The Many Faces of Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
36. Java: Is Your Brew Fair-Trade? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Part V—Building Codes 243
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 244
13.1 Checkpoint Priorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
13.2 Conformance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
13.3 The 14 Guidelines of WCAG 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Section 508 261
14.1 SoftwareApplications and Operating Systems (§1194.21)262
14.2 Web-Based Intranet and Internet Information and Applications (§1194.22)264
14.3 Video and Multimedia Products (§1194.24) . . . . . . . 267
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 270
15.1 The Basics of WCAG 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
15.2 Concerns About WCAG 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
15.3 The WCAG 2.0 Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Meanwhile, In the Rest of the World... 288
16.1 Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
16.2 Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
16.3 The European Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
16.4 Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
16.5 United Kingdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
16.6 United Nations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
16.7 More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
CONTENTS 9
Final Thoughts 295
17.1 Keep Trying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
17.2 Stay Informed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
17.3 Have Fun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
Bibliography 298
Index 299
TheJourneyistheReward.
ZenProverb
Acknowledgments
Everyjourneyhasabeginningand,inthecaseofthisbook,thejourney
truly began over ten years ago at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln
Accommodation ResourceCenter.Dr.ChristyHornfirstshowedmethe
importance of accessibility and has continued ever since to shape me
as a professional and as a person. Thank you for your mentorship and
your friendship. I also thank Christy, Roger Bruning, Barbara Robert-
son and everyone else at the Center for Instructional Innovation for
contributing to the supportive environment that makes working on a
project like this possible.
The road to this book would have been impossible to navigate without
helpalongtheway.MikeHostetler,PeterKrantz,JasonKunesh,Florian
Ockhuysen, Aza Raskin, Ian Scheitle, and Warren Werner read early
versions of this content, reviewed chapter drafts, and called me to task
when I oversimplified or underexplained. This book is much better for
your help (But I’m still taking credit for all of the mistakes, so there).
Susannah Davidson Pfalzer had the (sometimes extremely) challenging
taskofbeingthedevelopmenteditorforthisproject.IknowI’mnoteasy
to negotiate with, so thank you for pushing when you knew this book
could be better and for trusting my judgement when I was convinced
that we were on the right path. I’d also like to thank Dave Thomas
forlisteningtotheoriginal concept forthisbook at RailsConf 2006 and
believingintheideaofaprinciples-basedapproachtowebaccessibility.
Dave, along withAndy Hunt,also answeredmany ofthequestionsthat
came up along the way about production, layout, copyright, and all of
theotherthingsthatturnabunch of wordsintoa book. It hasbeen an
honor to writea Pragmatic Bookshelf title.
Togetwhereyou’regoing,youneedtorememberwhereyoucamefrom.
My Mom and Dad are responsible for teaching me to believe in doing
the right thing, helping people who need to be helped, and trying to
be the best person I can be. (The rest is my own fault.) I’d also like to