1. Accessibility & Legislation
  2. Common Issues
  3. Testing & Tools
  4. Analysing Your Site

Today's four sessions

"The Web has accessibility built-in - but if you work hard enough you can always get round it."

Jim Byrne: 15th Nov 2001

1. Web site accessibility and legislation

Presenter: Nigel Williams | Approx 20 minutes

At the end of this session participants will be able to identify accessibility issues with regards to current legislation.

Covering:

  1. What is accessibility and why implement it?
  2. The relevant standards.
  3. The potential audience.
  4. The legislation and how to ensure compliance with it.
  5. What other companies are doing.
  6. The NGfL standards.

The PowerPoint version.

2. Common Issues and repair methods

Presenter: Mike Foskett | Approx 1 hour

At the end of this session participants will be able to recognise common accessibility issues and identify appropriate methods of repair.

Content:

  1. Text Equivalents - An explanation of what they're for, who they affect, and why.
  2. Javascript usage, covering navigation onSelect and DHTML.
  3. Data Tables.
  4. Frames.
  5. If time permits. Colour usage - On screen demos of eye conditions, and flashing & blinking content.
  6. A quick overview of other guidelines.

Skills:

  1. Distinguish good from bad alt text.
  2. Be aware of issues with multimedia interactive content.
  3. Know what to avoid with Javascript and how to use it effectively.
  4. Understand why data tables are treated with respect.
  5. If time permits. Knowledge of various visual impediments.

3. Testing utilising free online tools

Presenter: Sue Garrett | Approx 1 hour

At the end of the session participants will be able to test a sites accessibility using a series of online tools.

A suite of sample test pages will be provided with built in errors the participants will be asked to hunt down the errors using the Accessibility Toolbar.

Content:

  1. Tests for alt text.
  2. Tests for JavaScript off.
  3. Tests for Style sheets off.
  4. Bobby - will pick up missing alt tags and other errors...
  5. W3C HTML validator.
  6. W3C CSS validator.
  7. W3C Link checker.

At the end of the session the participants will know how to test a site for basic NGfL conformance.

4. Analysing your own site and repairs

Approx 1 hour

At the same time, for those interested, run demos of:

  1. JAWS.
  2. Dasher.
  3. aDesigner.
  4. ReadSpeaker - Contact them see if they'd do one page for free, else point to a page that has it activated.