Accessibility

The Web should be made accessible to as many people as possible, regardless of any disabilities they might have.

Don’t forget keyboard navigation

Remember that many people do not use a mouse to interact with the web, so you have to make sure that the sites or applications you build work independent of input device.

Posted on May 13, 2009

CSS background images cannot and should not have alternate text

There is no way to specify alternate text for CSS background images. This is not a problem since background images should be used for presentational purposes only.

Posted on May 6, 2009

Hiding with CSS: Problems and solutions

Be aware that using display:none to hide elements will hide them from screen readers, and if you use JavaScript to show something, also use JavaScript to hide it.

Posted on May 4, 2009

Use the fieldset and legend elements to group HTML form controls

Only use the fieldset and legend elements to group logically related form controls, always use both elements together, and keep legend texts short.

Posted on April 30, 2009

Let your links look like links

Don’t make your users waste their time by hiding links. If you can’t stand the look of blue and underlined links, there are other ways of making them obvious. But do not rely on colour alone.

Posted on April 22, 2009

Do not create empty links

Always make sure that any links you create have actual text content, or they will be unusable to some of your visitors.

Posted on April 15, 2009

Making accessibility more real

Even if you do not have a disability, there are some things you can do to gain a better understanding of the obstacles some people with disabilities run into on the web.

Posted on April 14, 2009

Accessibility is more than “possible to access”

Making web sites and web applications accessible is more than making them possible to access - it also means making them usable.

Posted on April 9, 2009

Don’t use the title attribute for essential information

The title attribute can be used to provide advisory information about an HTML element, but do not use it for essential information since not all users will notice the title text.

Posted on April 7, 2009

NVDA – a free, open source screen reader

Testing your web sites and web applications with a screen reader is good. Screen readers can be expensive, but NVDA is a completely free alternative that has WAI-ARIA support.

Posted on March 26, 2009

WCAG 2.0 Checklist by WebAIM

WebAIM’s WCAG 2.0 Checklist condenses the guidelines into an easy-to-use and understandable checklist that will help you get started with WCAG 2.0.

Posted on March 25, 2009

Use the p element to create paragraphs

Using p elements instead of multiple br elements to create paragraphs in HTML makes your documents more accessible and easier to style.

Posted on March 16, 2009

Screen reader testing

While it is important for all web developers to have access to a screen reader for testing, setting one up may prove a little tricky. Fortunately there are instructions that will help.

Posted on March 10, 2009

European Accessibility Forum Frankfurt

The European Accessibility Forum Frankfurt on 27 March 2009 offers an impressive line-up of speakers that will discuss current accessibility topics.

Posted on March 9, 2009

Safari 4 public beta with WAI-ARIA support. Or not?

Apple recently released a public beta of Safari 4. Among the news is support for WAI-ARIA, but I can’t figure out how to make it work.

Posted on March 5, 2009

Check your design with text size increased to 200 percent

To make sure that people who need larger text can use your size, increase text size to 200 percent and check that the content is still readable and functional.

Posted on March 2, 2009

WAI-ARIA 1.0 Last Call Working Draft

The Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) specification has reached Last Call Working Draft status, and the W3C wants your feedback.

Posted on February 24, 2009

IE 8 still does not resize text sized in pixels

Internet Explorer’s text resizing behaviour is different from that of other browsers since IE does not allow the end user to (easily) resize text whose size has been specified in pixels.

Posted on February 23, 2009

WCAG 2.0 recommends using luminosity contrast ratio to check colour contrast

With WCAG 2.0 now being a W3C recommendation it is time to check that the tool you use to check colour contrast supports the luminosity contrast ratio algorithm recommended by WCAG 2.0.

Posted on February 18, 2009

The alt attribute is for images only

The alt attribute is valid only for images and provides alternative text used when the image cannot be rendered. Do not use it with links and other non-image HTML elements.

Posted on February 16, 2009

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