New Jersey Protection and Advocacy, Inc. New Jersey's designated protection and advocacy system for people with disabilities Tips and Tricks for Website

New Jersey Protection and Advocacy, Inc. New Jersey's designated protection and advocacy system for people with disabilities

Tips and Tricks for Website Accessibility Training

Annual Conference of Assistive Technology Act Programs

May 24, 2007


Training That Works

• AT programs have the capability to be leading advocates in their states for accessible information technology.


Training That Works

• Providing training to IT professionals is a key means of raising awareness about accessibility issues.


Training That Works

• AT programs can utilize the tips and tricks presented in this training to develop a training curriculum to meet the needs of IT professionals.


Tip #1 – Show Off Your AT Skills

• Introduce the audience to AT in general and screen readers in particular.



• Most of your audience will have no idea about what AT is and what it does.



• Saying something even as simple as “Alt tags help people who use screen readers understand images” is useless if the audience isn’t familiar with screen readers.



• Try to develop a happy medium between talking about screen readers and other technologies.



• The various IT accessibility standards center around screen readers, but cover other AT devices as well.


Tricks for Tip #1

• The simplest trick is to show off a screen reader.– Expensive: JAWS– Cheap: Home Page Reader– Free: Windows Narrator


Tricks for Tip #1

• However, if you don’t have a great deal of time (or expertise in using screen readers) you can show a video of a screen reader user.

• http://www.doit.wisc.edu/accessibility/video/intro.asp


Tip #2 – Show Off Your Toolbox

• Introduce the audience to the various online tools available to evaluate website accessibility.


Tip #2 – Show Off Your Toolbox

• IT professionals love cool tools to play with, especially if they’re free.


Tricks for Tip #2

• Download the Accessibility Toolbar.• http://www.visionaustralia.org.au/ais/toolbar/


Tricks for Tip #2

• The Accessibility Toolbar has a collection of the best tools for validating and assessing website accessibility, all on one easy-to-use toolbar within Internet Explorer.


Tricks for Tip #2

• The Accessibility Toolbar works very well in a hands-on training (if you can get it downloaded to every computer).


Tip #3 – Don’t Show Up Your Audience

• The easiest trap to fall into is to use the evaluation tools on the website of an audience member.



• There’s no easier way to alienate your audience than by pointing out the shortcomings of their own websites.



• Even using corporate websites or university websites can backfire.


Tricks for Tip #3

• Use the “Mouse College” website to illustrate bad website design.

• http://www.csufresno.edu/webaccess/learningmodules/bad/


Tricks for Tip #3

• “Mouse College” was developed by the University of California – Fresno to serve as an example of bad website design.


Tricks for Tip #3

• Try using the evaluation tools on the “Mouse College” website to highlight the problems a user would have accessing information.


Tricks for Tip #3

• You can save the “Mouse College” site to your computer in case you don’t have Internet access during your training.


Tricks for Tip #3

• If you’d rather take the more positive approach, you can demonstrate “Federal Court Concepts,” a model accessible site.

• http://www.catea.org/grade/legal/index.html


Tip #4 – Show Off Accessible Design

• Show that accessible design doesn’t have to mean ugly design.



• Website designers value the visual aspects of their craft, and don’t want to be told how to make websites accessible at the cost of prettiness.



• There’s a myth that accessible design equals ugly design:

• http://www.empowermentzone.com/


Tricks for Tip #4

• Demonstrate CSS Zen Garden:

• http://www.csszengarden.com/


Tricks for Tip #4

• CSS stands for “Cascading Style Sheets.” By swapping out the style sheet on a given page, you can create a new version of the page with a different design.


Tricks for Tip #4

• Encouraging IT professionals to use CSS can allow for greater accessibility.


Tricks for Tip #4

• However, using CSS doesn’t guarantee good design:

• http://csszengarden.com/?cssfile=http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/zen/sample.css


Tip #5 – Keep Your Presentation Short


The End

• Any questions?

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New Jersey Protection and Advocacy, Inc. New Jersey's designated protection and advocacy system for people with disabilities Tips and Tricks for Website