Topics: User Science: Accessibility
Tips on making your site available to every device: from Palm Pilots and web-enabled cell phones to screen readers, text browsers, and alternative browsers and devices. WAI in on WCAG. Accessibility via web standards and also via Flash and PDF. Yes, you heard right. Advanced techniques and basics. Experiments and controversies. (34 articles)
The Accessibility Hat Trick: Getting Abbreviations Right
by Colin Lieberman
Issue 210January 16, 2006
“...abbreviations and acronyms stand out as one of the trickiest areas of AAA to implement well. In order to meet our three-part goal of standards compliance, backwards compatibility, and full accessibility, we need to give this aspect of our content a bit of thought.”
High Accessibility Is Effective Search Engine Optimization
by Andy Hagans
Issue 207November 08, 2005
“I have been a search engine optimizer for several years, but only recently have become infatuated with web accessibility. After reading for weeks until my eyes became sore, and painstakingly editing my personal website to comply with most W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, I have come to a startling revelation: high accessibility overlaps heavily with effective white hat SEO.”
Facts and Opinions About PDF Accessibility
by Joe Clark
Issue 201August 22, 2005
PDF accessibility is not as straightforward as HTML accessibility. But it can be done, if you put the same care into marking up your PDFs that you put into marking up websites. Joe Clark tells all.
Big, Stark & Chunky
by Joe Clark
Issue 191January 11, 2005
You’ve designed for the screen and made provision for blind, handheld, and PDA browser users. But what about low-vision people? Powered by CSS, “zoom” layouts convert wide, multicolumn web pages into low-vision-friendly, single column designs. Accessibility maven Joe Clark explores the rationale and methods behind zoom layouts. Board the zoom train now!
Invasion of the Body Switchers
by Andy Clarke, James Edwards
Issue 189November 19, 2004
Wouldn’t it be great if we could update the classic ALA Style Switcher to accommodate multiple users and devices, including some that aren’t even traditional browsers, all from a single JavaScript and CSS file? Well, now we can! Enter the Body Switcher.
Pocket-Sized Design: Taking Your Website to the Small Screen
by Elika Etemad, Jorunn D. Newth
Issue 187August 31, 2004
Creating a handheld-friendly style sheet that works well even on handheld screens no wider than 120px.
Dynamic Text Replacement
by Stewart Rosenberger
Issue 183June 15, 2004
Let your server do the walking! Whether you’re replacing one headline or a thousand, Stewart Rosenberger’s Dynamic Text Replacement automatically swaps XHTML text with an image of that text, consistently displayed in any font you own. The markup is clean, semantic, and accessible. No CSS hacks are required, and you needn’t open Photoshop or any other image editor. Read about it today; use it on personal and commercial web projects tomorrow.
Print It Your Way
by Derek Featherstone
Issue 182May 21, 2004
Because ALA’s readers are web users as well as designers and developers, we offer this tidbit from Derek Featherstone on creating user stylesheets to print articles to your own specifications.
What Is Web Accessibility?
by Trenton Moss
Issue 179April 30, 2004
While the methods we use to create accessible websites can be complex, the essential principles are simple: consider the obstacles your site presents to users who approach it differently than you do, then remove as many of those obstacles as you can. Trenton Moss provides a quick overview.
Let Them Eat Cake
by Aaron Gustafson
Issue 177April 16, 2004
A growing debate pits accessibility against usability. From our point of view, it’s like pitting peanut butter against jelly. This article helps you create a page that is both usable and accessible, saving readers the trouble of scrolling with a little help from JavaScript and the Document Object Model.
Web Accessibility and UK Law: Telling It Like It Is
by Trenton Moss
Issue 176April 09, 2004
There’s been widespread speculation about the new legislation being introduced in the UK, which is intended to ensure that websites are accessible to people with disabilities. This article examines how these new laws will affect the way you design in the real world.
Power To The People: Relative Font Sizes
by Bojan Mihelac
Issue 176April 09, 2004
Relative font sizes may make websites more accessible — but they’re not much help unless the person using the site can find a way to actually change text size. Return control to your audience using this simple, drop-in solution.
Accessible Pop-up Links
by Caio Chassot
Issue 174March 19, 2004
Sometimes we have to use pop-ups — so we might as well do them right. This article will show you how to make them more accessible and reliable while simplifying their implementation.
Retooling Slashdot with Web Standards Part II
by Daniel M. Frommelt
Issue 165December 04, 2003
In Part I, we showed how Slashdot could save money and reduce bandwidth requirements by converting to semantic XHTML markup and CSS layout. In Part II, we explore how standards-compliant markup and deft use of CSS could make Slashdot and your sites play nicely in print and on handheld devices.
Retooling Slashdot with Web Standards
by Daniel M. Frommelt
Issue 164November 21, 2003
A look at the markup behind Slashdot.org that demonstrates how simple — and cost-effective — the switch to a standards-compliant Slashdot could be. (Part I of a two-part series.)
How to Save Web Accessibility from Itself
by Joe Clark
Issue 163November 14, 2003
An upcoming revision to the Web Accessibility Guidelines is in danger of becoming unrealistically divorced from real-world web development, yielding guidelines that are at once too vague and too specific. Your expertise and input can help create realistic guidelines that work.
Suckerfish Dropdowns
by Patrick Griffiths, Dan Webb
Issue 162November 07, 2003
Teach your smart little menus to do the DHTML dropdown dance without sacrificing semantics, accessibility, or standards compliance or writing clunky code.
Facts and Opinion About Fahrner Image Replacement
by Joe Clark
Issue 160October 20, 2003
Fahrner Image Replacement and its analogues aim to combine the benefits of high design with the requirements of accessibility. But how well do these methods really work? Accessibility expert Joe Clark digs up much-needed empirical data on how FIR works (and doesn’t) in leading screen readers.
Accesskeys: Unlocking Hidden Navigation
by Stuart Robertson
Issue 158June 16, 2003
Your favorite applications have shortcut keys. So can your site, thanks to the XHTML accesskey attribute. Accesskeys make sites more accessible for people who cannot use a mouse. Unfortunately, almost no designer uses accesskeys, because, unless they View Source, most visitors can’t tell that you’ve put these nifty navigational shortcuts to work on your site. In this issue, Stuart Robertson unlocks the secret of providing visible accesskey shortcuts.
Flash MX: Moving Toward Accessible Rich Media
by Andrew Kirkpatrick
Issue 143April 26, 2002
Andrew Kirkpatrick of the CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media tackles Flash MX from the developer’s perspective, showing how authors can more easily generate accessible Flash content, and where roadblocks remain.
Flash MX: Clarifying the Concept
by Joe Clark
Issue 143April 26, 2002
In a detailed survey, accessibility obsessive Joe Clark evaluates Flash MX (authoring tool and player) in the context of the often confusing WAI and Section 508 guidelines, finds some things to cheer about, and draws a roadmap for future improvements.
Accessibility, Web Standards, and Authoring Tools
by Christopher Schmitt
Issue 141March 22, 2002
With the advent of more compliant web browsers, the quest for standards shifts to the tools pros use to build sites. Christopher Schmitt spoke with Adobe and Macromedia for the low-down on web standards, accessibility, and authoring tools.
A Backward Compatible Style Switcher
by Daniel Ludwin
Issue 136February 08, 2002
You asked for it, you’ve got it: an Open Source alternate style sheet switcher that actually works in Netscape 4. No, really. Daniel Ludwin shows how it’s done.
Why Don’t You Code for Netscape?
by Jeffrey Zeldman
Issue 129December 07, 2001
Long considered the Holy Grail of web design, “backward compatibility” has its place; but at this point in web development history, shouldn’t we be more concerned about forward compatibility? ALA makes the case for authoring to web standards instead of browser quirks.
CSS Talking Points: Selling Clients on Web Standards
by Greg Kise
Issue 116July 06, 2001
Selling your clients on standards-compliant design doesn’t have to hurt. Kise’s four-point CSS Selling Plan helps the medicine go down.
All the Access Money Can Buy
by Joe Clark
Issue 115July 22, 2001
Just when you think online multimedia will never be truly access, someone proves you wrong. In BMW Films, Clark sees a tantalizing glimpse of a better web.
SMIL When You Play That
by Jeffrey Zeldman
Issue 101March 16, 2001
A gentle introduction to the SVG and SMIL standards for programmable vector graphics and accessible rich media.
To Hell With Bad Browsers
by Jeffrey Zeldman
Issue 99February 16, 2001
In a year or two, all sites will be designed with standards that separate structure from presentation (or they will be built with Flash 7). We can watch our skills grow obsolete, or start learning standards-based techniques. In fact, since the latest versions of IE, Navigator, and Opera already support many web standards, if we are willing to let go of the notion that backward compatibility is a virtue, we can stop making excuses and start using these standards now. At ALA, beginning with Issue No. 99, we’ve done just that. Join us.
From Table Hacks to CSS Layout: A Web Designer’s Journey
by Jeffrey Zeldman
Issue 99February 16, 2001
Redesigning A List Apart using CSS should have been easy. It wasn’t. The first problem was understanding how CSS actually works. The second was getting it to work in standards-compliant browsers. A journey of discovery.
This HTML Kills: Thoughts on Web Accessibility
by Jim Byrne
Issue 98October 20, 2003
Activist Jim Byrne sounds off on the importance of web accessibility, and the difficulty of doing it right.
Accessibility: the Politics of Design
by Alan Herrell
Issue 94October 16, 2003
Herrell deconstructs the new U.S. accessibility regulations and their implications for web designers everywhere.
Flash Access: Unclear on the Concept
by Joe Clark
Issue 90December 01, 2000
Accessible Flash looks great on paper. But can Macromedia really pull it off? And do enough designers care? Joe Clark offers insight into Macromedia’s press release and poses questions for Macromedia to consider.
Daemon Skins: Separating Presentation from Content
by Mark Newhouse
Issue 87November 03, 2000
There ’s more than one way to skin a website. Newhouse demonstrates creative scripting techniques that give viewers and designers the control they crave.
A Dao of Web Design
by John Allsopp
Issue 58April 07, 2000
Web designers often bemoan the malleable nature of the web, which seems to defy our efforts at strict control over layout and typography. But maybe the problem is not the web. Maybe the problem is us. John Allsopp looks at web design through the prism of the Tao Te Ching, and decides that designers should let the web be the web.
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