The National Library for the Blind Designing accessible

The National Library for the Blind

Designing accessible websites Joanna Widdows David Egan

Design For All n. Accessible design is good design for all n. Visual impairment (VI) and the Web: l VI: a continuum

How do visually impaired people access the web? n. Magnification n. Refreshable Braille n. Speech synthesis

Why Bother? n Social Inclusion n Best Value n DDA n E-Government

Myths and Tips r Text version of site is essential 4 Good sites can include more than just text

Myths and Tips r Frames must not be used 4 Give frames titles 4 Use ‘no frames’ version

Myths and Tips r Tables must not be used 4 Avoid the use of tables for layout 4 Use necessary markup to describe tables

Myths and Tips r Images must be avoided 4 Give all images alt text 4 Give imagemaps text links

Myths and Tips r Flash and Javascript must not be used 4 Offer alternatives for Javascript, applets, flash plug -ins

Myths and Tips r PDF must not be used 4 Make Access Adobe available for PDF files http: //access. adobe. com/

Myths and Tips r Bobby is all you need 4 Use Bobby, other tools and human evaluation

More Tips 4 Make the text legible 4 make the design flexible 4 Provide a site map [preferably at the bottom of the screen]

…and more r Multiple links can make navigation difficult

4 Make sure links make sense out of context

The proof of the pudding. . . Some examples of good and bad practice

NLB Consultancy n Co-ordinated by Interactive Initiatives n Developing NLB charter mark n david. egan@nlbuk. org