Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking at a meeting of the Charlotte User Experience group. I talked about the basics of web accessibility: what it is, who it affects, why it matters, and some of the fundamental things you ought to be doing in your pages to make them more accessible.
You can view the slides on SlideShare, or download the slides here:
Here are several links to related resources, some of which are in the slides plus many that were not but which I recommend and think you’ll find useful.
Top sites on accessibility
These are my favorite sites to read to learn accessibility techniques and news on developments in technology like HTML5 and screen readers. I highly recommend subscribing to the RSS feeds of these.
WCAG 2.0
- “How to Meet WCAG 2.0” customizable quick reference from the W3C
- “WebAIM’s WCAG 2.0 Checklist“
WAI-ARIA
HTML5 and accessibility
- HTML5accessibility.com created by The Paciello Group
- “JAWS, IE and Headings in HTML5” by Jason Kiss, Accessible Culture
CSS and accessibility
- “Clip your hidden content for better accessibility” by Theirry Koblentz on Yahoo! Accessibility Lab’s Library
- “CSS in Action: Invisible Content Just for Screen Reader Users” by WebAIM
- “Better for Accessibility” by Derek Featherstone
Creating accessible content
- “Text alternatives for images: a decision tree” by 4Syllables
- “Accessibility for web writers” article series by 4Syllables
- “Using the HTML title attribute” by Steve Faulkner, The Paciello Group
- “HTML5 Accessibility Chops: form control labeling” by Steve Faulkner, The Paciello Group
- “Making Compact Forms More Accessible” by Mike Brittain on A List Apart
- “‘Skip Navigation’ Links” by WebAIM
- “Detecting if images are disabled in browsers” by Steve Faulkner, The Paciello Group
- “Accessible JavaScript: Beyond the Mouse” by James Edward on Sitepoint
- Black Widow Web Design’s Color Contrast Analyser tells you if contrast is too high for people with dyslexia
- Color Tools links to a bunch of traditional color contrast analyzer tools
Screen readers
- NVDA: free, Windows
- VoiceOver: included on Mac and iOS
- JAWS: free trial version
- Window-Eyes: free trial version
- “Screen Reader User Survey #3 Results” by WebAIM