<html> Topic 8

Topic:

Make your Web Site Reach World-Wide

This week's goal:

Why let any artificial barriers get in the way of reaching your largest possible audience? This week you will master guidelines that ensure people can enjoy your work, regardless of whether they use an older browser, the latest Palm, or an audible screen reader. Accessibility has become an issue because in this country about one person out of five experiences some level of disability, and one person out of ten lives with a severe disability. Designing for those with disabilities also ensures that you are doing fundamentally good design with clean html code that will appeal to everyone.

What to do this week:

1. Go to a favorite web page and play with it, doing the following tests:

Turn off the graphics display in your browser and see how the page looks, whether you can still understand it.
Turn off sounds and make sure you can still understand the page.
Change the default font sizes on your browser to see how the page displays.
Resize the browser window to be smaller and larger.
Try navigating using the "tab" key.
Make a list of all the text highlighted to be links. Is the list useful or nonsense?
Select all the text on the web page and copy it to a word processor page (such as Word or WordPerfect) to see what appears. Does it make sense, or is it scrambled into gibberish?

Note: Especially if you are not using your own computer, do not forget to return the computer back to its normal settings once you are finished playing.

Hear a screen reader

2. Listen to an example of how an audible screen reader sounds. Go to the page for pwWebSpeak and select the link that says "Listen to pwWebSpeak in action with the SoftVoice synthesizer (240k WAV file)." Another audio sample is listed in the "Readings" section below. Note how fast and mechanical the voice reads. This shows why your page text must be clear from the start!

W3C Quick Tips for Accesible Web Pages

3. Go to the highlighted access link below to read the comments and accompanying articles about universal design. The most important points are summarized in the "W3C Quick Tips to Make Accessible Web Sites."

The other references in the "Readings" link below offer more materials.

4. Do a critique of a web page that is otherwise very good, but that is not accessible. What needs to be done to make it accessible to people with disabilities or text-based browsers? Send the URL of the page and your critique to the ListServ. Make the subject of your message "Unit 8: Access." (Also send your suggestions to the webmaster of that page with a friendly note.)

5. There is no web page submission due for this week's unit. However, begin or continue work on your semester project. The "Guidelines for the Final Project" should make more sense to you now that we have considered accessibility issues.

Readings	Resources	<head>	<p> etc.	<b> etc.	<li> etc.	<a href>	<img src>
Access	<table>	<frame>	<style>	<form>	<script>	<object>	validate