| ADA Issues that
affect web pages
What
exactly is The ADA?
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into
law on July 26, 1990. It's wide-ranging legislation intended
to make American society barrier-free to people with disabilities.
The ADA is the civil rights guarantee for persons with disabilities.
The ADA defines "disability" as a physical or mental
impairment that substantially limits major life activities.
The ADA's protection applies primarily, but not exclusively,
to "disabled" individuals. An individual is "disabled"
if he or she meets at least any one of the following tests:
-
Physical or mental impairment that substantially limits
one or more of their major life activities
- Has
a record of such an impairment
- Is
regarded as having such an impairment
How
do I know if my website is ADA-compliant?
The most common issues are:
- Images
without alternative text, also known as alt tags
- Lack
of alternative text for image map hot-spots
- Uncaptioned
audio or video
- Lack
of alternative information for users who cannot access frames
or scripts
- Tables
that are difficult to decipher when ‘linearized’
by a screen reader
- Websites
with poor color contrast
How
can I test my website?
There are a number of ADA Compliant readers available on the
web that will actually look at your page and tell you what
is missing – and often, how you can fix it. Here they
are:
- BOBBY:
Bobby is a comprehensive web accessibility software tool
designed to help expose and repair barriers to accessibility
and encourage compliance with existing accessibility guidelines.
- WAVE:
The Wave will return a copy of your page with added icons,
notations, and borders to help you judge whether the page
is accessible.
- LIFT
FOR DREAMWEAVER: The Complete Solution for Developing
Usable and Accessible '508/W3C Compliant' Websites in the
Dreamweaver environment.
- LIFT
FOR FRONTPAGE: The Complete Solution for Developing
Usable and Accessible '508/W3C Compliant' Websites in the
FrontPage environment.
- WEB
PAGE ACCESSIBILITY CHECKLIST: This document is designed
to help agencies evaluate whether their Internet pages are
accessible to people with disabilities.
- ACCESS
AT ADOBE -- Convert Adobe Acrobat PDF files into HTML
or ASCII text documents; you can also read their advice
for How
to Create Accessible Adobe PDF Files (you'll need Acrobat
in order to read this)
- A-PROMPT
WEB ACCESSIBILITY VERIFIER - A-Prompt (Accessibility
Prompt) is a software tool designed to improve the usability
of HTML documents by evaluating Web pages for accessibility
barriers and then providing developers with a fast and easy
way to make the necessary repairs.
- DREAMWEAVER
508 ACCESSIBILTY SUITE EXTENSION - a free extension
that can be downloaded and added to Dreamweaver. Government
Computer News gave it a good review.
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See
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See
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New HomePage Launched!
We have been working on a new design for the Office of Web Development Homepage. We wanted to sample some of the technologies and techniques that we use here at CWRU in our own pages. This is the news area, which contains a server-side include that calls a text file from our root directory. This enables us to have links to other things within the site like our toolbox and Tips and Tricks page for instance. They can then be edited easily and updated in ALL of our pages by modifying this one text file. (It's found in the root of webdev as news.txt)
Ask us about this, we'll help you do the same thing on your site.
GOOGLE SEARCH
We've set up Google as the primary search engine for CWRU. We've also configured it to search from within our Web Development directory when you're searching from our pages. You can set up Google as your primary search engine on your site by following the instructions found here. Or just click on the 'WebTip' icon.
This functionality has been live on the CWRU home page as of Monday Oct. 4! Click on "search" in the upper left-hand corner of the main CWRU homepage. Check back here and let us know if you find this helpful, or if you need help in setting it up on your own departmental page.
New Web Site Account Requests
A Project Inclusion
Request Form is needed in order to create a CWRU web-site account. You must represent a University-affiliated organization. The same form is used to update the information (such as web maintainer) for an existing account. Please download the form that is most appropriate for your organization by clicking below:
APIR Form
We do handle this part of the process. We'll help you get it done and provide you with the link, but it is done by another department. Once completed, you'll need to mail the form to
Kelvin Smith Library, Case Western Reserve University 10900 Euclid Avenue Cleveland, OH 44106-7151
Or FAX it to: (216) 368-8720
Attn: Pam Hlavin
Join the Web Team
Join the growing team of CWRU designers. Share ideas, code and notes! Next meeting will be in June.
Maybe you have an idea you'd like to put on the agenda for the next meeting? We'll be announcing it sometime before the meeting. Contact Tom if you want to be added to our mailing list.
New CWRU Template Now Available!
The Template
Toolbox is found here on this site. It contains several things that will aid you in creating CWRU approved webpages. You'll find templates, fonts, and graphics that are to be used in your pages, as well as several tools which you might find useful. Check out the browser re-sizer, for example. Also see our running list of
Sample Pages(Utilizing templates and unique designs for each school or department). If you need help contact Kevin Adams, Assistant Director, Office of Web Development for additional tips on customizing the templates.
Need Design Help? The Office of Web Development is involved with many schools and departments, helping them redesign their sites to utilize design elements and functional capabilities found here. If you are interested in acquiring our assistance, please contact Tom Fulton, Director of the Office of Web Development.
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| CWRU's Office of Web
Development.
Tom Q. Fulton, Director
Kevin Adams, Assistant Director |
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