I don’t design web pages. I have no artistic abilities or aspirations.What we are concerned with here is presenting information to our target audience, which includes people with disabilities, in a comprehensible manner.

Concentrate on web content as most things that are applied to web accessability may be applied to other apps as well. Will not look at hardware design.  Separate subject possibly at some future point.Best Ive seen is a text scanner for the blind that required a user to be able to see a line of print to be able to scan it. I hope to raise awareness of the needs to make all forms of IT accessible not give a course on web design, which I don’t do anyway.

Bruce Maguire, a blind Sydney lawyer,sued SOCOG. I think he couldn’t access the timetable on their website.

In 1998 the Aust Bureau of stats estimated that almost 19% consider themselves to have a handicap with 15% stating they needed asssitance  in one or more tasks, eg mobility, communication or personal care. The serious impact this will have on mass market products is beginning to be recognized by manufacturers.

Realistically, it is not possible for some people with multiple disabilities to have equivalent opportunities, eg blind deaf. There is a requirement for all Commonwealth Departments and Agencies to develop and lodge  action plans with HREOC The Commonwealth Government has recently issued guidelines for Commonwealth Information Published in Electronic Format with emerging standards on electronic comerse. The commonw gov intends to do most of its paper based business electronically within the next few years

Determining the exact number of individuals with disabilities or with limitations due to aging is difficult. Estimates vary depending upon the definitions of disability used and the sources of the data. There is also a substantial number of individuals with disabilities who have returned to the work force despite significant functional limitations and who therefore do not consider themselves disabled. Their functional limitations, however, must be taken into account when they are trying to perform within an environment of facilities and tools designed for "normal" users

Although the total number of elderly or disabled persons is large, each individual disability or impairment area represents only a small portion of the population. We are therefore not dealing with one large group of people but with many small groups which together represent a major portion of our population. This raises a question as to the most effective means of addressing these problems. Is it better to design everything so that it is accessible to most persons, including those with disabilities? Or is it more effective to design for the able bodied population and create special designs for persons with specific types of disability? I heard recently about a large screen large key cashregister system that was placed in a supermarket chain specifically for the more mature employees, it turns out that all employees preferred these units as they were “easier” to use Some things are built in to standard systems eg sticky keys, this allows key combinations to be entered sequentially such as alt h, for people with mobility problems.

Speech recorder chips are costing a few dollars for fully addressable 2-3 minutes of speech.

I will only really cover those with low vision as, that is the area I have spent the most time. Screen magnifiers take a small section of the screen and magnifies it. More complex that that of course, mouse tracking, when a dialog pops up must track to that forms and so on. Users of this software do not require much in the way of different presentation, but as the enlargement gets greater, toward 12X it becomes impractical, too small an area of the screen, users move toward speech or braille output. Braille displays are rare due to the expense, around $18000 for a 40 character display

For those unfamiliar with accessibility issues pertaining to Web page design, consider that many users may be operating in contexts very different from your own: Blind users cannot see links, read text or relate to pictures – spatial problems are some times difficult, maps and the like. A mouse is useless to a blind computer user and ythe last point, many blind users make use of an old browser as they tend to work better with the old but still expensive screen review packages. Lynx is a common text only browser.

These points are verbatim from the w3c documents

Checkpoints are made up of several aspects, each of which may have a different priority.

Although some people cannot use images, movies or sounds directly they may still use the pages that include equivalent information to the visual or auditory content. For example text equivalent information for an an image of an upward pointing arrow that links to the table of contents  could render the text as go to table of contents. In some cases the text equivalent should describe the appearance of the graphic for exaplle the description of ascii art or circuit diagrams. For those with hearing difficulties, subtitles or transcription  on video clips serve as equivalent.

This may be overcome by utilising contrasting colours such that if a monochrome display is used, the image is still able to be seen. Eg colour blind or those with diabeties related blindness. Do not rely on users' perception of colour to differentiate items on the page. For example, when asking for input from users, do not write "Please select an item from those listed in green." Instead, ensure that information is available through other style effects (e.g., a font effect or in graphics, different shapes) and through context Microsoft have some excellent articles on this particular guideline, especially in the area of colour blindness.

Misusing markup for a presentation effect eg using a header to change font size will confuse specialist software. Use mathML to mark up mathematical equations and style sheets to format text.

Misusing markup for a presentation effect eg using a header to change font size will confuse specialist software. Use mathML to mark up mathematical equations and style sheets to format text.

Misusing markup for a presentation effect eg using a header to change font size will confuse specialist software. Use mathML to mark up mathematical equations and style sheets to format text.

Some Screen readers are unable to read moving text and those that do jump to the moving text ad re-read it every time it changes, the same applies to screen magnification programs. People with physical disabilities might not be able to move quickly or accurately enough to interact with moving objects.

This refers to embedded objects in the web page. No good having an accessible web site that calls up an unaccessible calculator for example.

This braille input speech output device is rather out of date being first manufactured in 1988, it is still in use by thousands of users, It has no pointing devices limited range of special function keys, but will still do email and web browsing. brings to light the use and support of older browsers doesnt it. (Runs a modified version of cp/m for those interested.)

 This guideline is there to cater for the aspects that assitive technologies cannot handle well. For example, older browsers do not allow users to navigate to empty edit boxes. Older screen readers read lists of consecutive links as one link. These active elements are therefore difficult or impossible to access. Also, changing the current window or popping up new windows can be very disorienting to users who cannot see that this has happened.

 The current guidelines recommend W3C technologies (e.g., HTML, CSS, etc.) for several reasons: W3C specifications undergo early review to ensure that accessibility issues are considered during the design phase. W3C specifications are developed in an open, industry consensus process Many non-W3C formats (e.g., PDF, Shockwave, etc.) require viewing with either plug-ins or stand-alone applications. Often, these formats cannot be viewed or navigated with standard user agents (including assistive technologies ). Avoiding non-W3C and non-standard features (proprietary elements, attributes, properties, and extensions) will tend to make pages more accessible to more people using a wider variety of hardware and software. Note. Converting documents (from PDF, PostScript, RTF, etc.) to W3C markup languages (HTML, XML) does not always create an accessible document.

Automated methods are generally rapid and convenient but cannot identify all accessibility issues. Human review can help ensure clarity of language and ease of navigation. Note pp doesnt recognise .org as a link.

Automated methods are generally rapid and convenient but cannot identify all accessibility issues. Human review can help ensure clarity of language and ease of navigation. I have run a test on the henter joyce page that we looked at earlier and as we can see errors have been found at priority 2 level, the large image may be used to convey meaning. These types of error must be human checked as in this case alternative links are supplied on the page so the image is not the sole means of navigation. If we click on one of the errors, bobby makes a sugestion on how to fix issues, for example the long description tag.

This applies to any applications too

A person reading a page with a speech synthesizer may not be able to decipher the synthesizer’s best guess for a word with a spelling error. Eliminating grammar problems increases comprehension. Expert and novice users with disabilities will provide valuable feedback about accessibility or usability