Amaya

Accessibility

The Amaya user population is extremely diverse. In addition to speaking a variety of languages and operating on several platforms, the population contains users with visual, aural, and motor disabilities.

Because Amaya is an Open Source project, it is important to produce documents that are accessible to all members of the user base. Amaya provides a number of accessibility features to assist you with achieving this goal.

Accessibility features

Accessibility for people with disabilities is being improved with each release. Currently, you can perform most Amaya functions without using a mouse, and carry out most editing functions (except entering text) without using the keyboard.

Accessibility features in the current version include the ability to:

Producing accessible content

You can use Amaya to produce content that conforms to the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Some accessibility features are already built in. For example, you cannot add an image until you specify the alternative text because of the requirement for an alt attribute for images and imagemap areas.

Amaya also automatically produces valid W3C-compliant markup. However, you control other features, such as appropriate long descriptions and captioning, through the Attributes tool or the structure view.

The Amaya help currently describes how to use some HTML elements. As additional documentation is written, it will include information on ensuring accessibility for any pages that you produce.

The most thorough guidelines are the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative also publishes the following quick tips for making accessible Web sites: