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Website Accessibility for Disabled Users
No Mouse Allowed?
by Dorothy Cushway, Member of the Web Enthusiasts of Victoria, Canada
December 2005 Web Edition, Big Blue & Cousins

When creating a website for your business or personal use, do you ensure that the site is accessible to all? Do you know what accessibility involves for website design? Have you used the many tools and evaluation programs available to test your website for accessibility?

In June of 1998 the U.S. passed Section 508 to ensure all US Federal websites are accessible in the U.S. Canada hasn’t implemented this drastic policy so far, however, the Federal Government has an initiative called the Common Look and Feel which is aimed at ensuring all Canadian Government websites are accessible by December 2004.

If you are wondering what website accessibility is all about and why this can be an issue, try using only a keyboard to move through a website on different links—No Mouse or Clicking Allowed!
 
If you can move through the site reasonably well then it may be fairly accessible to most users of adaptive/assistive technology. Many people in the world, who use the internet for research, email, information, banking, or chatting, use Adaptive/Assistive Technology. There can be many different types of hardware and software such as JAWS (Job Access with Speech) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_Access_With_Speech) used by visually impaired, Magnification software such as ZoomText (http://www.synapseadaptive.com/aisquared/zoomtext_9/zoomtext_9_home_page.htm) to enlarge the screen data or Dragon Naturally Speaking (http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking/) to use hands free. There are many more types of software/hardware that are used to view websites as well.

If a website is not accessible to these users, this can sometimes create problems for them if it is information they require for their job, or wish to have for research, or serve as a learning tool. Website Accessibility is supported by most software companies by going to the accessible area of the website. For example, if you go to Accessibility on Macromedia.com (http://www.macromedia.com/help/accessibility.html) , or Adobe Accessibility (http://www.adobe.com/enterprise/accessibility/main.html) you will find out the necessary information to move around programs, create accessible documents, and websites, etc. Also, accessibility is about assisting a person to better use a computer and this also affects the aging population as discussed at the Hewlett Packard and IBM web sites.

As you can see, there are vast numbers of companies that are providing adaptive/assistive solutions for users like yourself to learn from. When creating a website, and you are ready to test for accessibility, you should follow the WAI W3 — Web Accessibility Initiative Guidelines by ensuring Priority 1 and 2 indicators are fixed WAI (http://www.w3.org/WAI/) and WAI Resources (http://www.w3.org/WAI/Resources/).  There are also many website checkers that you can use to find out if the website may not be particularly accessible. Here are a few sites you may want to check out: Watchfire (http://webxact.watchfire.com/) , Hermish  (http://www.hermish.com/)  or, from Toronto, the program called A-Prompt (http://aprompt.snow.utoronto.ca/) . Also, here are some Section 508 Accessible Tools and Resources (http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=122) to assist in making your website accessible,

As you may have figured out, I have a passion for Adaptive/Assistive Technology and like to educate and inform as many people as I can. All of my knowledge and learning has been gained through the support of my office, as well as many courses I have taken online from Dr. Norman Coombs (http://www.rit.edu/~easi/index.htm) .

I feel that if everyone becomes aware of what website accessibility is, it will only make the internet more user friendly for everyone. The wealth of information that is available will make everyone’s life easier if they have access to it. 

JAWS (Job Access with Speech) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_Access_With_Speech
ZoomText http://www.synapseadaptive.com/aisquared/zoomtext_9/zoomtext_9_home_page.htm
Dragon Naturally Speaking http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking/
Macromedia.com http://www.macromedia.com/help/accessibility.html  
Adobe Accessibility http://www.adobe.com/enterprise/accessibility/main.html
WAI http://www.w3.org/WAI/
WAI Resources http://www.w3.org/WAI/Resources/
Watchfire http://webxact.watchfire.com/ 
Hermish http://www.hermish.com/
A-Prompt http://aprompt.snow.utoronto.ca/
Section 508 Accessible Tools and Resources http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=122

There is no restriction against any non-profit group using this article as long as it is kept in context with proper credit given the author.  The Editorial Committee of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an international organization of which this group is a member, brings this article to you.