Maybe Web Accessibility groups need to focus their attention on the browser makers, as well as the website creators.

The BBC have an article, which has a ‘quick’ look at accessibility on the web, I mean a quick look, it really just covers a blind member of staff trying to buy a book, and then some comments on the latest laws for the UK (following years on from the American 508 laws).

I should not be too dismissive, it is nice to see article which highlight the area of accessibility for the web on high profile sites such as the BBC, rather then just on sites related to web development, it is an area we all need to discuss, as users of the web, not just as developers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/6090418.stm

It is a bit unsettling that the one designer they quote, referred to CSS as being only around for a short time

“However, that’s quite a new technology, it’s only been around a couple of years, and a lot of designers are still very wary of using it. “

My definition of a couple would be 2, 3 at the outside, I have been using CSS since 1999, so I make that a little longer the a couple of years.

Again, I may be being a little harsh here, maybe they are refering to CSS2, and the take up of CSS for layout, as apposed to just changing the odd colour of font size.
Still CSS has been around some time, and whilst I understand a number of designers/developers find the fact that browsers interprute CSS different so frustrating, and fall back to tables, many designers and developers have taken to CSS as a layout tool, and gone on to live meaningful lives ;o)

Hopefully Web Accessibility will become more of a talking point for the long term, rather then odd points made every few months, although I expect until all browser makers work to Web standards (yes IE we are looking at you), many web designers/developers will find it hard to change, so maybe it is time action groups focused their attention at the browser makers.

Internet Explorer 7 is a major leap forward, amazing what years and years and years of redesign and one of the largest R&D budgets can do for you, after all not like Firefox was doing this without any major backing and a lot earlier, is it ;o)

If we focused some of the attention on the browser companies as well as the web site makers, maybe things would change even quicker, after all as designers/developers we are restricted by the performance of the device people use to view our creations, and for the (unfortunate) majority that is Internet Explorer, which even in its best version yet (IE 7) still has some way to go before it supports Web Standards fully.

One day, my friends, all browsers will work to web standards, one design will work, no hacks, no messing around trying to make up for the mess IE makes of the design which works fine in the standard’s browsers of Firefox and Opera (even Apple’s own Safari is doing far better the IE).

Then, and maybe only then, designers and developers will abandon the use of tables for layout, and will truly separate Content from Design, developing sites which can be created once, and viewed on many devices.

Accessibility : General Accessibility guidelines

This tutorial provides some simple guidelines to aid in the production of Accessible websites.

Details

1. Use an ALT attribute to describe graphics and other non-text items
2. Ensure good contrast between text and background
3. Do not use colour to discriminate items, without giving a text alternative, do not ask users to pick green items for instance.
4. Use style sheets to control screen appearance
5. Ensure text associated with links makes sense out of context – (not simply “click here”)
6. Provide a text site map – or text navigation
7. Ensure the size of all text can be altered with browser controls
8. Do not use frames
9. Limit the use of distracting animated gifs
10. Avoid absolute positioning
11. Warn users about pop-ups
12. Make sure mulitmedia elements are optional and have a text alternative

Accessibility : Accessibility Tips

Frames

When the frames are not available, providing the content in the noframes tag, which is really part of making a frames site access, as a speech browser will not see the frames, and by providing the links with the noframes tag, the user can still access the site, simply by moving around via the main page.
You will need to ensure that you don’t use an scripting to force the frames to load within the frameset though.

To check your sites when they are designed in Frames, I would suggest downloading Opera, this is the only browser I am aware of, that allows you to disable Frames, and thus you can see how someone will view your website if they can not view Frames.
Once you have downloaded Opera, go into the Preferences menu from File and untick the Frames options in Page style, and see what framed sites look like to a non-frames user.

Links

Some of the techniques are a simple change to your working, such as not use Click Here, but actually using a title for the link.
Also, use the Title tag in text links, especially when the link will open in a new window, so you can warn the user that this is going to happen.
i.e
Link for downloading Adobe Acrobat Click Here.
Simply change this to Download Adobe Acrobat reader

Style

For text, use your CSS style sheet, it not only means that the site becomes changeable by the user, but helps you ensure your whole site retains a uniform look, and means a simple change to the css file changes the entire site.
Use relatively sizes, not fixed, I personally use %, usually 70% for normal text, this means the user can use the browser to increase the text size should they wish to.
ems work to, but produce a different look between Apple and Windows, due to the different DPI of the two operating systems.
http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/publicwebsite/public_acinfaqs.hcsp#P36_2685

It is best to apply your styles to such tags as the p, instead to a whole table, this gives you greater control over the look of a section, and also, not all browser support styles applied to the Table, there is a version of IE, that does not.

I would not recommend redefining the actual HTML tags, such as p, but creating styles such as standardtext then applying it to the p
i.e. p class =”standardtext”

A simple way to ensure you are working accessible in Dreamweaver MX, is to go into Preferences, and check all the boxes in the Accessibility section, this will ensure that Dreamweaver asks you all the right questions when you use Images, Links, Frames and Forms.

TabIndexes

It is useful to provide Tabindex to each link on your page, so that anyone using a Keyboard to move around your site can work through the page the way you intended it, rather then having to work through the Navigation menu each time.

The trick to this is, on all other pages, bar the home page, make your navigation links, a Tabindex of 2 or greater.

Now you can use the Tabindex going up 1,2,3 etc, but I find that annoying, especially if you have to enter a new link part way through a page.
There is a work around.
The Browser will see Tabindex=”1″ and happily move to the next link which also have Tabindex=”1″.
So you can assign Tabindex=”1″ to all you main page links, and browsers will move happily though them, if you give your Navigation links a Tabindex=”2″, once the browser has finished with all you main page links with Tabindex=”1″, it will then move onto the navigation.

Tables

You should try to keep the number of columns and rows in a table to a bear minimum, you can use css to give your tables padding, in fact my recent sites have used 1 cell tables, but still have 5% white space on the left and right hand side.

A person using a speech browser has to move through all those cells, and also, text does not always read out in a linear way if it is spread out over several

This is also good rule of thumb for Forms, and using tables to position the Title and fields, so they sit in separate s, this can mean they no longer are ‘related’ to one another.

Useful links

• Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

• HTML Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0: W3C Working Draft 11 March 2004
• Accessible Frames

• Accessible Links

• Opera browser
• IBM speech browser
• Demo version of IBM speech browser
• Download and install the 30 day trial of HPR Version 3.021
• IBM Understanding disability issues when designing Web sites
• RNIB, Good Design
• RNIB, Accessible information
• RNIB, Understanding web accessibility
• RNIB, See it Right accessible websites directory
• RNIB, The legal case – Web access centre
• RNIB, The business case – Web access centre

Legality

Accessibility is not only addressing the millions of users on the web who have a disability, but it is a requirement in Law.

Under British law, the Disability Discrimination Act Part III, states that all service provides must provide access to their services for disabled people. This has been used in regard to websites, and really there is no reason why a web site can not be accessible, whether it be utilising the above techniques, or providing a text only version of a website that the author feels can not be altered to accommodate accessibility.

European Law actually provides a legal requirements for access websites, similar to the USA’s 508 law, and thus it provides legal requirements for all businesses to provide accessible websites, and the opportunity for legal action to be taken against those who do not comply.