Education for a Digital World Advice, Guidelines and Effective Practice from Around Globe, 2008a

11 – Accessibility and Universal Design
less of your website’s actual accessibility results. Why is
this?
There are simply too many accessibility standards
that only humans can test. No software can tell you if
your site’s menu navigation is intuitive, or if the ALT
text you have included is sufficient to describe the image.
Use an accessibility checker first to make sure you
have covered everything you can, and then work
through the warnings it provides, looking at your site
critically.
Tip
XHTML/CSS Validators—If you are building your
site from scratch as described in Chapter 13, Planning
Your Online Course, you should test the validity
of your code using an XHTML and CSS
validator. This will help ensure that your site works
well with all browsers, including screen readers.
• XHTML: http://validator.w3.org/
• CSS: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
The best way to test your site for accessibility is to ask
a user with disabilities to try it. Only a human, examining
both the context and the content of a page, can fully assess
your site’s accessibility. It is hard, as a sighted user, to
imagine navigating a website only by voice; as a user with
full mobility, it is hard to imagine the frustration of trying
to click on a link that is too small. If you truly want to know
if your site is accessible, bring it to the people who experience
the problems you are trying to address.
EVALUATION CHART
We have included a checklist of the most common and
significant accessibility issues that you should look for
when evaluating your site. Some of these guidelines can
be tested using an accessibility checker as mentioned
above; others you will have to look at objectively and
decide for yourself whether they are adequately met.
You can use this chart to evaluate an existing website
before making accessibility changes, or to see how well
you have done after “accessifying” your existing site or
building a new one.
Table 11.3. Accessibility evaluation chart
Category
Structure & appearance
Description
Vision (V)
Hearing (H)
Motor (M)
Cognitive (C )
Notes
Rating
(1–5)*
Navigation links and placement consistent on each page.
M,C
Text good contrast to the background
V,C
Each page has a unique descriptive title
V,C
Valid XHTML/CSS used throughout the site
V,M,C
Images
All images have ALT text that either clearly describes the
image, or in the case of decorative images, contains a space
(alt=“ “) to prevent the screen reader from describing the
image.
V
Images that cannot be adequately described in ALT text
(charts, graphs) are further described on a LONGDESC page.
V
Links in imagemaps also have ALT text
V
170 Education for a Digital World