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A C-CAN
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Community Technology Centers Network |
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Top 10 Tips for Making your Site Accessible
1. NO FRAMES!
2. ALT tags for all images
(even "spacer.gif" files should have an <empty> tag: alt="")
3. Use good contrast in images/text. A good way to test this is to turn you monitor setting to grayscale and look at the page. If you can't read it well, folks with vision impairments will have also have trouble with the page. To really check for color blindness readability, go to http://www.vischeck.com/vischeck/
Also, navigation needs to still be understandable with color turned off (you can use color to reinforce navigation, but you shouldn’t have to know that something is red, in order to get to a particular area).
4. Navigation needs to work/be usable if Javascript is turned off in someone’s browser.
5. Use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) — <font> tags will be phased out. And CSS will save your butt on big site-wide changes :)
6. USEFUL information on a page should load very quickly (doesn't matter what the entire page download time is, as long as what's really needed comes up quickly. It helps not to put all the tables within one giant table...keeping the top navigation in it's own table, then page content in another below can speed this up.
7. Know who the audience/users are, and what they're trying to do...a site with good usiblilty won't need a search engine (unless there are tons of archived text pages -- like oodles of news stories, etc.)
8. Don't assume just because you know where to find things on a site, that others will too. Do some testing with fresh eyes, and people not familiar with the site.
9. No gratuitous use of Flash or other "gimmicky" techniques (spinning Homer heads...blinking text—arrgghh!!!). Flash is great, if used appropriately (like not making it a requirement to see the homepage). Think of it as an element, not the foundation of a site. I'm starting to see lots of site where there was an HTML version in addition to the Flash version of a site, but the HTML version isn't being maintained, or doesn’t work at all anymore.
Here's the nice example of bad Flash use that a client showed us: http://www.som.com/
Usability doesn't mean "boring." It means accessible (to everyone), useful, and lets the user/visitor accomplish their site visit goals (and feeds them information they should have even if they didn't know they needed it before they got there) -- quickly & easilyW3C Accessibility Guidlines:
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/#GuidelinesExcerpted from http://www.uie.com/
10. Link Organization
The grouping and structuring of links on a page affects how quickly users can find information.
* Users have more success getting to information when content links are grouped
* Redundant links improve users' rates of success
* Simple design elements, such as bullets and brackets, can help
Page Layout
* Providing more "levels of information" on a single web page helps users find what they're looking for
* Requiring less drill-down within a site may lead to more success than having lots of smaller pages linked together
* Scrolling isn't necessarily evil (though excessive scrolling may be)
Site Organization
* Users get confused when your site mimics the structure of your business
On-Site Search Engines
Your site may actually be better off without an on-site search engine!
* Users were LESS likely to find information when they used an on-site search engine
* Users had a hard time specifying a search correctly (spelling, syntax, partial matches)
* Search engine results may not lead to the answer, but there are things that designers can do about it
Want to learn more?
Check out "Dive into Accessibility" at http://www.diveintoaccessibility.org/
Contact us Here
___________
Recommended
reading:
Nine
Questions for Community Networks
presented by
Andrew Michael Cohill, Ph.D.
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Digital Access
Internship
opportunity
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Community technology centers, and additional information about CTCs:
U.S. Dept. of Education —Community Technology Centers
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Other ways to help with community technology initiatives