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Accessibility in Tomorrow's Web (WWW 2012 tutorial) Material

Tutorial leaders: Shawn Henry (W3C), Hans Hillen (TPG)

Sections below: Part 1: Fundamentals, Part 2: WAI-ARIA and HTML 5

Part 1: Fundamentals

The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) develops strategies, guidelines, and resources to help make the Web accessible to people with disabilities.

Getting Started with Web Accessibility

Accessibility - W3C W3C page
The first place to start for a short introduction to Web accessibility, including brief examples of web accessibility, and links to more information. States:

The Web is fundamentally designed to work for all people, whatever their hardware, software, language, culture, location, or physical or mental ability. When the Web meets this goal, it is accessible to people with a diverse range of hearing, movement, sight, and cognitive ability.

Thus the impact of disability is radically changed on the Web because the Web removes barriers to communication and interaction that many people face in the physical world. However, when websites, web technologies, or web tools are badly designed, they can create barriers that exclude people from using the Web.

Introduction to Web Accessibility
Introduces Web accessibility and links to additional resources.
Essential Components of Web Accessibility
Shows how Web accessibility depends on several components of Web development and interaction working together and shows the relationship between the WAI guidelines: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG), and User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG).
Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization
Presents benefits and costs of Web accessibility and includes guidance on incorporating these aspects into a specific organization's business case. Includes separate pages for Social Factors, Technical Factors, Financial Factors, and Legal & Policy Factors, and a collection of supporting Resources.

Designing for Inclusion

Inclusive design, design for all, digital inclusion, universal usability, and similar efforts address a broad range of issues in making technology available to and usable by all people whatever their abilities, age, economic situation, education, geographic location, language, etc. Accessibility focuses on people with disabilities — people with auditory, cognitive, neurological, physical, speech, and visual impairments. The documents below explore some of the overlaps between inclusive design and web accessibility, and help managers, designers, developers, policy makers, researchers, and others optimize their efforts in these overlapping areas.

How People with Disabilities Use the Web
Introduces detailed examples of people with different disabilities using websites, applications, browsers, and authoring tools.
Web Accessibility and Older People: Meeting the Needs of Ageing Web Users
Introduces how the accessibility needs of older people with age-related impairments are similar to the accessibility needs of people with disabilities, and how existing international guidelines address them. Links to resources for developers, managers, researchers, advocates, and others, such as:
Web Content Accessibility and Mobile Web: Making a Web Site Accessible Both for People with Disabilities and for Mobile Devices
Introduces the significant overlap between making a website accessible for a mobile device and for people with disabilities. Links to:

Guidelines & Techniques

WAI develops a series of accessibility standards and guidelines that are introduced in Essential Components of Web Accessibility and listed below:

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Overview, WCAG 2.0
Addresses the information in a Web site, including text, images, forms, sounds, and such. Links to:
Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) Suite Overview
Addresses dynamic Web content and Web applications developed with Ajax, DHTML, and other Web technologies.
Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) Overview, ATAG 1.0
Addresses software that creates Web sites.
User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) Overview, UAAG 1.0
Addresses Web browsers and media players, and relates to assistive technologies.
Referencing and Linking to WAI Guidelines and Technical Documents
Provides guidance on references and links, along with WCAG links for policies, tools support, and others.
How WAI Develops Accessibility Guidelines through the W3C Process: Milestones and Opportunities to Contribute
Introduces how WAI works through a process designed to ensure broad community input and encourage consensus development.

More

Part 2: WAI-ARIA and HTML 5

To get this material in a different format, contact hhillen@paciellogroup.com

Slide deck (Requires Microsoft Powerpoint 2007 or higher) links off W3C WAI site

Examples used during tutorial:


W3C Note icon indicates links to technical reports or other page formats without WAI site navigation.
links off W3C WAI site icon indicates links to off W3C WAI site.