Accessibility Handbook

Accessibility Handbook

by Katie Cunningham
Released August 2012
Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ISBN: 9781449322816

Read it now on the O’Reilly learning platform with a 10-day free trial.

O’Reilly members get unlimited access to books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial

Book description

Get practical guidelines for making your website accessible to people with disabilities. With this handbook, you’ll learn how to design or develop a site that conforms to Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act—and in the process you’ll discover how to provide a better user experience for everyone.

The Accessibility Handbook introduces you to several audiences that have difficulty using today’s complex websites, including people with blindness, hearing loss, physical disabilities, and cognitive disorders. Learn how to support assistive technologies, and understand which fonts, colors, page layouts, and other design elements work best—without having to exclude advanced functions, hire outside help, or significantly increase overhead.

Develop solutions that accommodate:

  • Complete blindness. Create a logical document flow to support screen readers
  • Low vision and color blindness. Optimize images and color schemes, and ensure your site enlarges gracefully
  • Hearing impairment. Provide video captions and visual alerts for interactive features
  • Physical disabilities. Make forms, popups, and navigation easier to use
  • Cognitive disorders. Adapt fonts and text styles for dyslexic users, and design consistent, well-organized pages for people with ADHD

Table of contents

  1. Accessibility Handbook
  2. SPECIAL OFFER: Upgrade this ebook with O’Reilly
  3. Preface
    1. How I Got into Accessibility
    2. Why This Book?
    3. What Does It Mean to Be “Accessible”?
    4. Background of Section 508
      1. Who Does It Cover?
    5. Who Benefits from Accessibility?
    6. Who Is This Book for?
    7. Structure of This Book
    8. About Code Samples
    9. Conventions Used in This Book
    10. Using Code Examples
    11. Safari® Books Online
    12. How to Contact Us
    13. Acknowledgments
  4. 1. Complete Blindness
    1. Definition
    2. Annoyances, in Brief
    3. Screen Readers
    4. Creating Accessible Sites
      1. HTML and Formatting
        1. Logical flow
        2. Hiding text
        3. Headers
        4. Skipping navigation
        5. Tables
        6. Images
        7. Graphs and diagrams
        8. Forms
          1. Labels
          2. Errors
          3. CAPTCHA and challenge responses
        9. JavaScript
        10. Frames and iframes
          1. Frames
          2. Iframes
        11. Flash
        12. Access keys
      2. WAI-ARIA
        1. Alerts for updates
        2. Navigation
        3. Other semantic markup
        4. Resources
      3. Testing
        1. Automated testing
        2. Manual testing
  5. 2. Visual Accessibility—Other Types
    1. Low Vision
      1. Annoyances
      2. Grow Gracefully
      3. Contrast
      4. Overrides
      5. Forms
    2. Color Blindness
      1. Annoyances in Brief
      2. Optimization of Color Schemes
      3. Optimization of Images
      4. Diagrams, Graphs, and Maps
  6. 3. Audio Accessibility
    1. Who Does It Cover?
    2. Annoyances in Brief
    3. Videos
    4. Interactive Features
    5. Live Chat
  7. 4. Physical Accessibility
    1. Who Does It Cover?
    2. Annoyances in Brief
    3. Best Practices
      1. Forms
      2. Pop-Ups
      3. Navigation
      4. Moving around the Page
      5. Timing
    4. Testing
      1. Testing Without a Mouse
      2. Testing for Uneven Pointers
  8. 5. Cognitive Disabilities
    1. Overview
    2. Dyslexia
      1. Fonts
      2. Content
        1. Sentence length
        2. Paragraph length
      3. Color Choice
      4. Justified Text
      5. Images
        1. Meaningful Images
        2. Animations
        3. Animations with meaning
        4. Advertisements
        5. Backgrounds
        6. Alt text
      6. Print Versions
      7. Site Navigation
    3. ADD and ADHD
      1. Similarity to Dyslexia
      2. Timed Tasks
      3. Instructions
      4. Organization
      5. Consistent User Experience
  9. 6. Selling Accessibility
    1. U.S. Government Requirement
    2. Non-U.S. Governments
    3. Exclusion Can Hurt Your Business
    4. An Accessible Site Is More Usable for Everyone
  10. 7. Additional Resources
    1. General Accessibility Resources
    2. Testing
    3. Design
    4. Screen Readers
    5. Hearing Disabled
    6. Physically Disabled
    7. Cognitively Disabled
  11. About the Author
  12. SPECIAL OFFER: Upgrade this ebook with O’Reilly
  13. Copyright

Product information

  • Title: Accessibility Handbook
  • Author(s): Katie Cunningham
  • Release date: August 2012
  • Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
  • ISBN: 9781449322816