Web Design/Accessibility
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Web Design → Accessibility
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What Accessibility Is and Isn't
Accessibility focuses not only on people with disabilities, but on ANYONE who may experience difficulty in reading or navigating a website. For example, users with a very old computer system, a visually impaired user, or even down to someone with a broken arm who can't use a mouse! See wikipedia's definition for one of the best explanations. w:Web_accessibility
Accessibility on the web is governed by the W3C and currently based on WCAG 1.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) with WCAG 2.0 Working Draft closing on 22nd June 2006.
Usability is often confused with Accessibility. Although hard to define, it comes at a more general approach- ensuring everyone (disability, disadvantages, or totally able) is able to use the site in the most straightforward manner. This could include, having things that are easy to find in prominent spots, ensuring common or repeated tasks on a website can be shortcutted etc. You'll often hear about GUI (graphical user interface) and whenever I think of usability I think about improvements I would make to the GUI.
As a summary-
- Accessibility- ensuring information is physically retrievable
- Usability- ensuring the information is retrieved in an easy and simplified manner
Resources on Accessibility
- - Great collection of articles on accessibility on the web
- - A website that showcases 'accessible, usable web sites built with universality and standards in mind'. It also has a very detailed list of criteria which these sites have met and/or surpassed to received this recognition.
- - A huge mega-reference (nearly 6,000 links) of information and articles about web design and development. It is dedicated to disseminating news and information about web design and development with sections on accessibility, books, tools, CSS, web standards, user experience, and much more.
Resources to help make your site Accessible
Tools
HTML: What is HTML, Advanced HTML Tutorial, HTML Challenges, Lists and Tables, The Structure of HTML, Pen and Paper HTML activities
CSS: Learning Basic HTML and CSS, CSS challenges, Embedded CSS, Basic HTML and CSS Tutorial, Inline CSS, Develop cascading style sheets, CSS3 Animations
PHP: Simple functions in PHP, Dynamic websites, PHP challenges, Dynamic websites with PHP, Generating a receipt with PHP, Responding to HTML forms with PHP,
JavaScript: An Introduction to Programming with JavaScript, JavaScript Challenges, Getting to know JavaScript events, Getting to know the Document Object Model with JavaScript, JavaScript pen-n-paper activities, Web Programming Intro, Produce basic client side script for dynamic web pages
XML: XML challenges
Databases: Creating Database Tables
Projects: A small website project, A step-by-step web design project, Build a basic web page, Build a small website
Challenges: Web design, HTML, AJAX, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, XML, Information Architecture, Algorithms
Activities: Web design group learning activities, Pen and Paper HTML activities, A Web Design Quiz show, Ordering Tasks for a Web Project, Paired Bio Pages, Scoping a Small Project, Emerging Technologies Research Activities
Project management: An introduction to Project Management, Developing a Client Project
Design: Accessibility, Design Principles for Web Design, Design Suggestions
Testing: Testing Website performance, Website Performance Test Plan
Publishing: Getting Your Site On the Web
Certification and standards: Cert IV Website Qualifications in Australia, Australian Qualifications, Web design qualifications
Professional development: Contribute to personal skill development and learning, Useful Applications, Useful Books, Emerging Technologies, Using the Internet as a Learning Tool
Course meta-information: Web Design, About the web design learning project, New Structure, Sample Timetable