Document Accessibility - For Website Developers
The accessibility of Web content can be ensured by adhering to the standards published by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) as well as the somewhat less stringent guidelines contained in Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act. Key Web accessibility standards include providing documents in an accessible format; ensuring that all images, links, and controls contain meaningful text labels; writing mathematical expressions in MathML and tables in HTML; providing keyboard access to controls within forms and web-based applications; and providing a point of contact for accessibility issues. Below are links to more specific guidelines and tips for creating accessible webpages as well as to related tools and resources.
Guidelines and Tips
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How do I Create an Accessible Site?
Although geared towards users of Adobe products, this page provides a useful general
overview of the considerations and steps for designing an accessible website (from Adobe).
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Design Guidelines for Electronic Publications, Multimedia, and the Web
Guidelines for providing access to images, graphs, tables, scientific and mathematical expressions, forms, multimedia content, and e-books (from the WGBH National Center for Accessible Media).
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Dive into Accessibility
A Free electronic book of tips for designing an accessible website with a variety of publishing tools (by Mark Pilgrim).
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Authoring for MathPlayer and MathML
Introduction to creating mathematical webpages that are accessible to people with disabilities who are using Design Science's MathPlayer (from Design Science).
Tools
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The W3C Markup Validation Service
Analyzes a specified URL or uploaded file for conformance with HTML/XML/SGML standards and provides detailed error messages along with instructions for fixing the errors (from the Worldwide Web Consortium).
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Assessing PDF Files for Accessibility
Audiovisual tutorial that introduces ways in which you can assess the accessibility of an existing PDF file.
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WebEQ
Software application that assists with authoring webpages and web applications containing interactive math using Java and MathML (from Design Science).
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How can Design Science Make Math Accessible?
Description of math authoring tools for creating math content for use by people with and without disabilities (from Design Science).
Online Courses